Thanks to the fact that dash cam technology has become both more powerful and more affordable over the last few years, they've seen a surge in popularity among home users in particular. YouTube is filled with dash cam videos of strange and exciting incidents captured by small HD recording devices that attach effortlessly to the front of your car. Many people don't realize that they're actually quite popular with enterprises, too, particularly in terms of fleet management. Truth be told, there are a wide range of different ways in which dash cams can help overhaul your fleet that are definitely worth exploring.
Dash Cams Offer Essential Protection in the Event of an Accident
Perhaps the most important way that dash cams protect the vehicles (and drivers) in your fleet is also one of the most unfortunate: in the event of an accident or other type of collision on the road. Dash cams immediately take guesswork out of the equation, preventing a situation from quickly turning into a "he said/she said" scenario. Not only do you have access to fully high definition video of the moments before, during and immediately after an incident, but with GPS-enabled devices you can also see how fast a driver was going, precisely where they were when an incident took place and so much more.
Dash Cams Help Increase Accountability
To that last point, dash cams are also a terrific way to protect your fleet from the perspective of accountability alone. The vehicles in your fleet are investments, the same as any other asset that you use to generate revenue on a daily basis. Those investments must be protected at all costs and dash cams do precisely that by giving you complete visibility into the lifecycle of a trip at all times.
With the type of analytical data that GPS-powered dash cams are constantly generating, you can see exactly how long it takes a driver to get from "Point A" to "Point B" - which can tell you if they were speeding or practicing any other unsafe driving habits. You can see exactly where someone is at all times, which will help avoid any unnecessary (and costly) side trips. You can even review footage to identify certain trends or other patterns that may point to unsafe decisions being made on the road, allowing you to know which drivers could use a little additional training - and which should but cut loose altogether.
Dash Cams Help You Make Better Decisions
Finally, one of the most significant ways in which dash cams can help improve ultimately feeds back into your ability to make timely, actionable decisions with the most accurate information possible. If every vehicle in your fleet is outfitted with a dash cam, you're never more than a few mouse clicks away from seeing the performance of all drivers on a macro level. You can truly see the "bigger picture," possibly for the first time, and the importance of this is something that cannot be overstated enough.
If you can suddenly see all of your resources, you can see which are being used most effectively and (more importantly) which ones aren't. You can start making decisions based on real-time, actionable data concerning which drivers are best suited for what types of jobs, you can get a sense of which vehicles are approaching certain maintenance milestones and so much more. Suddenly you're not reacting to events as they occur and making adjustments to the way you do things only after a problem has been discovered. You're proactively making decisions that mitigate risk and avoid those problems in the first place, leading to increase efficiency, higher productivity and ultimately revenue as well.
