After taking a massive hit in the initial stages of the pandemic, construction is starting to come back. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the industry added 464,000 jobs in May 2020.
Companies are adapting to the new realities of COVID-19 with a variety of practices, such as staggered work shifts, fewer site meetings and restricted access to enclosed areas. While these tactics improve safety by reducing personnel density on-site, they bring new challenges, too—especially in the realm of construction driver safety.
Fleet Risks
As a construction leader, you might not think you’re in the transportation business—but you are. In the current crisis, your drivers are likely to be facing more distractions than normal, with kids out of school, loved ones to take care of at home, and the stress of working during a pandemic. With fewer on-site meetings, drivers must rely more on mobile devices for communication, which could lead to further distraction.
According to an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine, a driver who looks away from the road for just 2 seconds is twice as likely to crash. In a study from the National Institutes of Health, researchers found that a driver or operator using a mobile phone was five times less likely to notice and engage safely with pedestrians.
The following is some guidance on how to manage some of the more common driving risks that may crop up in your fleet. Construction drivers are 16% less likely to speed than other commercial drivers, but are 32% more likely to engage in distracted behavior. Concrete-truck drivers face their own challenges. Concrete trucks are involved in 17% more preventable collisions—and three times more collisions caused by driver inattention.
With fewer vehicles on the road, some drivers are growing complacent toward traffic laws. Construction drivers are no exception: compared to last year, speeding violations are up 62%, and failure to come to a complete stop has more than doubled.
Fleet Safety
Fleet safety has become a priority over the last several years due to rapidly rising insurance rates. Underwriters increasingly encourage companies to equip their fleets with telematics and video technology to improve driver safety and provide evidence after the fact in case of an incident.
In many cases, video evidence can clear the name of a company whose driver was acting properly, helping to weed out fraudulent or invalid claims. Even when your company is at fault, video recordings can let you know the facts quickly and may help you reduce investigative and legal expenses.
It is more important than ever to have the evidence to protect fleets against liability and safety risks. In the event of a collision, the other party’s attorney is likely to subpoena cell phone records and your company’s cell phone policy to determine whether the driver (or you) might be liable. It’s better to know ahead of time whether your drivers are engaging in a behavior that might put the company at risk, so you can correct it, rather than finding out after a problem develops.
Technology Can Help
It’s difficult to maintain direct, personal oversight of every driver, especially with social distancing measures in place, but there are technologies that can help. Two technology trends are converging to provide a “sixth sense” that can make you aware of high-risk driving behaviors before they cause problems for you: machine vision (MV) and artificial intelligence (AI).
MV uses image analysis to detect objects and behaviors from visual data. These systems can identify objects in the environment that might be related to high-risk behavior both inside and outside the vehicle: when drivers are drowsy or distracted by a mobile device, not wearing a seat belt, following too closely, not maintaining lane position, or failing to stop at an intersection.
These are all potentially dangerous, costly behaviors that often go undetected and end up causing thousands of vehicle fatalities each year. Even seemingly innocuous acts, like forgetting to wear a seat belt, are correlated with additional risk; drivers cited for seat-belt violations are 3.4 times more likely to get into a collision than the average driver.
Solutions based on AI learn better over time by integrating data from multiple sources, improving their algorithms and their precision along the way. In a construction transport setting, AI can identify and categorize distracted driving behaviors, such as speeding, rolling stops or hard braking.
Combined, MV and AI can “see” not only objects, but also associated behaviors, even when the objects are not visible to the camera. For example, the system can detect a driver constantly looking down over a 2-minute period and make a confident determination that the driver is looking at a device. It can then deliver an audio alert to prompt the driver to change their behavior.
Together, MV and AI can detect multiple risky behaviors occurring at the same time. By detecting objects outside the visual frame and recognizing patterns that indicate specific behaviors, MV and AI operate as a second set of formally trained eyes that help ensure the safety and performance of commercial drivers. When you can see what’s going on, you can help drivers who need some coaching.
Identifying and correcting risky behavior early helps you reduce collisions and claims costs. Safer driving means more work being done, fewer vehicles out of commission, and better adherence to company policy. When you identify problem drivers, you have the video evidence needed to coach them to form better habits. In the absence of driver problems, video is still valuable to prove the driver was at the right location on time. With video from an in-vehicle recording device, you can show exactly when the vehicle arrived or departed the jobsite.
Managing Risk
These are uncertain times for the construction business. It’s difficult to predict the long-term impact of the pandemic on the industry. However, some types of risk can be managed before problems develop. Modifying work schedules to manage the number of employees on-site is a good first step, but it may mean less opportunity for on-site communication. It’s important to establish policies to help workers communicate safely, ensuring they aren’t distracted by mobile devices while driving, and wearing their seat belts.
In an industry with tight margins, it can be tempting to cut corners on safety—but managing risk ahead of time is always better than waiting until an incident occurs. When it’s difficult to get people in a room and even harder to supervise directly, technology can provide cost-effective ways to help ensure worker safety, prevent accidents and delays, and keep your projects running smoothly.
