Fleet operators could face financial losses by installing inadequate forward-facing cameras that fail to accurately record when a vehicle is involved in an accident or an incident, Intelligent Telematics says.
This could result in the fleet, insurance and road transport sectors facing millions of pounds in costs every year, as poor cameras provide inaccurate evidence for the defence or mitigation of insurance claims, says Nick Plowman, CTO of Intelligent Telematics. There is a huge interest in such cameras, as more and more companies grasp the benefits the technology can deliver, as forward-facing cameras can prove what happened and could be used to protect against avoidable insurance costs, he added.
Fleet operators should consider cameras that capture data at ten times a second in order to make sure the impact speed is identified at the precise moment an incident occurs. It is also important that the camera is mounted equally on both the horizontal and vertical levels to have a zero g-force reading when static, which is impossible to achieve when the camera is installed manually.
Companies are advised to mount the cameras angled forward in order to pick up more blind spots, so the car will register automatically up to 0.45g when stationary. Automatic calibration is a must for any camera in order for it to ensure correct measurement and to protect the legitimacy of the data captured. For this reason, it is important that fleet operators carefully consider which cameras to invest in, in order to avoid increased insurance costs, Plowman said.
11 March 2014
