By Art Liggio, President and CEO, Driving Dynamics
Anytime your drivers hit the road, they are surrounded by any number of people with diminished operational control.
Distractions, speeding, fatigue, aggression, DUI—it’s a minefield out there. Faced with the “other driver” and their poor decisions and actions it’s certainly no easy job to manage your fleet’s risk exposure but together we prepare your drivers to steer clear of the oncoming danger.
One area that’s a serious cause for concern is the rapidly growing abuse of prescription opioids. It’s has reached epidemic levels. The latest research shows a seven-fold increase since 1995 in the number of drivers killed while under the influence of prescription opioids. And it doesn’t appear to be getting any better as Researchers at Columbia University’s Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention expect a continued increase in the percentage of fatal crashes related to opioid usage.
So what should you be communicating to your fleet?
BMW and Daimler, the world's top luxury carmakers, have announced alliances with suppliers, talking up the virtues of having a bigger pool of engineers to develop a self-driving car.
But another motive behind these deals, executives and industry experts told Reuters, is a concern that robocars may not live up to the profit expectations that drove an initial investment rush.
Carmakers are increasingly looking to forego outright ownership of future autonomous driving systems in favor of spreading the investment burden and risk.
Investors sank more than $1 billion into auto tech companies in 2016 alone.
With that kind of funding, the question isn’t whether self-driving cars will change everything about how we get around, but how soon.
Experts also predict a shake-up in the auto insurance industry, with self-driving cars leading to fewer accidents. Does this mean you can stop paying for car insurance as soon as your autopilot-enabled Tesla rolls off the line? Not quite.
Hyundai Motor said Thursday it plans to launch early next year a second-generation hydrogen fuel cell vehicle that will travel more than 580 kilometers (360 miles) between fill-ups under Korean standards.
If delivered as promised, the new fuel cell vehicle will travel 40 percent farther than its first generation fuel cell SUV, the Tucson ix FCEV, launched in 2013. Under European standards, Hyundai said the new vehicle can drive 800 kilometers (498 miles).
Fuel cell cars, emission-free like pure electric cars, can be refueled in two to three minutes unlike electric vehicles that can take several hours to fully recharge. But the dearth of hydrogen fueling stations is an obstacle for mass adoption.
Some cash-strapped states are considering taxing self-driving cars as they look for ways to replace revenue lost from gas tax collections that have dwindled as cars have become more fuel efficient.
State lawmakers in Massachusetts have introduced legislation that would impose a 2.5 cents-per-mile tax on self-driving cars.
A similar measure that would establish a 1 cent-per-mile fee for self-driving cars, and a 2.6 cent-per-mile fee for autonomous trucks that have more than two axles has been approved by the state Senate in Tennessee.