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Lights, Camera, Action – Video and fleet management

By James Daly, Director

It doesn’t take long these days to see postings of poor or inconsiderate driving on the roads in the UK.  But whilst these clips are sometimes amusing or thought provoking the fact remains that many road users – cars, HGV’s and cyclists in particular – are using these recordings to evidence accidents or submit details of poor driving to the Police.

But other than catching the odd viewing of images on TV or online how does the adoption of camera technology affect you as a business owner operating your own vehicles.

Moving away from the sensational to the more routine camera footage can be both invaluable and objective evidence that can provide you with a possible means to defend yourself in a claim.  Or to pursue others for an accident that isn’t your fault.   It has provided the Police evidence of “Cash for Crash” scams, setting up innocent motorists with the intention of causing accidents and making claims for injuries that they claim to have suffered.

The video below demonstrates that the HGV had pulled onto the island without any regard to traffic approaching, in the event of a collision and without the video footage below, the version of events from both sides would hold equal weight. The camera is like having and independent witness on board.

The footage below allowed our claims team to prove that the third party had come over into our clients lane. Both drivers statements held the other party at fault, due to the usage of cameras on this fleet, as advised by Ravenhall, we were able to prove our client wasn’t at fault. Without this a 50/50 settlement would have been likely leading to a claim against our policyholder.

Cameras in themselves are not the solution to accident prevention – well trained and attentive drivers are the best solution to actually preventing an accident  – but if the worse does happen then they can help and support your driver and your business in understanding and dealing with the accident and its consequences.

At Ravenhall we have encouraged many of our clients to install cameras and have helped them to find cost effective solutions to meet their needs.  We don’t pretend to be experts in the technology but we are expert in using the footage when we handle claims for our clients and where we have the footage we firmly believe this improves the outcome for our clients – whether dealing with fault or not fault accidents.

We believe in them so much in fact that we have adopted them on our own vehicles and here is some footage of me “skilfully” avoiding a lane changer on the M62 recently.  Fortunately for me there was nothing in the right hand lane and the usual comment prevails that it was a LOT closer than the camera makes it appear.

If you think tapping into our expertise in this area could help you we would love to hear from you.  We can help you understand what the cameras will and won’t deliver and how to best exploit them not just for road accidents but also as a fleet and driver management tool.

Please give me a call if you want any further information my details james.daly@ravenhallgroup.co.uk or call 0845 216 3018

JD