Mesilla Valley Transportation selected SmartDrive’s video-based safety solution for its fleet of more than 1,300 tractors. 

Headquartered in Las Cruces, N.M., Mesilla Valley Transportation specializes in time-sensitive service between major manufacturing centers in the United States, Canada and the Mexican border. Mesilla Valley sought a video-based program to ensure a clear and unbiased picture of what happens on the road. After initial concerns about deploying a solution, Mesilla Valley experienced first-hand the impact it can have after one of its drivers was involved in a collision with a vehicle that had video. Mesilla Valley was able to quickly determine that the situation was its driver’s fault, enabling the company to avoid a lengthy, costly claims process, and also assuring its general counsel that moving forward with video was the right choice for the business. 

Dean Rigg, Mesilla Valley’s chief financial officer, and his team selected SmartDrive based on key capabilities unique to the platform, including its patented ability to capture U-turns, aggressive swerves and other risky driving maneuvers, unmatched triggering based on real-time data from third-party onboard systems and its intuitive user interface. With the implementation of SmartDrive, it also improved performance in key areas that are predictive of collision frequency and severity, including an 80% increase in seat belt compliance, 88% reduction in speeding and 50% decrease in distracted driving.  

“Following our competitive pilot of multiple video safety solutions, we selected SmartDrive because it clearly offered the best value for our investment, based on its demonstrated ability to improve safety, proven innovation in video-based analytics, access to video within minutes and outstanding customer support,” says Royal Jones, president, Mesilla Valley Transportation. “The SmartDrive platform delivers actionable insights, making it easy to identify areas of risk, focus our driver coaching where it is most impactful and accurately measure the results. When an incident occurs and our team can definitively demonstrate that it wasn’t our driver’s fault, it just doesn’t get any better than that.”

During the 2.5-month pilot program, Mesilla Valley identified 58 U-turns on public roadways—it prohibits drivers from making these high-risk maneuvers, but was unable to effectively monitor for these turns before implementing SmartDrive, produced by SmartDrive Systems, Inc., San Diego, Calif. With the video-based platform, driver managers can not only identify the offending drivers, but also step in immediately to provide coaching and eliminate future risk.

“SmartDrive gives us the ability to see an incident as it unfolds, which allows us to be proactive in preventing future collisions. With the program, we know what the driver did correctly, where improvement is needed and what contributing factors—positive or negative—may have played a role,” adds Jones. “With video of on-road events, we can avoid a lengthy legal fight and a protracted insurance claims process based on incorrect or incomplete information. Ultimately, this saves us money and keeps our trucks on the road, generating revenue for the business.”

“We are proud to have been selected by Mesilla Valley Transportation, an innovative and safety-minded fleet whose decision to adopt SmartDrive has already yielded impressive results,” says Steve Mitgang, chief executive officer of SmartDrive. “Our open-platform architecture has enabled Mesilla Valley to generate more value from its existing investment in the onboard collision mitigation systems deployed across the fleet, providing direct visibility to when the active safety system engaged, the vehicle’s following distance and speed and other engine performance information that identifies risk predictive of collisions. Mesilla Valley is part of the larger trend we’re seeing in which fleets choose solutions that seamlessly work with other systems on the vehicle, providing them with more value and protecting their investment as the pace of innovation continues to accelerate.”