Lytx report finds most risky driving trends in public transit

From its database of 808,000 risky driving events captured from transit fleets in 2019, Lytx® released new insights into transit industry driving trends.

Lytx’s findings include the five risky behaviors seen most often among transit drivers, most improved driving behaviors, and insights on how transit industry driving habits compare to those of other industries.

The data was captured from fleets of all sizes and types within the transit industry, including taxi, limousine, airport shuttle, coach, and school bus fleets, among others. It is part of an ongoing series from Lytx highlighting key behavior trends seen across the nine industries that utilize its video telematics technology, with the goal of informing and supporting ongoing safety efforts in the industries it serves.

The data will be released twice weekly through May 26 here.

Most Prevalent Risky Behaviors in 2019

• Late response*
• Near collision
• Incomplete stop
• Following distance**
• Driver unbelted

Most Improved Behaviors from 2018 to 2019

• Failure to stop*** – improved 32%
• Posted speed violation – improved 24%
• Late response* – improved 10%

Behaviors may appear on both the "Most Prevalent" and "Most Improved" lists. This demonstrates that even with significant improvement, fleets and drivers must stay vigilant and maintain awareness to keep those behaviors trending downwards.

How Transit Fleets Stack Up Against Other Industries

Lytx compared the prevalence of behaviors seen in transit fleets against behavior averages of fleets across all its other protected industries. Comparatively, transit fleets stood out in the following areas:

• Near collision/near collision (unavoidable) occurred 31% more often
• Incomplete stop occurred 18% more often
• Food/drink observed 60% less often

Common risky driving behaviors observed within a fleet, as well as benchmarking data from fleets both inside and outside of a specific industry are helpful metrics for understanding industry-specific challenges, guiding safety efforts and then measuring success. To better identify and address top areas of driving risk within their individual fleets, thousands of organizations use the best-in-class Lytx Driver Safety Program; these organizations experience on average up to 50% reduction in collisions and up to 80% on associated claims costs as a result.

Lytx also found that 57% of high-impact collisions in the transit industry were attributed to fundamentals or traffic violation behaviors, such as “failure to stop” or “too fast for conditions,” indicating an opportunity for increased operator and driver coaching in this area.

*Late response occurs when a driver is not distracted, yet responds late and abruptly to a readily visible risky situation ahead.

**Following distance refers to a risky driving event in which the distance to the vehicle directly ahead is approximately 1.5 seconds and not increasing for at least 4 consecutive seconds.

***Failure to stop occurs when a driver fails to stop at a stop sign or his/her speed remains above 5 mph.

Originally posted on Metro Magazine