Big Data mining advances safe mixer truck operation

San Diego-based Lytx Inc. is uniquely positioned to help concrete producers rethink fleet safety and risk prevention. The Big Data-minded firm has logged nearly two decades of video and voice captures, plus related information from 1,500 fleets running its DriveCam event recording and driver coaching platforms. Independent and large ready mixed producers among those fleets account for nearly 10,000 mixer trucks.

In-cab mounted DriveCam hardware records driver actions, attentiveness and response behaviors—coupled with road or job site conditions—in the seconds leading up to and following such triggering events as collision, hard braking, excess acceleration, abrupt lane change and rolling stop. Stored in a cloud environment, video footage and audio recordings enable Lytx to tailor accident prevention and driver coaching programs for ready mixed producers. Triggering event footage affords fleet managers and coaches tangible and objective evidence for drivers needing skills development and visual examples of areas for improvement.

Recordings yield DriveCam users and Lytx a host of data profiling how drivers behave and respond before and after accidents, collisions or near misses on the road or job site. Through analytics common in Big Data processing, Lytx pinpoints effective mixer truck operating pointers plus comparisons of how concrete fleets fare on the scale of safety against other trucking operations:

  • Concrete drivers experience more preventable collisions and are involved in 17 percent more preventable incidents.
  • One-third of all preventable mixer truck collisions are caused by drivers not paying attention. Half of the preventable collisions involving inattentive drivers rank among the most serious and costly in the ready mixed industry fleet. Most severe mixer truck collisions are due to a lack of focus versus distractions.
  • Mixer truck driver inattention causes three times more serious, costly collisions compared to other commercial vehicle operations. Nearly 70 percent of the most severe collisions in ready mixed delivery are preventable.
  • Driver inattention-rooted mixer collisions break along three lines: other vehicles, 50 percent; rear-ending another vehicle, 33 percent; and, striking a fixed object, 17 percent. The average cost per injury crash, most often involving a mixer truck and smaller vehicle, is $200,000.
  • The expansive Lytx database of recorded events shows inattentive mixer drivers’ tendencies to exhibit blank stares and fail to check intersections and scan roads.
  • Compared to peers responding normally to sudden events, mixer drivers evidencing delayed reaction are twice as likely to experience a collision.
  • Drivers neglecting to check mirrors are 11 times more likely to experience a collision than peers who regularly view road and site activity on both sides of their mixer trucks.

Early in their build out of ready mixed concrete fleet offerings, Lytx officials stressed the need for DriveCam users to institute strong driver coaching regimens in order to realize the full value of recording road and job site collisions plus other unsafe vehicle maneuvers that activate in-cab devices. Data backs the company’s message: Ready mixed concrete producers with low-performing coaches record 15 times the number of truck vehicle or object collisions compared to peer operators with effective driving coaching staff and protocol. Lytx Inc., San Diego, 866/419-5861; www.lytx.com



Armed with perspective gleaned from more than 10,000 DriveCam-equipped concrete trucks, Lytx summarizes key points for ready mixed drivers and their supervisors in a graphic available by download at lytx.com/freeposter.
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SOURCE: Lytx Driving Behavior Database