How many road crashes can be prevented with AI?
How many road crashes can be prevented with AI? It’s a great question, although a difficult one to answer!
AI has the power to predict which of your drivers are most likely to be involved in a crash in the coming weeks. But it’s what you do with the knowledge that really matters. That’s because insight alone doesn’t prevent incidents; action does.
AI doesn’t prevent crashes. You do.
It’s important to realize that AI doesn’t automatically stop crashes from happening. What it does is uncover risk insights across your organization that were previously hidden. It does this by analyzing driving data to identify patterns in driving behavior across the entire risk spectrum. The way that it predicts future crash involvement is fascinating. But, on their own, predictions will not reduce crashes.
The real value of AI lies in the actionable intelligence it delivers. It tells you where to focus your attention. Which drivers need support and why. When to intervene. And how to deploy your resources for maximum impact.
Finding the 5% who need support the most
In fleet and mobility risk management, there’s a recurring trend: a small percentage of drivers are often responsible for a disproportionate number of severe crashes. AI makes it possible to identify the top 5% highest risk drivers; those who typically account for 20% or more of your serious collisions, injuries, and costly damage.
And identifying those 5% of drivers can transform the way you manage risk. It makes your interventions targeted and therefore more likely to deliver results.
What this looks like in practice
Let’s put this into perspective with a hypothetical fleet of 1,000 drivers.
Without AI: You might apply general driver training or quarterly coaching to everyone equally. This likely ticks the compliance box, but it is a broad and inefficient approach.
With AI: You immediately home in on the 50 drivers (5%) most at risk of a crash in the next few weeks. You can prioritize your outreach, assign proactive interventions, and track risk trends in real-time.
Typically, using this approach, organizations can achieve reductions in serious collisions of around 20%. This reduces associated costs, lost work time, and liability costs, while helping to save lives and improve driver well-being.
From awareness to impact
With AI you can be alerted to shifts in risk level in real-time. So, for example, you might see that a driver who is usually considered low risk suddenly displays high risk behaviors. And, with this information, you can take prompt, targeted action to reduce risk. This might include further using AI to generate personalized coaching insights for the driver.
It’s important to remember that recognizing safe driving behaviors is important too. And because AI doesn’t rely on predetermined events, it provides insights into all behaviors, including those considered to be low risk. It also categorizes drivers so you can quickly identify highest to lowest risk drivers and give recognition where it is needed.
Preventing road crashes by incorporating AI into daily operations
Using AI to prevent road crashes is not a one-off implementation; it’s about utilizing AI to better understand, manage and action risk.
As part of your wider organizational safety culture, AI can optimize:
- Overall understanding and awareness of risk level
- Daily or weekly driver risk reviews
- Targeted coaching or mentoring
- Personalized driver training plans
- Recognition and reinforcement of safe driving behaviors
The bottom line
So, let’s return to the original question: How many crashes can be prevented with AI?
The true answer is that it’s impossible to say. But with AI, the potential impact grows significantly. AI is your key to unlocking new risk insights that help you to spot risk sooner for early preventative action, and to reinforce safe behaviors as part of your ongoing safety culture.
Risk intelligence helps you to see what’s coming. It’s the actions you take that really make a difference to crash prevention. Schedule a demo of our solutions to start uncovering new risk predictions today.
