Vehicle monitoring technology puts safety first

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We can all agree that drivers should be safe. No one wants to be in an accident and risk injury or even death, whether they are driving for their jobs or are in their personal vehicles.

One difference between the two is that being involved in an accident while driving a company vehicle not only endangers the driver, it also jeopardizes a company on which so many employees and customers rely.

You may believe companies with vehicle monitoring programs are invasive and overbearing. But the opposite is true.

Ensuring drivers are safe at all times is every company’s responsibility, as evidenced by the fact that drivers are almost never named in lawsuits, nor do they pay the expenses resulting from accidents.

Employees working in an office have their activities and productivity monitored all the time. Other than in emergencies, personal calls are not taken while work is being performed. Most job activity is monitored in some way, so why would driving a company vehicle be any different?

Driving with devices

Driving used to be monitored through complaints about driving practices, excessive accidents and firsthand witnesses. Today, there are devices that monitor and even control the behavior of pest control company drivers. They are designed to report speeding, harsh braking or turning, and impacts.

In addition, cameras that face both the road and the driver are used in vehicles. If an employee is involved in an accident, the camera will clearly show who was at fault and protect against potential lawsuits.

The newest technology is a device that will disable cell phones while a vehicle is in motion. It is proven and accepted that cell phone use while driving is a major distraction. We all see drivers every day holding their cell phones in hand while they talk and drive. Frequently, they stare at the phone they hold in one hand while they drive with the other. When you see this kind of driver, do you really think they have control of their vehicle and realize what is happening around them?

Studies show even hands-free cell phone use is extremely distracting. Intense conversations pull your mind elsewhere, even without looking at your phone. These distractions are dangerous, period.

Navigating map use

There is, however, another use for cell phones for pest management professionals on the road: navigation. These days, our daily service stops are loaded into our cell phones. To get to the next stop, we tap the address before driving and the digital map gives us turn-by-turn directions.

While I agree this also is distracting, I am old enough to remember driving with map books to get from one stop to another. In the Dallas and Fort Worth market where I am, there was one map book for Dallas and another for Fort Worth. Getting from one stop to another meant turning pages and sometimes even looking from one book to another. Trust me, handling two map books while driving was more than distracting — it was dangerous.

The common ground here is to disable cell phones and prevent their use when a vehicle is in motion, while allowing the cell phone to give turn-by-turn directions without needing to handle the device.

I think we are almost there. When we can eliminate cell phone conversations, texting and surfing the web while driving, while still optimizing our routes between stops, we will increase safety and maintain efficiency.

Please drive safely!