Hunter-Davisson
Services, Utilities & Logistics
- Customer Story
GreenRoad helped Hunter-Davisson, Inc. reduce insurance cost-of-claims by 71% and number-of-claims by 32%.
Immediately after installing GreenRoad, our vehicle accidents dropped precipitously.
Dave Wright, EVP Operations
THE CHALLENGE
Hunter-Davisson, Inc., a large HVAC/R contracting and service firm in Portland, Oregon, first turned to GreenRoad in 2014 after several previous safety initiatives failed to improve its accident record.
“Our problem was simply that our drivers were having too many wrecks,” commented Dave Wright, Hunter-Davisson’s EVP Operations. “We were worried about the safety of our employees and about our reputation, and our insurance payments were unacceptably high. We were very, very serious about making a change.
“We had several false starts. We began looking at telematics systems, but didn’t find anything focused on safety. Their salespeople would say, ‘We can show you which drivers are doing side jobs on the weekend using your gas’ – but that’s not what I wanted. I didn’t want to be Big Brother, I wanted to change driving behavior.”
“Next we tried putting ‘How am I diving?’ bumper stickers on the back of our vans. We got plenty of calls and feedback – actually positive as well as negative – but bottom line, the impact on our accidents was negligible.”
Mr. Wright continued, “Now fast forward to 2014. Our vehicle accident frequency remained troubling. And then we had two serious rear-end accidents, and a lot of minor accidents.
At our request, our insurer brought us a holistic safety consultant, and he recommended GreenRoad. He explained that its approach was all about safety and changing driver behavior. I was excited and intrigued: this was the approach I had been looking for.
THE SOLUTION
In 2014, with the encouragement of its insurance company, Hunter-Davisson deployed the GreenRoad Edge™ Driver Safety Platform across its service fleet. First, GreenRoad Edge™ devices and LED feedback panels were installed in all Hunter-Davisson vehicles to monitor driving behavior and to provide real-time feedback to the drivers. Then, drivers were given the GreenRoad Drive™ mobile app so they could check their safety scores – that is, their overall performance in the areas of speeding, braking, acceleration, cornering and lane changing – at will, while also benefitting from detailed behavior analyses of their driving style and personalized driving tips.
Mr. Wright continued, “I liked the whole concept of using lights for feedback: the fact that the driver has a visual on the dashboard as opposed to buzzers, which I find annoying and distracting. On the management side, I liked the KPI dashboard, which gives me a bird’s-eye view of the whole fleet’s safety status with drill-down into the details of individual drivers.
The most important thing was that the system put responsibility for safety right in the driver’s lap. Drivers didn’t need me to sit at my desk reading a report once a week and saying, ‘Hey, last week there was a day that you took a corner too fast:” that’s not something I want to do, and it’s also not effective. With GreenRoad, the drivers themselves can see where they need to improve, right away. That makes all the difference.
System launch: Hunter-Davisson kicked-off the system with an organization-wide meeting and a two-week ‘blind’ trial for both technicians and management.
“We had recently had two serious at-fault collisions, and we were determined to drive home the need for change,” continued Mr. Wright. “I had a tow truck bring the wrecked vehicles and park them right in front of the business for everyone to see. And then I showed them a lawsuit that had been filed against one of our technicians personally, explaining that they’re not off the hook when an accident is in a company vehicle. I said, ‘We’ve got to make a change. This is a system that will make a difference: it can save your life as well as our business. As a bonus, it will make our dispatchers more efficient and help with maintenance. But the reason we’re doing it is safety. We’re going to install this on every single vehicle, starting with mine.’”
Early deployment: Mr. Wright continued, “The first two weeks were a shock for everyone – including for me. It was like ‘Holy cow, I’m in the red!’ But it started making everyone aware of how they actually drove – habitual things they did that were risky. Stopping too quickly, going around a corner too fast, many things.
“For the first two months, some complained, saying that the system wasn’t accurate. But we saw from our own experience – and more and more of the drivers saw – that the system didn’t lie. Driver complaints went down. And then we started getting results. It was astonishing how quickly driving behavior improved and accidents declined.”
THE Result
Insurance costs: Hunter-Davisson’s cost-of-claims since installing GreenRoad have declined by 71% and its number of claims has declined by 32%. “We have saved well into the six figures on insurance costs since we installed GreenRoad, and our insurance premiums have gone up much slower than those of other companies.”
Collisions: “We have seen a significant decline in the number and severity of accidents. We are all human and do still get incidents now and then, but we are at a whole different place now than we were at the beginning.”
Decline in Risk Scores: “Within a year, use of GreenRoad cut our average driver risk score nearly in half – from 48 to 26 – and it has stayed steady for the past 6 years. Our goal is for everyone to stay in the green, and we continuously work on it.”
Support: “The last piece of the puzzle is the support that we get from the GreenRoad team. They care about our success, and they are responsive to our needs. All of this – coupled with a system that works. That’s why I’m comfortable championing GreenRoad.”
