10% of drivers account for almost half of crashes

Fleet safety may have been concentrating on the wrong thing.

For years, safety departments have been overwhelmed by individual events.

Speeding.

Harsh braking.

Mobile phone use.

Distraction.

Tailgating.

Every event creates another alert, another score and potentially another coaching intervention.

New research from Samsara suggests there is a much more important question:

Which combinations of behaviour actually identify the drivers most likely to crash?

Samsara's new Compounding Risk Report found that the highest risk 10% of drivers accounted for 47% of crashes.

The highest risk 30% accounted for 76%.

Even more interesting is what happens when risky behaviours combine.

A driver exhibiting mobile phone use alone was 2.7 times more likely than the overall driver population to fall into the highest risk category.

Combine mobile use with harsh braking and that rises to 4.5 times.

Combine mobile use, distraction and harsh braking and it reaches 5.4 times.

The research is based on Samsara's proprietary Risk Model, which evaluates approximately 50 factors including driving behaviour, exposure, context and driver development.