Little Rock, AR-based steel hauling fleet Maverick USA has reported reducing lane departure accidents by 65% since it began installing the Iteris Lane Departure Warning (LDW) system on its 1,000 trucks back in 2004.
According to Maverick, in 2004 its fleet traveled a combined 110 million miles and had a lane departure preventable accident rate of 0.21 per million or one every 4.75 million miles traveled. By 2006, trucks equipped with Iteris’ LDW systems traveled 40.7 million miles yet their lane departure crash rate – including sideswipe, inadvertent lane changes, and run-off road accidents – dropped to 0.07 per million or one every 13.56 million miles traveled, for a 65% decrease.
“Our investment in Iteris’ LDW systems in our trucks has really begun to pay off,” said Steve Williams, CEO of Maverick. “In just one year, we have seen a dramatic reduction in accidents. Maverick has always been committed to safety, but we are thrilled to see the benefits of deploying the LDW technology so soon.”
There’s a huge monetary gain from that crash rate drop as well: According to a recent study by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), the average cost of an accident involving a large truck is more than $75,000 – with over 32% of crashes where the truck was at fault resulting from roadway and lane departures, making them the single-largest cause of large truck injury and fatal crashes. “We believe these findings make a strong case for … LDW systems as a viable safety technology designed to reduce accidents, improve driver safety and retention and increase profitability,” said Jack Johnson, president & CEO of Iteris.
