05 Jul DriveRisk 2021 Annual Risk Report – Key Learnings

This year saw the release of the first edition of DriveRisk’s Annual Risk Report. Over the last few years, DriveRisk has gathered and utilised billions of kilometres of data to identify, focus and address risky driving habits in the fight to minimise collision-leading driver behaviour. Through the utilisation of vast amounts of data and our patented technology, DriveRisk has been able to turn hundreds of thousands of raw data points into insightful information, packaged into one-pagers.

The Annual Risk Report is focused on leading indicators such as near-collisions, to prevent future incidents. Below, we explore the key learnings of our 2021 Annual Risk Report.

High-Risk behaviour groups

Unsurprisingly, within our 6 categorised high-risk behaviour groups, DriveRisk found that the primary high-risk behaviour was Distracted Driving, making up a huge majority of 67%. Distracted driving encompasses all manner of distraction behaviours, such as mobile phone use, handheld device use such as radios, eating, drinking, smoking and other general inattention behaviours. Other behaviours included Driving Fundamentals at 13% (e.g., unsafe following distance), collision-related outcomes at 10%, general driver awareness at 4%, and traffic violations and driver conduct at 3% respectively.

High-Risk behaviours

Within the aforementioned high-risk behaviour groups, DriveRisk has identified the top 5 most common behaviours across all groups. 3 of the top 5 behaviours fell into the Distracted Driving category, while the other two were related to Driver Fundamentals and Driver Awareness.

Unsafe behaviours 

Unsafe behaviours are defined in a different category than high-risk behaviours. Unlike high-risk behaviours, unsafe behaviours are recorded events that didn’t cause an incident but will increase the severity.

• Driver unbelted – 38,000+
• Observed food and drink – 14,000+
• Other communication devices – 14,000+
• Driver smoking – 15,000+
• Passenger unbelted – 4000+

Coaching

In a world where a coach’s role is integral to the success of an individual or team, DriveRisk has used Video, Machine Vision and Artificial Intelligence to provide coaches with tangible insights to drive behavioural coaching and change. We are able to filter out the noise and provide our clients with the important details that drive action and improve safety. Coaching is the all-important ‘control’ step in a safety management system. Acting on the data and coaching the driver one-on-one through viewing their own video events allows coaches to discuss safety expectations and change the outcome of future events.

Client Results

Through DriveRisk’s Actively Managed DriveCam program, consistent coaching changes were able to drive a 60% reduction in ‘high-risk’ events for a client. Across our top-5 Actively Managed programs, DriveRisk recorded:

• 68% reduction in drivers responding late
• 65% reduction in high-risk following distance
• 55% reduction in near-collisions
• 46% reduction in inattention
• 42% reduction in handheld mobile phone use

Riskiest time/day by industry

Through our hundreds of thousands of raw data points, DriveRisk is also able to narrow down the riskiest time and day for hundreds of different industries. This data can be used to improve operational safety.

Near-collision

Arguably the most important leading factor, near-collision is the closest predictor to actual collisions and must be treated accordingly. Below we explore how many avoidable instances were recorded. By utilising DriveRisk’s data, we can expect these numbers to decrease over time.

Near-collision analysis

An interesting discovery when analysing near-collisions was the leading factor. Unlike other key learnings from the report, the near-collision category data was the first to present Driver Fundamentals as a leading cause.

DriveRisk 2021 Annual Risk Report Key Learnings

Our collated 2021 data has exposed deep insights into driver behaviour and habits in the Australian transport industry. It may be no surprise that distraction-related behaviours, particularly handheld mobile phone usage and inattention, now reside very much at the forefront of on-road risk factors. What is surprising from a behaviour data analysis perspective, however, is just how often we observe drivers who have developed ingrained fundamental habits such as maintaining unsafe following distances, failing to keep space around their vehicle and exhibiting poor or low awareness of other road users and conditions.

For the most part, many of the drivers responsible for these unsafe driving practices are largely unaware of the risks they’re exposing themselves or others to. The Lytx DriveCam program is a driver-centric coaching tool that provides an opportunity for the driver to be educated through understanding their own specific driving habits, whether they be high-risk, unsafe, or otherwise.

Every year, DriveRisk will collate and share this report alongside our insights to help the industry understand where and what the broad-scale problems are, in the hopes that transport organisations will take this on board and use it to improve their business. This is how we can all contribute to making the roads a safer place, not just for drivers and fleets but also for the wider community. Because at the end of the day, we all want Australians to get home safely.