It’s all about change... persuading positive driver behavior

In an increasingly congested world with more cars and people, human mobility is under pressure. How we drive has a direct impact on social and business advancement.

With 14 000 official deaths per year costing the South African economy R309 billion and the average commuter spending an extra 100 hours a year travelling during rush hour, there is little question that something needs to change.

Change is critical

According to the European Accident Research and Safety Report of 2013, in 90% of all cases, human error is a contributing factor to accidents. Moreover, poor driver habits affect fuel consumption, vehicle maintenance costs and vehicle resale values.

Changing any behavior depends largely on the motivation and the capability to change. If it is easy to change the way drivers in South Africa drive and it is worth their while, this highly increases the likelihood that it will happen. However, an enabler is required. Enter data analysis, predictive modeling and intuitive feedback technology.

Taking ownership of risks

Rich data shows us the specifics of what needs to change. Data analysis is nothing new to the insurance industry as the entire industry is built around the analysis of data in order to understand and evaluate risks. However, what has changed is the volume and range of data that is now available. We can now understand the risks and change behaviour to further mitigate those risks.

Telematics data has already influenced drivers on various levels, such as improving driver behaviour, improved risk assessment, vehicle utilisation, route optimisation, driver training and driver safety. As the driver forms an important part of the process, he is given the tools to take ownership of the risk.

Incentivising change

Similar to road accidents, every consequence of cost relating to a vehicle results from driver behaviour. So while fleet owners might have little to no influence over rising salaries, maintenance and fuel costs, they do have control over their drivers and how they actually drive. The cost of wasteful driver behaviours such as speeding, excessive idling and aggressive acceleration can add up.

According to the 2014 Fleet Management Survey by Standard Bank, maintenance costs on average increased by approximately 26% from 2010 to 2014. In addition, fuel price increases resulted in the average fuel cost per transaction of Standard Bank Fleet customers to increase from R515 in January 2010 to R890 in April 2014 (73%).

From a personal driving perspective KPMG’s South African Insurance Industry Survey 2014, shows safer driving efforts leading to a 30% drop in premium charges.

Proof in the pudding

Leading Telematics companies are seeing the change in the rich driver data that forms part of the various scoring methodologies used to predict risk.

When actual claims data is overlaid with driver behaviour data, it is clear that the two line graphs follow each other. The correlation is undeniable and shows that better drivers have fewer and less severe accidents. It may sound obvious, but it is evident in the data.

In fact we have seen our clients’ driver incidents reduced by 36% and vehicle efficiency improved by 35%, with less maintenance as the vehicle is being driven better.

But as mentioned above, changing any behavior depends largely on the motivation and the capability to change. One must be willing to change for positive behavior to happen.

For issues such as driver control, driver education, compliance and safe driving habits Telematics may just have the behavioural change model covered. It provides the knowledge to show that change is required and where that change must happen. It motivates drivers through the incentive of better fuel and maintenance efficiencies and lower premiums. And the technology has the ability to sustain the change by continuously analysing driver behaviour, thus reinforcing the change.