Knight Transportation, a Phoenix, Ariz.-based truckload transportation company, deployed SmartDrive’s video-based safety program to better manage the safety and efficiency of its fleet.

“For the best fleets, there is no such thing as good enough—especially when it comes to safety. Knight Transportation is just such a fleet, having long been recognized as an industry innovator and safety leader,” says Steve Mitgang, chief executive officer of SmartDrive, Phoenix, Ariz. “SmartDrive outperforms other systems because our platform identifies and captures more risk, delivers actionable transportation intelligence that uncovers more savings and efficiency opportunities and is easy for managers to adopt and use. We are proud to have been selected by Knight and welcome them to the SmartDrive family.”

Knight undertook an extensive head-to-head evaluation of video safety programs after experiencing a sustained increase in litigation activity, much of which was fraudulent and costing the company time and money. With many drivers having purchased and installed their own “crash recorders” to exonerate them when not at fault in a collision, Knight conducted extensive discussions with its drivers about the value of video-based solutions. As a result, company leadership determined it was the right time to investigate solutions to meet their safety needs and business objectives.

“A driver has one thing that can derail his career—and that’s safety. SmartDrive helps drivers protect what is most important—their safety and the safety of the motoring public,” says Brett Sant, senior vice president of safety and risk management for Knight. “We evaluated different systems, but SmartDrive was superior. There was a significant difference in terms of collisions captured, the overall visibility to risk and the ability to access additional video context on-demand—this combination compelled us to select SmartDrive. ”

The pilot program aimed to assess the impact of video-based safety programs against a number of core safety and operational metrics. In each category, SmartDrive out-performed the other solution evaluated, and the fleet realized an 84% improvement in safety performance. During the side-by-side trial, a number of capabilities and performance outcomes unique to the SmartDrive platform surfaced, including capturing twice as many and a wider variety of collisions as compared to the other solution, such as hard-to-get side-swipe and low-impact collisions, a significant reduction in unsafe driving and a substantial decrease in claims cost as a percentage of revenue. The Knight location where the pilot took place experienced the lowest claims cost in the fleet and zero preventable DOT collisions.

“Our driving associates are embracing SmartDrive because it will help them get better and better at operating the truck as safely, effectively and productively as they can— protecting their commercial driver’s license and their livelihood,” adds Kevin Knight, founder and chairman, Knight Transportation.

Additional SmartDrive benefits include:

• Extended recording capability, which captures more video context in every incident, such as side swipes and rear-end collisions, integration to Knight’s collision mitigation systems and advanced maneuver triggering, all of which enable the fleet to capture significantly more risk.
• Configurable risk scoring and coaching workflow, video review, quick drill-downs and intuitive links to the easy-to-use coaching process.
• Dashboards that quickly identified areas of risk, allowing managers to focus coaching to actual risk and freeing time to focus on other things.
• SmartDrive SmartIQ safety and coaching scores made it easy to measure, understand and improve performance.
• Flexibility to choose a program with a single, road-facing camera that could be upgraded to additional cameras later should Knight choose to do so. 

“I was an aggressive driver, and as an aggressive driver, you are putting yourself and your surroundings more at risk. But, I didn’t feel like I was an aggressive driver because I’ve been on the road for 16 years.  After experiencing the SmartDrive program, I am more aware of the way I drive. For the company liability, my own safety and the public safety, SmartDrive has made a big difference,” says Roger Call, Knight Transportation driver.