By John Wysseier, CEO and President, The CEI Group, Inc.

If you operate in a mature industry like ours and you’re not feeling threatened by disruption, chances are high that your company could be left behind.

It may take years, but with more than 70 percent of all businesses worldwide facing a serious threat of disruption, your company’s viability, as it exists today, is in question.

If you think I’m telling you that the sky is falling, consider this: the average tenure on the S&P 500 stock index of the most successful U.S. companies shrank from 33 years in 1964 to 24 by 2016 and is forecast by Innosight, a global consulting firm, to shrink further to just 12 years by 2027.

But the destructive power of disruption is nothing new; as long ago as the 19^th century, economists called capitalism “creative destruction”. What is new is the accelerating pace at which it’s happening.

READ MORE

By Mark Boada, Executive Editor

What’s the first road safety lesson you remember receiving?

Mine – delivered over and over again by my parents and teachers in elementary school – is “Look both ways before crossing the street.”

Kids, of course, are impulsive and often oblivious to roadway hazards. They chase balls, pets and other kids, and jump out into the street from between cars. But by the time we’re teenagers, though, most of us have learned to heed the lesson. Then, we go for our drivers’ license, and the lesson is expanded: “Always look both ways before crossing an intersection.”

This lesson is so fundamental, that it’s nothing short of shocking for this observer to learn that red light-running deaths have hit a 10-year high.

READ MORE

By Michael Sheldrick

Only the most quotidian fleet manager might not dream of the possibility of an autonomous, or even better, a self-driving car.

Not only might TCO be sliced, by various features, imagine the productivity boosts that could result from what in effect would be a rolling office.

But that dream suffered a serious set back last week when Tesla again pushed the boundaries of this still-nascent realm by introducing Smart Summon, a feature that turns the car into a robot valet, bringing it to its owner.

Forgive the cliche, but what could go wrong? Almost everything, it turns out

READ MORE

The Verge

New research by the American Automobile Association suggests that vehicles equipped with new technology, such as automatic emergency braking and pedestrian detection, isn’t doing enough to keep pedestrians safe.

The vehicles struck adult dummy pedestrians 60 percent of the time, in daylight hours at speeds of 20 mph. A collision occurred 89 percent of the time using child-sized dummies.

The number of pedestrians killed in crashes involving SUVs has skyrocketed by 81 percent in the last decade. Automakers clearly have a long way to go before drivers or pedestrians can count on the technology to be consistent.

Read the article at The Verge.

Consumer Affairs

A recent study conducted at the University of Michigan indicates that many young people have friends who are easily distracted behind the wheel.

Approximately 60 percent of reporting parents were told by their children that they had a friend who lost focus while driving.

“Parents should try to empower their teen to be proactive in avoiding common situations that cause distractions to the driver and also speak up to stop any unsafe activities,” said Dr. Gary Freed. “Safe driving should be a shared responsibility for both teen drivers and passengers as the risks are high for each.”

Read the article at Consumer Affairs.

IIHS

Automated technologies may take the stress and boredom out of the daily commute, but current systems designed to keep vehicles from drifting over the center line or onto the shoulder still don’t all work well enough to inspire trust.

Drivers have to accept assistive technologies and use them correctly in order to make driving safer. Some drivers in the IIHS study felt insulted when the car made corrective choices for them.

“Across all the vehicles we tested, the drivers had more faith in the automated systems’ ability to maintain a steady speed and a safe distance from the vehicle ahead of them than their ability to keep them safely in the center of their lane,” says IIHS Senior Research Scientist Ian Reagan.

Read the article at IIHS.

Forbes

We are now seeing SAE Level 2 systems defined as the vehicle that is able to control both the steering and acceleration/ deceleration ADAS capabilities.

Although this allows the vehicle to automate certain parts of the driving experience, the driver remains in complete control of the vehicle at all times.

Level 3 is a system that allows “hands off, feet off, eyes off” with “brain on” so that hands, feet, and eyes are readily available. Intense development of Level 3 human-machine interfaces has been underway for years.

Read the article at Forbes.

The New York Times

You’ve probably heard people say that cars are death machines.

Pedestrian fatalities in the United States have increased 41 percent since 2008; more than 6,000 pedestrians were killed in 2018 alone. More than 4,000 American kids are killed in car crashes every year.

Statistics clearly don’t seem to persuade anyone of the magnitude of this problem. There are many tools to eliminate traffic-related injuries and fatalities running the gamut from the quick and easy fixes.

The internet-equipped “connected car” has increasingly large and complicated dashboard screens that take cognitive resources away from the task at hand, which is driving, and have the potential to be as dangerous as texting while driving.

Read the article at The New York Times.

By Ed Dubens, CEO / Founder of eDriving

Of course, the effective management of driver risk requires a “formal” structured approach, but there is also plenty of room for informality!

Policies, standards, management systems, best practice guides, training, eLearning, license checking, telematics, benchmarking and analytics are all critical components to any successful driver risk management strategy, but how much more effective can you be if your plan is supported by regular, informal messaging to your drivers from across the organization?

READ MORE

By Ed Pierce, Fleet Industry Marketer

For many companies, the Fall signals the start of another budgeting process that comprises a two-part challenge:

1. Reviewing the success of this year’s marketing tactics and overall achievement of goals at both the tactical and strategic levels,

2. Developing next year’s plan and appropriate budget by gathering pertinent facts from inside and outside the company — forthcoming promotional opportunities, (e.g., new products, strategic messaging), and external forces (e.g., the economy, the competitive landscape, and changing user needs)

READ MORE