One of North America’s largest weigh station bypass services is now offering an additional safety feature to help drivers prepare for inclement weather events and prevent weather-related accidents.
Drivewyze has integrated its technology with the National Weather Service to provide almost real-time severe weather heads-up alerts on impending dangerous driving conditions via its Safety+ driver notification platform.
The feature, which employs geofencing technology to pinpoint extreme or severe weather occurrences up to 50 miles away, gives drivers time to slow down, alter routes or pull over.
C.R. England and Western Express’s use of Drivewyze’s geofencing function prompted the software provider to develop the new service across the U.S.
Western Express created its own weather alerts around major interstates using Drivewyze’s geofencing capabilities to give its drivers a heads up on incoming snow, chain requirements, when states aren't allowing empty trailers to be transported due to weather conditions and heat advisories for flatbed drivers so they would be reminded to hydrate.
“We invest heavily in technology, and we know the alerts we put out there worked,” said Western Express Director of Safety Daniel Patterson. “We saw a reduction in our accident rates. That’s why we were involved in the beta test, providing feedback to Drivewyze. Now that testing is complete, we’re excited about Drivewyze going live with the severe weather alerts; it takes what we and others were doing manually and builds it out exponentially. It’s something that’s going to have an impact on reducing accidents, while making life easier for drivers behind the wheel.”
According to data from the FMCSA, weather is a factor in 20% of truck crashes that result in death and 12% that result in injuries.
