Commercial drivers keep society ticking. They’re on the roads every single day, ensuring deliveries reach their destination, critical services are maintained, and construction projects keep moving forward. 

But being out on the roads at all hours exposes drivers to hazards, no matter how careful they are. And that’s one of the reasons why investing in the right safety tools and procedures is so important: it protects drivers, helps avert incidents, and gives peace of mind. 

There’s an abundance of great features, tools, and technology Samsara provides to drivers to keep them safe on the roads. Here’s three of the most impactful. 

1. A personal co-pilot

As soon as drivers leave the depot and set out for the day, they’re on their own. Fleet managers may be monitoring their progress from the depot, but they can’t be in the cab with them. That means a virtual co-pilot – encompassing a variety of Samsara’s next generational safety tools – is the next best thing. 

Helping drivers take corrective action with In-Cab Nudges

Samsara’s In-Cab Nudges give drivers the opportunity to self-correct risky behaviours in real time.

To combat risky driving behaviours, drivers need to be aware of issues as soon as they happen, not days or weeks down the line. AI technology picks up on dangerous habits like using a phone or eating while driving, and delivers audio prompts to bring drivers back into the moment and refocus on the road. 

Take speeding, for example. If a driver exceeds the maximum speed threshold for the area, an audible prompt will alert the driver and remind them that they’re driving too fast. These alerts give drivers more autonomy over their own safety and eliminate a delayed feedback loop to avoid potential near misses that could escalate into accidents.

2. Proactive driver coaching

Often, driver coaching is seen as a reactive practice, only taking place after an incident has occurred. But by then, it’s too late, and the window of opportunity for any corrective behaviours or in-the-moment learning has been missed.

That’s why Samsara takes a proactive approach to coaching – encouraging safe habits, giving drivers more transparency over their own experience, and letting fleet managers prioritise the most pertinent issues that need addressing. 

Encourage safe habits through Safety Scores

In our experience, drivers don’t want generalised advice on where to improve. They want to know the specific areas they need to focus on – whether that’s reducing speeding, limiting tailgating, or increasing stopping distance. And most importantly, when they do stamp out bad habits and start driving more safely, they want to be recognised and rewarded for their continued effort. 

Samsara gives drivers access to dedicated safety insights from within the Samsara Driver App, so they can track their progress alongside their peers. A big part of this is the Driver Safety Score, which is calculated out of 100 using data on a wide range of harsh events, speeding events, and AI-detected unsafe driving behaviours. By rewarding safe driving habits and celebrating positive progress in improving these scores, you can proactively recognise driver performance, increase engagement, and boost retention.

“Before launching our driver engagement programme, 57 out of our 650 drivers had a safety score of 30 or below. Fast forward seven months to January 2024, we now only have 9 drivers with a score of 30 or below (84% decrease) and 246 drivers with a score above 90 (180% increase). The results are improving month on month since launching the programme.”  - Amber Kirkby, Fleet Systems Team Leader, Lanes Group plc.

Follow up on adverse events with Post-Incident Support

If an accident, unsafe event, or collision does happen, drivers need to understand exactly what went wrong so they can prevent it happening in the future. To help safety managers provide better coaching for their drivers, Samsara automatically catalogues each event and sends them for review. 

After an event satisfies the pre-set criteria, it triggers the upload of the safety event video and the event details directly to the Safety Inbox on Samsara’s platform. This lets managers manually review and triage events that may have contributed to an accident or collision. Fleet managers will then have access to actionable insights, trends, and risk factor reports they can use to guide remote or 1-1 coaching. 

3. A platform approach to safety

Safety isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s an essential part of running a business. But there’s a lot more to safety than meets the eye. Rather than isolated interventions, Samsara makes safety a constant state of mind by connecting it all together on one complete platform – for drivers, managers, and operators. 

Streamlined workflows through a dedicated Driver App

Apps can help to streamline the driver experience, improve performance, and make accessing the right information at the right time more convenient and intuitive. 

The Samsara Driver App provides mobile workflows that automatically guide drivers through their tasks to cut the complexity out of the driver experience. Drivers can view upcoming jobs, share information with the back office, and collect data from the field with fully digitised processes and customisable mobile forms. 

Through the app, drivers can also self-coach risky behaviours. If Samsara’s AI dash cam picks up an unsafe driving action, managers can push the event directly to the driver's device for coaching, reinforcing safer habits. 

Customised safety tools with Mobile Experience Management (MEM)

While work devices are a great way to improve productivity, they can be a pain to maintain, as keeping individual devices up-to-date and secure is a time-consuming prospect, especially across vast fleets of drivers. 

Samsara’s MEM is an integrated software solution that lets operators completely customise, secure, and control the suite of mobile devices that employees use. Through MEM, managers can create a bespoke mobile experience that gives drivers quick access to the applications they’ll need while out on the job. It’s an easy way to provide remote support, safety coaching, and productivity tools tailored to each specific job role. 

Plus, there’s an in-built Focus Mode managers can use to limit functionality to only core applications. This helps limit driver distractions, while still providing drivers with an easy way to stay in control with everything they need to stay safe while they’re out on the road.  

Make safety a part of your everyday

Safety is never a ‘one-and-done’ process: it takes a combination of insights, tools, and technology to get it right and make a real difference. But with the right tools and procedures, you can make your organisation’s approach to safety proactive, not reactive — whilst preventing accidents, protecting drivers, and saving lives.