How Lytx Can Help You Meet the Direct Vision Standard

HGV operators throughout London are racing to meet the requirements of Mayor Sadiq Khan’s ambitious Vision Zero scheme. Vision Zero is designed to completely eliminate all pedestrian and cyclist deaths and serious injuries on London roadways by 2041.

Operators striving to reach Vision Zero must take a comprehensive approach to fleet safety management that helps both drivers and fleets achieve truly 360° vision. By seeing a fleet’s entire safety picture, operators can prioritise changes that will make streets safer for everyone.

Unlike similar initiatives that hinge on merely improving behaviour, Vision Zero seeks to reduce road dangers by lowering speed limits, redesigning junctions, and limiting the most dangerous vehicles.

That last part — removing the most dangerous vehicles from roadways — requires the 250,000 HGVs that operate in London each year to meet new safety standards that will tighten between now and 2024. That’s because HGVs have been found to be disproportionately involved in pedestrian and cyclist injuries and fatalities. For example, HGVs drive fewer than 5 percent of all kilometers driven in London, yet were involved in 50 percent of 2016 collisions that killed cyclists.

The Direct Vision Standard (DVS) rates all HGVs over 12 tonnes on a scale of zero (least safe) to five (safest). This rating reflects how well a driver can see the road (and pedestrians and cyclists) from his cab.

Many HGVs were originally designed for off-road usage, with elevated cabs that create dangerous blind spots. While vehicles are increasingly designed with lower cabs and larger windows, older vehicles must be retrofitted with safety systems to meet DVS requirements.

Beginning in February 2021, zero-star vehicles will only be permitted on London roads if they install such systems. By 2024, the standard will apply to vehicles that rate less than 3 stars.

See the bigger picture: Safety systems that support the Direct Vision Standard

Giving drivers 360° vision not only helps meet the DVS, but it also helps you improve your fleet’s overall safety. Lytx has developed best-in-class safety solutions, including 360° auxiliary cameras with wide-angle, dual lenses that can be positioned at the front, rear, left, and right to help your visibility.

These cloud-connected dash cams and the Lytx Video Platform can help you be your driver’s co-pilot. The insights gathered can help you coach drivers to adjust their behaviours to remain focused on their visibility lines while on the roads. With a searchable dashboard of video clips showing both the road and in-cab views, you can gather facts about a collision or ensure a driver’s compliance with your safety procedures.  

Lytx DriveCam event recorders combine machine vision (MV) and artificial intelligence (AI) to discover which driving patterns correlate with risk. For example, MV+AI can identify when a driver is distracted by a mobile phone. An in-cab alert will sound as appropriate — potentially preventing a collision. Plus, Lytx combines dash cams with GPS, giving you insight into more dangerous routes while optimising productivity and improving customer service.

Build a safety culture that helps attain Vision Zero

Beyond the Direct Vision Standard, cultivating your own safety culture and improving driver behaviour will help attain Vision Zero in London and beyond. The Lytx Driver Safety Programme leverages camera technology so you can better know your drivers’ behaviours — and then work with them to make positive changes that can prevent collisions and reduce claims costs by up to 75 percent.

Lytx begins by reviewing more than 60 risky driving behaviours, such as unsafe following distance, driver unbelted, and distracted driving, to help identify which behaviours pose the greatest risk. With this data, you can recognise your safest drivers and work with those who may not realise they have developed bad habits.

Building a safety culture to support the Vision Zero initiative requires buy-in – from senior executives all the way to frontline operators. A programme that supports drivers with a coaching model to help them develop their professional skills while also reinforcing safe driving behaviour with positive recognition can help foster a culture of safety. In addition, video evidence that exonerate operators from false claims can be a powerful tool in helping to win over skeptics. 

Lytx is committed to help you obtain 360° visibility to improve safety

For more than 20 years, Lytx has been advancing fleet safety, efficiency, and compliance. By taking a 360° approach to fleet safety, we are helping fleets around the world see the whole picture so they can manage and change risky behaviours while improving productivity and efficiency.

Rather than simply recording video, Lytx combines video and telematics with expertise gleaned from more than 120 billion driving miles. That data helps us identify, categorise, and score the driving behaviours most related to collisions, then apply that experience to your fleet’s unique needs — so you can build and improve your safety culture while complying with DVS and other safety standards.

The result is fewer collisions, more productive fleets, and safer roads for everyone. See how one customer, Flogas, attained a 43 percent reduction in collisions with the Lytx Driver Safety Programme.

Learn how Lytx can help achieve Direct Vision Standard compliance

Lytx can help your fleet plan for and comply with DVS and other Vision Zero goals while building a strong safety culture. Book a demo today.

This blog is for informational purposes only.  It is not intended to convey legal opinion or advice.