By Ed Dubens, CEO/Founder of eDriving

In driver risk management, efforts are typically focused on preventing collisions from occurring, and on reducing the seriousness of collisions that do occur.

At a company level, this often involves efforts to reduce dangerous behaviors such as speeding, distracted driving and tired driving, as well as reinforcing safer behaviors, such as the use of seat belts, not handling phones while driving, and leaving a safe following distance.

However, an aspect of driver risk management that receives little attention is emergency response, and companies don’t always consider the role they can play in looking after their drivers in their most critical time of need.

The unfortunate reality is that crashes continue to occur.

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Focus on Electric Vehicles Takes Front and Center

By Tod Trousdell

While this year’s Work Truck Show seemed to forgo any specific theme, the week’s proceedings left little doubt in anyone’s mind about the real focus of this year’s convention.

Electrification and electric vehicles.

From manufacturers eager to showcase new models, to allied service providers anxious to prove their EV readiness, it was impossible to wander more than a few feet around the Indianapolis Convention Center without swallowing a heaping helping of all things electric.

Perhaps most encouraging, attendance was robust. And attendees were excited and engaged. All good signs that hopefully the challenges of the last two years are receding, and that the trucking, fleet, and vehicle spaces have their best days ahead.

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By Ed Pierce, Contributing Editor

We interviewed Ryan Rizor, vice president of commercial and industrial sales at of Atom Power, a company that offers EV charging solutions for fleets.

Atom Power works with fleet service providers to offer an overall solution of electric vehicles and infrastructure.

Rizor talked to us about how the company is providing fleet managers with charging solutions where the power and intelligence is centralized in the facility, leaving the charging stations to require minimal electronics and cost.

Here’s what we learned…

March 9, 2022 – Electric fast chargers need to be in a greater variety of places, especially those that are easily accessed from highways like gas stations are. High-speed chargers need to be installed in significant numbers at highway rest areas. 

These are quickly accessed, as opposed to be ensconced within a labyrinthian shopping center parking lot. They also provide bathrooms, water, areas to stretch your legs and let your dog pee. That takes care of two of three reasons you typically stop during a road trip: refueling and calls of nature.

Another idea is to allow and encourage restaurants, coffee shops/stands and other service businesses to open locations at rest areas.

via Autoblog

March 14, 2022 – The damage thieves cause can be expensive to repair. A few simple steps can keep your car safe. Watch out for gas thieves.

Thankfully, the steps you can take to protect yourself are mostly free and simple — and mirror the steps needed to protect your vehicle from a wave of catalytic converter thefts that began during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Park indoors or if you can’t park indoors, park in a well-lit area. Avoid parking anywhere for an extended period. If you’re going on a trip, for instance, get a ride to the airport rather than leaving your car unattended in the long-term lot for days at a time. Position your car so the fuel door faces the road. Consider investing in a locking gas cap.

via MarketWatch

March 9, 2022 – The Kelley Blue Book Brand Image Awards recognize automakers whose model lines of cars, trucks, and SUVs create enthusiasm among shoppers.

Brand image isn’t just about consumers being aware that a brand exists. The automakers that are awarded here have brand images that can excite and attract new car shoppers. And doing this is essential when it comes to success in the marketplace.

This year’s 13 Brand Image Award winners are based on Kelley Blue Book data from their annual Brand Watch Study. Honda’s impressive range of vehicles and terrific quality make it this year’s Best Overall Brand winner. Value has always been part of Honda’s DNA and Honda has won this award every year since 2015.

via Kelley Blue Book

March 12, 2022 – The National Transportation Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Department of Transportation want to know if you support using cameras instead of traditional mirrors. The two organizations opened a Federal Register Notice with a comment period that ends on April 13, 2022.

According to the NHTSA, it is thinking about researching the involvement of the collection of information from the public as part of a multi-year effort to learn about how drivers use passive camera-based rear visibility systems that are intended to work in the same manner as the mirrors on the outside of a vehicle.

via CleanTechnica

March 13, 2022 – Companies are betting hundreds of billions of dollars on electric cars and trucks. To make them, they’ll need a lot of batteries. And that means they need a lot of minerals, like lithium, cobalt and nickel, to be dug up out of the earth.

These minerals aren’t particularly rare, but production needs to scale up massively to meet the auto industry’s ambitions. There’s another big challenge: The existing supply chain is dominated by a single country: China. “China pretty much controls almost all the metals required,” says Kwasi Ampofo, the head of metals and mining at the research company BloombergNEF.

Beijing controls about three-quarters of the market for the minerals that are essential for batteries. China set out intentionally to dominate the processing of these minerals, as part of a plan to become a major player in electric vehicles. Beijing had the authoritarian power, the money, the massive market and the will to make that happen – much to the anxiety of the West

via NPR

By Art Liggio, Chairman, Driving Dynamics

A new state law, which takes effect on April 18, 2022, will have a significant impact on fleet-based organizations operating in New Jersey.

Signed in January by New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, fleets will have to inform company drivers when installing GPS tracking devices in vehicles.

To comply with the law, employers will be required to provide written notification to current drivers and new hires or could face fines of $1,000 for the first violation and $2,500 for each violation thereafter.

Using GPS and other telematics devices certainly provides many benefits to fleets, helping to improve efficiency and also compliance with driver safety policies. However, lawmakers are saying drivers deserve to know when companies collect data about them as part of business operations.

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The bigger the vehicle, the better the impact on emissions!

A joint study between Ford and the University of Michigan found that, within the light-duty vehicle sector, switching from conventional internal combustion engines to battery-electric powered vehicles significantly reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

The study determined that on average in the US, light-duty, battery-electric vehicles have approximately two-thirds lower greenhouse gas emissions throughout its entire lifecycle than vehicles powered by internal combustion engines.

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