You’ve heard it before: The No. 1 fleet dash cam benefit is being able to prove that your driver was not at fault in an accident. There’s a good reason that this message gets repeated so often. Because it’s true.
After all, dash cam footage that exonerates your driver has the power to head off legal claims before they start, which can save you a lot of money – potentially millions of dollars given the upward trend in nuclear verdicts – not to mention preserve your good reputation and protect your drivers from wrongful claims.
There’s no doubt that driver exoneration is the big-ticket benefit of adding dash cams to your fleet. But it’s certainly not the only benefit. In this article, we’ll briefly run through just a few of the additional benefits that fleet dash cams can deliver.
Get a View of the Jobsite
A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. And fleets that have implemented dash cams are finding that adage to be true. Service or utility fleets, for instance, use vehicle dash cams to capture images of jobsites, improving communication between field crews and the home office and expediting problem solving.
Keep an Eye on Road Conditions
Dash cam video can also provide an up-to-the-moment view of road conditions. That’s the case for California-based Bettendorf Trucking, which uses the EROAD Clarity Connected Dashcam in its fleet.
“We’ve got trucks traveling largely the same roadways and sometimes there’s traffic delays, weather or rockslides,” Bettendorf Controller Chris Freeman said. “If we want to see what the condition was when the last truck went through, we just go pop the video up.”
Investigate Claims and Complaints
While dash cam footage can really save the day when it comes to exonerating drivers in traffic accidents, video can also help you sort out any minor claims and complaints that arise. For instance, someone may claim that your driver caused property damage with their vehicle. You can easily go back and review the footage (EROAD Clarity lets you retrieve clips based on location or date and time) and determine what really happened.
Related: Expert Q&A: Dash Cams and Insurance
Expedite Settlements
In cases where your driver does bear some responsibility in an incident, being able to quickly make that determination with dash cam video and move the settlement along can save you money in the long run.
“The more quickly we can get a liability determination in the life of that claim, the less likely it will turn into a much larger dollar claim,” according to Dan Petrillo of LaPorte Insurance, an EROAD strategic partner.
A 2020 analysis by the American Transportation Research Institute came to the same conclusion: “The greater the time span between the date of the crash and when the case commences, the more expensive it becomes.”
A Dash Cam Solution for All Fleets
Whatever the size, type or use of your fleet, EROAD’s Clarity Dashcam products are designed to bring you all of the benefits of fleet dash cams. Clarity Connected integrates with the EROAD ELD to provide HD video combined with actionable telematics data. Clarity Solo is an all-in-one device that provides video, telematics and GPS in a single unit for light, mixed and non-regulated fleets.
