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Does the quality of your driving data matter?
When considering the question: “Does the quality of your driving data matter” the short answer is “yes”. Especially if you’re serious about driver safety.
In risk management, it’s often said: you can’t manage what you can’t measure. But let’s take that further: you can’t manage risk effectively unless you’re measuring it accurately.
For organizations that rely on data to drive their road safety strategies, data alone isn’t the answer. It’s the quality of that data that determines the strength of your insights; and the impact of your actions.
What low quality data misses
Most traditional telematics and fleet management systems are built around one core function: vehicle tracking. Their job is to show where a vehicle is, not how it’s being driven. For that, low-frequency data, captured every 30 seconds or more, may be adequate.
But if your objective is to understand and reduce risk, that kind of data falls short.
Low-frequency data provides isolated snapshots of a trip. Maybe a harsh brake occurred, or a vehicle was traveling over the speed limit. But it can’t provide context throughout a whole trip, or detect when risk is building. That’s where high-frequency data comes in.
Why high-frequency data changes the game
High-frequency data, ideally captured at close to one-second intervals, paints a much richer, more accurate picture of driving behavior. It reveals what happens between events, not just when thresholds are crossed.
- Understand the full journey, not just isolated events
- Detect how and where risk is building, even before it triggers a threshold
- Recognize positive behaviors, not just negative events
This level of granularity enables you to:
- Quantify the driver’s influence on risk
- Spot early indicators of unsafe behavior
- Provide targeted, relevant coaching
- Capture a balanced performance picture
- Shift from reactive to predictive risk management
High-quality data doesn’t mean high cost
One common misconception is that high-frequency data is complex or expensive. But that’s no longer the case.
Modern, AI-powered solutions can collect, process, and analyze large volumes of driving data efficiently without new hardware or heavy investment. With the right technology partner, your organization can unlock predictive, actionable insights without compromising on efficiency or budget.
Making data quality a priority within your risk management efforts
If safety is one of your organization’s core values, data quality should be a core metric when evaluating the effectiveness of risk or telematics solutions.
Ask yourself:
- Does our data reflect driver behavior, or just vehicle movement?
- Can it power predictive risk models, or only provide post-incident reporting?
- Is it helping us proactively reduce crashes, or just document them?
If the answer to any of those is unclear, it may be time to reassess.
In summary: good data = smart decisions
Thanks to modern technology, it’s easier than ever to access high-quality, high-frequency driving data, and turn that into insights that make our roads safer.
Why settle for less?
Ready to improve your data quality and make your safety program truly predictive?
Get in touch to learn how simple it can be.
