By Michelle Silvestro
National Interstate Insurance

Accident event recorders.
What are they?
How do they work?
Should you consider them for your company?

While accident event recorders are relatively new technology to the passenger transportation industry, their impact on managing your risk and drivers can be far reaching.

What it is
An accident event recorder is, for all intents and purposes, a small video camera mounted just below the rear view mirror in a vehicle. The camera, when triggered by changes in driving (i.e., hard breaking, swerving, collision and the like) records a period of time before and after "the event."

The amount of time that is kept during the recording varies from 20-30 seconds, depending on the equipment setting. Typically, a camera will have a forward facing lens that captures events in front of the vehicle and a rear facing lens that captures what is happening inside the vehicle.

While the camera continuously records, it will only save the video clips related to the triggered event. Some accident event recorders also have a manual trigger which allows a driver to record an event by pressing a switch or button on the camera.

Once events are recorded, they can be downloaded to a computer for viewing and training purposes.

Changing behavior
One major benefit of implementing accident-event-recorder technology is the ability to modify driver behavior as a result of training using the saved video clips.

When an event occurs, the camera records and saves the event. Upon downloading the recorded event, the risk or safety manager (and, in some cases, the accident event recorder company will do it for clients) can observe driver behavior leading up to the event.

Using the video clip, the risk or safety manager has the ability to coach the driver to correct unsafe behavior, reinforce good behavior and become a safer operator on the road. Driver coaching and feedback is crucial for the success of the program.

And, for the first time, in the event of mistakes by other motorists, drivers have the ability to manually record any situation, giving them a witness to back up their version of events.

Worth a thousand words
How many times have you wished you had a video clip of that "phantom vehicle?" How nice would it be to play a video in court that proves you werent at fault in an accident?

With accident-event-recorder technology, you finally have it.

Professional drivers are held to a higher standard than the average driver on the road. You have more at stake with the "cargo" that you transport. In the event of an accident, a recording of what happened just before and just after the accident is a valuable tool in the management of that claim.

Regardless of fault, a video clip of the event becomes an irrefutable witness of what took place. If the accident wasnt your fault, the video clip will clearly show this. If the accident was your fault, that same irrefutable witness will help you mitigate the claim as quickly as possible.

Without a video record of the event, you may incur tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars investigating, reconstructing and litigating a claim to come to the same conclusion. Quickly settling a claim you really owe is crucial to controlling costs.

Insurance perspective
National Interstate, a leading provider of insurance programs for the passenger transportation industry since 1989, has embraced accident-event-recorder technology. We believe it ultimately makes our highways safer, our customers better operators and, in the long run, will improve everyones overall results.

We have "put our money where our mouth is" by offering special programs to our customers to help make accident event recorders more affordable. We have contracted with several major providers of differing accident-event-recorder technology to give our customers options in meeting the individual needs of their operations.

As accident-event-recorder technology continues to evolve, National Interstate will continue to investigate and evaluate products and deliver programs designed to support and encourage the utilization of this proven risk management methodology by our insurance partners.

Michelle Silvestro is assistant vice president and national marketing manager of National Interstate Insurance Co. E-mail her at michelle.silvestro@nationalinterstate.com.