Transportation incidents accounted for 38 percent of all U.S. workplace deaths in 2024, according to federal labor data. Ken Anderson, technical director of business auto risk management at Nationwide, says fleets already have the technology to address the problem. The real gap is in how consistently companies use collected data to coach drivers and reduce losses.
Nationwide's 2026 Driving Behaviors Survey found that 77 percent of commercial drivers are seeing more distracted driving around them than a year ago. About 47 percent say they feel stressed, exhausted, and frustrated while driving for work, and 70 percent worry about being killed, hurt, or held liable in a collision. Ken Anderson, technical director of business auto risk management at Nationwide, points to heavier traffic, longer workdays, and internal pressure from supervisors. Even companies with formal no-distraction policies can undermine them by calling or messaging drivers while they are on the road. "Companies have to be careful that if this is their policy, they need to make sure they're following it and not distracting drivers," Anderson says.
Telematics feeds have moved well beyond location tracking. Fleets now mine the same data streams for driver behavior indicators, including speeding, hard braking, and hard cornering, all of which raise collision risk. Anderson describes the shift in the questions fleets are now asking: "What can we learn about unsafe driver behaviors and what safer behaviors we can coach drivers on to help reduce those dangerous behaviors?" The payoff is concrete. Nationwide compared fleets in its construction book of business that actively coached drivers using telematics data against those using the same tools mainly for scheduling. The coached group had a loss ratio roughly 30 percent lower. "We're seeing it pay out in real results," Anderson says.
Dashcams can work well, but adoption depends heavily on how they are introduced to drivers. Anderson recalls one fleet where drivers were initially resistant to cameras. Acceptance changed once the purpose was reframed. "Once the drivers understood they weren't using it in a big brother way to get them in trouble," he says, and instead "to identify what unsafe behaviors we are seeing among our drivers and what things we can coach the drivers on," resistance faded. Newer AI-enabled systems now watch the vehicle cabin as closely as the road, flagging distraction before an incident occurs. Nationwide's 2025 Driving Behaviors Survey found that 65 percent of company drivers say dashcam use is now mandated by their employer, up 27 points from a prior survey period.
Collecting driving data without acting on it creates a specific legal exposure. Anderson is direct: "If companies have telematics and dashcam data and they're not acting on it, they're really not getting the best benefit of what they're spending on that system. They could also increase their liability risk in the event of a claim if they are not acting on information they're collecting." A fleet that documents a driver's risky behavior but takes no corrective action faces a harder position in litigation. The financial cost compounds quickly. A damaged vehicle stops generating revenue, an injured driver requires recruiting and training a replacement, and a branded vehicle at a roadside accident can attract media coverage the company never anticipated.
Annual MVR checks are standard practice, but Anderson argues the gap between checks leaves fleets exposed. "If you pulled an MVR in January and that driver had a serious violation or a license suspension in February, you go 11 months without ever learning about that as an employer," he says. During that window, the company continues sending that driver out every day. Seventeen states now offer pull-notice programs that alert employers when an enrolled driver's record changes. Commercial vendors provide comparable continuous monitoring outside those states. Nationwide's 2025 Driving Behaviors Survey found that 71 percent of company drivers report their employer already uses continuous MVR monitoring, suggesting the practice is gaining ground across the industry.
Advanced driver assistance systems are producing measurable results. Forward collision warning paired with automatic emergency braking has been found to cut police-reported rear-end crashes by up to 50 percent, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Adaptive cruise control can now bring a vehicle to a full stop on its own. Anderson welcomes those gains but draws a firm line around what the technology can do. "They're not a replacement for safe driving. The drivers still have to be safe," he says. Fleet programs that rely on hardware alone, without pairing it with coaching and consistent data review, miss the behavioral piece that technology cannot cover. The tools support safer driving; they do not substitute for it.
Brokers are well-positioned to help clients close the gap between the driving data they collect and the action they take on it. Most fleets already have telematics, dashcam feeds, and vehicle safety systems generating information. The problem is that many companies do not review that information consistently or use it to shape coaching conversations with drivers. Anderson says Nationwide works with clients to interpret collected data, identify patterns that may warrant intervention, and reduce the likelihood that risky behavior leads to a costly loss. Transportation incidents remain the leading cause of fatal occupational injuries in the United States, at 38 percent of all workplace deaths in 2024, which means the stakes for getting fleet risk management right remain as high as ever.
Ken Anderson: technical director of business auto risk management, Nationwide; focuses on commercial auto and fleet risk within Nationwide's business insurance division; Nationwide is a Fortune 100 company headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, rated A+ by Standard & Poor's.