“Black boxes” track drivers’ performance
When drivers from Atlantic Ambulance Services in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., slam on the brakes, accelerate too quickly, or take a sharp curve, a backseat driver is certain to squeal to the boss.
The tattle-tale isn’t a paramedic or a patient in transport. Rather, it’s a monitoring device—a black box—which is part of the tricounty company’s safe driving program.
Atlantic has used the Failsafe Driving system, developed by Californian Alvan Davenport, for more than two years. The program, a combination of classroom instruction, on-theroad training, and the black box, teaches drivers to anticipate and avoid difficult situations.
Davenport believes in the importance of smooth driving— gradual starts and stops and easy turns—and that’s what the box measures. A couple of things happen when a bad driving move is made: A tone sounds, letting the driver know he or she has done something wrong; and the infraction is registered for review by a supervisor after the shift is completed.
The black box can’t tell the difference between a quick turn or a sudden stop, but it does record whenever a poor driving move is made. At Atlantic, it’s up to a supervisor to compare readings recorded before and after a shift to compute the employee’s driving level. When a driver’s performance goes down or stays the same, that employee must be reevaluated. The supervisor identifies specific problems by going on the road with the driver.
“Drivers hate it,” Larry Glasser says of the black box. “It’s not a fun way of driving. They can’t go speeding around corners like they did once upon a time.”
But whether they like the system or not, the drivers are doing their job better—at least by Failsafe standards. Initially, the meter clocked a wrong action by Atlantic drivers every eight tenths of a mile. Today, Glasser reports, the company’s 100 drivers notch a bad driving move only about once every 100 miles. (Atlantic officials wouldn’t say what their accident rate had been before and after implementing the Failsafe program.)
Atlantic’s drivers are rewarded for good driving. Failsafe has 10 levels of driving, 1 being the worst and 10 the best. An Atlantic driver receives a nickel more an hour upon reaching level 6. The bonus increases a nickel with each level reached after that, capping at a quarter extra an hour at the top level.
When the box indicates unacceptable driving, Glasser says, supervisors find out what the driver was doing wrong. “We follow up on that,” says the operations manager. “We find out what the problem was, and correct it.”
Davenport himself concedes that the Failsafe black box isn’t 100 percent accurate in gauging how well someone drives. “You could be driving smoothly and drive off a cliff or through a red light,” he says. “But I’m convinced that learning to anticipate problems is better than working out of them.”
According to Glasser, Failsafe has meant a reduction in maintenance costs—fuel and brakes last longer. More important, he says, drivers have had fewer accidents.
“We had more accidents before,” he says. “Now the accidents occur less often and are usually fender benders.”
