By Fleet Management Weekly Staff
May 22, 2024
Distracted driving is one of the leading causes of car accidents in the United States, resulting in the deaths of countless drivers and pedestrians every year. While many things can distract a driver, cell phone use is the most pervasive form of distracted driving. Cell phone-related crashes not only cost fleets millions of dollars a year, but they are a perilous threat to the health and safety of their drivers.
Although it’s hard to convince every driver to put down their phones, fleets do have an option to combat distracted driving within their ranks. NoCell Technologies has developed a technology that eliminates temptation and improves driver safety. The product is a small self-powered NOCELL Tag that is placed on the ‘A pillar’ of the vehicle and pairs up via Bluetooth to drivers’ phones, physically removing their ability to access certain apps while driving, while allowing certain apps such as GPS and ELDs to remain accessible. It is a simple solution that has the power to save lives.
To learn more about their product and how it can save fleets millions of dollars in insurance claims, we spoke with Corey Woinarowicz, CRO of NoCell Technologies:
Who is NoCell? What do you do, and why should it matter to fleets?
NoCell Technologies is the industry leader in anti-distracted driving technology. Our platform allows fleet managers to supervise cell phone usage while driving a company vehicle—from a golf cart to a semi. If the driver needs access to a navigation app, an ELD, or a camera, the product allows drivers to access those while physically removing all other apps from the phone.
No more TikTok videos while driving. No more checking Facebook, Messenger, or Gmail. It’s just a way for a fleet manager to enforce its cell phone policy. We want to get all these commercial drivers home safe every night and prevent preventable crashes.
We just passed Distracted Driving Awareness Month in April. How can everyone become more aware of the dangers of distracted driving going forward?
April was Distracted Driving Awareness Month, and we saw plenty of information about how distracted driving is 100% preventable. There are many forms of distracted driving, but our mission is to get people to put down their cell phones.
While we can’t do anything about eating in the car or kids and dogs creating distractions, we can do something about the cell phone. It’s the number one distraction in the vehicle today–in fact, over 12,000 people died last year in the commercial space because of cell phone-related distracted driving crashes. It’s the most under-reported cause of crashes today because few admit they were on the phone. It has to be investigated or caught on camera.
NoCell is working with insurance carriers, fleet management companies, and all sorts of commercial companies, from landscaping to the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Everything we do is to ensure people are aware of this deadly epidemic in the United States.
Today, we have over four times the amount of cell phone-related distracted-driving deaths than we did four years ago. If this were an airline statistic, authorities would ground every airplane in the nation until they found a solution. Somehow, the large number of preventable fatalities from vehicle crashes remains overlooked.
We’re working with groups like the National Distracted Driving Coalition and the National Safety Council to create awareness and action. Signing pledges and passing hands-free laws are great for awareness, but we need people to be proactive so we can save drivers from their bad habits. It’s understandable–you hear a buzz or a ding, and the dopamine in your brain makes you want to check your cell phone. We’re just trying to bring awareness and then have action assigned to that awareness to reduce deaths.
Can you share some success stories with us?
One of our biggest success stories is with the propane company Trico Propane out of Rogers, Texas. Since implementing NoCell around three years ago, they’ve had zero cell-related crashes. The owner, Jack Walzel, is an excellent example of how to take action early and be proactive. He spreads the word and isn’t afraid to tell others in the industry. He’s also willing to be the adult in the owner/fleet manager-driver relationship.
Jack knows that drivers might be apprehensive about installing an app on their phones, but he’s more concerned with keeping his drivers alive than with receiving a bit of pushback in the first few weeks.
Jack has been a great example of how to put concern for the drivers’ safety over the fear of pushback or having some drivers choose to leave. His motto is “Either do it or leave, because if you’re not going to do it, then why aren’t you going to do it?” Plus, he knows he’ll end up paying about 15-20 times more in insurance claims than it costs to put in our technology.
We also have another success story with our first customer, Stevens Trucking, in Oklahoma City. They haven’t had a single insurance claim since they put our technology in over four years ago. They tout that they’ve had zero claims’ dollars because of cell phone-related distracted driving, and that’s huge. That’s saved them so much money over the last four years. Cole Stevens, the gentleman who runs the organization, has said he’s saved over ten times what it costs to put our technology in his trucks.
The thing is our product works. You put it in, you use it, and it works by cutting down on the distractions. We see fleets have their cell phone handling go down over 80% after the first two weeks of having it implemented.
I think that is a crucial feature in itself: if drivers stop looking at their phones, they will be less distracted. It will become second nature for them not to pick the phone up or think about picking the phone up. It’s Pavlovian training. If you don’t hear the buzz or ding, you won’t pick it up.
More and more companies are moving towards safety as a top priority. Can you talk about how the tide is turning on how we think about safety?
The fleet industry is more aware than ever of the severe consequences of crashes and the availability of safety programs and technology solutions to reduce the associated costs and protect driver well-being.
The company culture is changing from the four-wheel fleets we deal with to service fleets to the big rigs. I went to Atlanta a couple of weeks back and talked to a prominent fleet manager who is doing a phenomenal job in changing the company culture on safety from top to bottom. For her, it’s not just a poster you put in the lunchroom or a slogan you do for April.
Safety efforts never stop. Because the moment you look at your cell phone while driving or do anything deemed non-compliant with stated policies, the risk of a catastrophic event becomes unacceptable. You’ve got legal action. Lost productivity. A tarnished company brand in the eyes of employees, customers, and the community. Most critically, you’ve got injuries or fatalities.
I see more fleet and safety managers seeing the benefit of not having 238 vehicles lost in total last year. Those cost amount to $50,000 on average for the vehicle, plus lead times and everything else. It’s a considerable amount of money that people don’t think about.
There’s so much more than just the vehicle. So I think that the tides are turning. I think we’re going into a better and better spot, and right now is the time. It’s a problem that requires today’s solution, culture, and mindset.
