Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/759228
52 commercial carrier journal | december 2016 Technology can do more to lower on-the-road risk BY AARON HUFF W ith the authority to create and enforce laws, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration can do more than promote a safety campaign to "slow down to save lives." It also can mandate a speed limit for heavy-duty vehicles – and its proposed rule for speed limiters does just that. Now in the comment period, the rule ultimately may require all trucks weighing over 26,000 pounds to be governed at 60, 65 or 68 mph, the three speeds under consideration in the agency's proposal. FMCSA has data to support a mandatory use of speed limiters to save lives, reduce emissions and save $605 million in fuel costs. A U.S. Department of Transportation study released in 2012 involved more than 150,000 trucks and 28,000 crashes during a 2007-09 data collection period. e study examined speed-relevant truck crashes and found the crash rate for motor carriers that used speed limiters was 1.4 crashes per 100 trucks per year. By contrast, the crash rate for carriers that did not use the devices was nearly five times higher: five crashes per 100 trucks per year. Today, more than 85 percent of fleets govern the top speed of their trucks, according to a recent survey from the American Transportation Research Institute. e most common top speed setting is 65 mph, with fuel economy, maintenance and safety cited by fleets as their top reasons. But the aforementioned study from a few years ago may not have accounted for other technologies that many motor carriers with speed limiters also now use to reduce accidents. By today's standards, speed limiters are entry-level technology for safety. Indeed, FMCSA's speed limiter proposed rule has drawn criticism from all quarters of the trucking industry. Opponents generally dislike the idea of a one-size-fits-all limit and are concerned about traffic speed differentials between trucks and passenger vehicles. Fleet telematics systems now are being used widely to manage risky speed behaviors. Some can give drivers real-time alerts and feedback for speeding and other risky behaviors and report the exceptions to fleet management. Indeed, such technologies even might make a speed limit mandate appear to be unnecessary. Healthy speeds Apria Healthcare, a provider of home health services and equip- ment, is built on speed. e company delivers oxygen tanks and other medical devices to homes, and its fast deliveries enable patients to be discharged more quickly from hospitals. Apria serves about 1.8 million patients nationwide with a fleet of 6,800 trucks that it dispatches from 400 locations. e com- pany is implementing a suite of cloud-based routing, dispatch and fleet telematics applications from Telogis. "We are putting tools in our vehicles to be able to deliver faster and give our drivers vis- ibility into orders and to get equipment into homes," says Apria Healthcare uses the Telogis Coach app as an automated tool for driver performance reporting.