never sped, where harsh braking and
hard steering where unheard of, and
idling was just not an option.
H
arsh braking is the best indicator of
distracted driving. Today's telematics sys-
tems can record this activity, which
e
nables you to monitor and correct the
behavior – and protect your business.
Live Traffic Data
Reduces Liability Too
Reducing unnecessary drive time not
only reduces your operational costs, but
decreases the likelihood of being involved
in an accident. The latest telematics tech-
nology using predictive traffic and truck
attribute data ensures the most efficient
routes are automatically available to the
driver's navigation system. If a significant
incident causes an unexpected traffic
delay, the connected navigation system
can immediately re-route the vehicle. In
addition to reducing drive time by routing
around traffic delays, being stuck in traffic
significantly increases the mileage to
accident ratio.
Get the Right Data – Automatically
Telematics systems offer another
important benefit that allows tow man-
agers to quickly identify problems and
solve them before they expose the com-
pany to risks.
Rather than wade through reports, try
to graph accidents and maintenance
issues over time, or collect anecdotal evi-
dence about drivers' habits behind the
wheel, telematics systems can show you
quickly if there's a problem, and help you
drill down to see what needs to be done.
Rather than wading through reports of
a
ll your good drivers, wouldn't it be great
to get an alert about one driver that's con-
sistently distracted, or speeding? The
s
ophisticated reporting and alert capabili-
ties in telematics systems can deliver this
information to you- without you having to
go looking for it. And with today's sophis-
ticated reporting systems, you can cus-
tomize those alerts easily – by setting
p
arameters and benchmarks. You can
also run regular reports that look at
trends that are most important to you.
Matt Gunzenhaeuser is Director of
Sales at TomTom Telematics. Learn
more at www.tomtomtelematics.com.
Volume 4 • Issue 2 | www.towprofessional.com | Tow Professional 27