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Road safety cannot wait for regulation to catch up

Technology already exists that can reduce that risk. For fleets, the question is how this technology is being adopted, and how quickly.

Opinion
4 min read
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Copy of UK & IE Aaron Jarvis road safety
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The UK’s new Road Safety Strategy puts technology and data front and centre. That matters for fleets, because this is where the gap between policy ambition and real-world outcomes is widest.

The Government is right to focus on advanced safety systems, connected vehicles and better use of collision data. Human error plays a role in 95% of collisions. Technology already exists that can reduce that risk. For fleets, the question is how this technology is being adopted, and how quickly.

Fitting safety tech is not the same as using it

Mandating new safety features is a solid step. Automatic emergency braking, intelligent speed assistance and driver monitoring systems can reduce both the frequency and severity of collisions. The UK’s decision to align with the EU’s General Safety Regulation 2 (GSR2), requiring a new baseline of in-vehicle safety technologies, reflects that direction of travel. But fleets know that technology left unused, misunderstood or overridden delivers limited value.

There’s some work to do by OEMs and fleets as Advanced Driver Assist Systems (ADAS) only have value when drivers trust it, understand it and use it as intended. In practice, that trust is uneven. We see a wide variation in how drivers interact with the same systems, even within identical vehicles. Some rely on them correctly. Others disable alerts, misread interventions, or compensate in ways that increase risk.

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This is where visibility matters. Video and sensor data, including dash cams, give fleets and drivers a shared view of what actually happened. When used properly, they take subjectivity out of safety conversations. Drivers can see why a system intervened, or why it did not. Managers can focus on facts rather than blame.

As a result, safety performance now depends as much on data and training as hardware. Telematics shows how ADAS behaves in real conditions, where it intervenes, and where gaps remain. Combined with contextual video, that insight builds driver trust, supports targeted coaching, and helps fleets close the gap between how safety systems are designed and how they are really used on the road.

Near misses matter more than collisions

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The strategy proposes a Road Safety Investigation Branch and better linkage between police and health data. That is long overdue. But fleets already sit on a richer, faster-moving safety dataset.

Harsh braking, speeding, fatigue indicators and repeated near misses happen thousands of times before a serious incident. Fleets can see this today, across millions of miles, without waiting for formal investigations.

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Using near-miss data shifts safety from reactive to predictive. It allows operators to identify high-risk routes, times and behaviours early. It also helps local authorities and road operators understand how roads perform in practice, not just how they were designed. If the Government wants the Investigation Branch to succeed, fleet data has to be part of the picture from day one.

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Linking vehicle data with health outcomes, as proposed, also improves how safety measures are judged. It moves the focus from damage to vehicles toward the impact on people, which is where it belongs.

Fleets can move faster than policy

The strategy sets targets for 2035. Fleet safety decisions happen every day.

Unlike private motorists, fleets control vehicle choice, technology configuration, driver standards and operating conditions. That makes them the fastest route to measurable safety gains. It also makes them the test bed for what works before regulation follows. Treating telematics and vehicle data as safety infrastructure is how safety stops being a compliance task but rather an operational discipline, with clear metrics and accountability.

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If technology and data are to deliver on their promise, fleets must be part of the system, not subject to it. The opportunity is there to turn everyday driving data into safer roads, better policy and fewer families affected by preventable collisions.

Road safety progress stalled when the system stopped learning fast enough. Technology gives us the chance to fix that and fleets can lead the way.

Aaron Jarvis is vice president of EMEA at Geotab

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