A new product on the market aims to save lives by reducing driver distractions.
Nauto Prevent uses artificial intelligence to detect distractions and immediately warn drivers in real-time when they take their eyes off the road for too long.
Prevent is an addition to the company’s flagship product, Nauto Coach, an intelligent driver safety system, launched a year ago. Coach is a two-way facing camera placed near the rear-view mirror to track both driver behavior and road conditions.
The technology was developed to help fleet managers identify the highest-risk drivers, so they can work to improve their behavior behind the wheel, ultimately reducing the risk of at-fault collisions. Atlas-insured fleets with Nauto have reduced claims by more than 35 percent. The commercial auto insurer giant is giving an insurance premium discount of $500 per vehicle to fleets that install Coach.
So far, the company has recorded 54 percent fewer distractions per hour behind the wheel with early-adoption customers, and more than 70 percent fewer in some drivers.
How it works
A fraction of driving time, such as distractions or other high-risk events, is uploaded to a secure web application in the cloud, where it’s automatically visible to fleet managers. This policy provides important safety insights while protecting the privacy of drivers, the company says.
The goal is to keep the driver safe without being intrusive, Nauto CEO Stefan Heck told TechCrunch.
“We want to help human drivers, not just rat them out to their boss,” he said.
Camera, sensors and algorithms gather data to give drivers a VERA score (Visual Enhanced Risk Assessment) that managers use to assess the overall risk of drivers. Drivers will receive notifications if they’re distracted, tailgating or if there are other potential risks on the road. The notifications begin with a beep, then a voice warning of “you are distracted” and finally an alarm.
Prevent’s list price is $500, with a monthly fee of about $40, depending on the customer and market.
The product is in use across several taxi, ride-sharing, rental, package delivery, and enterprise service fleets. Data collected from Nauto eventually will be used in preparing driverless vehicles with real-world scenarios involving distracted drivers, according to TechCrunch.
