A new system tested by several collection companies promises to cut most of these bills, and has those using it talking in superlatives. "Where is this going? In three years I predict every company will have DriveCam in their trucks," said Daniel Fyfe, SITA Environmental Solution's Victorian manager. "Accidents and insurance fell by miles when rear cameras were introduced. This will be the next one."
JJ Richards has just finished a 3-month trial with 10 trucks in its Underwood depot in Brisbane, and after good results now plans to install DriveCam permanently on 43 trucks.
The DriveCam Driving Feedback System is a compact recording device installed behind the rear vision mirror, which plays back any driving incident that falls outside its user-defined parameters, from clipping kerbs to harsh braking to cornering too fast. It simultaneously records driver actions to cross-reference their behaviour with the external action, and by reproducing the complete human experience, it aims to give an unbiased account of an incident and the factors leading to it.
"Safe driving translates to fewer collisions, which lowers insurance losses," said David Quayle, director of Traffic Intelligence, which is distributing the US technology. "At the same time, safe driving reduces vehicle wear and tear and lowers vehicle operating costs."
JJ Richards' compliance manager David Needham was impressed with the safety results. "Over the term of the initial 3-month trial, on average our drivers recorded a minimum 60% reduction in risky driving behaviour, as recorded by DriveCam," he said. "We are convinced this reduction in risky driving will make our drivers safer and have a direct impact on reducing vehicle accidents." This is bang in the middle of DriveCam's claims to have reduced risk by 30-90% in more than 60,000 commercial and government fleet vehicles using the system worldwide.
Fyfe confirms significant accident reduction during its 3-month, 7-truck trial. What impressed – and surprised – him the most, however, was its potential as a service tool. A manual activation feature allows drivers to record issues such as damaged or over- full bins. "It has gone beyond an OH&S or traffic management tool and become an operational tool," he told Inside Waste. "For example, we went to one place three times in a week and each time there was a different issue. The client wasn't happy but we showed them the pictures and that was that."
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