Blending cutting-edge technology with exceptional comfort, EKSAtelecom’s innovative S30 open-ear air conduction wireless headset is crafted specifically for truck drivers’ needs.

“At EKSAtelecom, our focus on developing headphones for truckers stems from a commitment to meeting their unique needs. Long hours on the road demand comfort, durability and advanced features to ensure safe and clear communication,” said Fiona Yang, marketing manager. “The S30’s open-ear design benefits truckers by allowing them to stay connected to their surroundings, enhancing situational awareness for safer driving.”

Beyond safety, the S30 allows truckers to enjoy music, podcasts, and calls without blocking external sounds, ensuring they can stay entertained and connected while being alert to road noise.

Key Features of the S30 Headset:

• Open-Ear Comfort: The S30 boasts a state-of-the-art open-ear design that prioritizes comfort and natural, unobstructed wear. Adjustable ear hooks provide a secure fit, ideal for extended use without discomfort.

• 99.9% VoicePure ENC Noise Cancellation: Perfect for noisy environments, the S30 features an impressive 99.9% VoicePure ENC Noise Cancellation technology for clear calls, eliminating background noise and distractions.

• 70+ Hours Working Time: Enjoy over 70 hours of continuous use with the S30. A quick 5-minute charge offers 1 hour of music playback, and a full charge in two hours ensures maximum battery life.

• 99-Foot Wireless Range & IPX5 Waterproof Rating: With Bluetooth 5.3, the S30 provides seamless wireless connectivity up to 99 feet (30 meters). The IPX5 water resistance rating makes it durable against splashes and sweat, suitable for various activities.

• TubeBass™ Technology: Enhance your audio experience with TubeBass™ technology, which deepens bass and adds richness to music. This technology highlights lower frequencies, delivering robust and immersive sound with clear details and vocals.

The S30 wireless headset is available for purchase at Love’s Travel Stops, on Amazon (with a $20 off coupon), or through EKSAtelecom’s website.

Source: The Trucker

Image: The Trucker

Drivewyze has rolled out a groundbreaking service app, Drivewyze Free, designed to enhance in-cab safety for commercial truck drivers. The app delivers crucial safety messages and advisories, providing fleets and drivers with advanced notifications about potential risks on the road, as highlighted in a recent news release.

This innovative service transmits alerts and advisories directly to telematics electronic devices, ensuring timely access to vital safety information. Drivewyze Free specifically aims to offer truckers traveling along North American freight corridors heads-up warnings for high-rollover risk areas, low bridges, mountain alerts (including steep grades, chain-up/brake check stations, and runaway ramps), and pertinent rest area details. Furthermore, the app features real-time message sets, incorporating warnings for sudden slowdowns, virtual safety signs, and public emergency broadcasts.

“This is a monumental day for our company, our safety partners, and the industry,” said Brian Heath, CEO of Drivewyze. “In collaboration with our telematics and transportation agency partners, we are excited to be giving this essential safety service to the trucking industry at no cost. There are no strings attached. We’re a safety-driven company joined by like-minded agencies and telematics partners to leverage vehicle-to-infrastructure networks to improve highway safety for everyone. We know many of our Essential Alerts and Advisories modify behavior – drivers slow down and apply less hard braking. It makes them safer behind the wheel. We’re hoping all fleets will utilize this free offering to give their drivers technology that can truly make a difference to their safety.”

When users use Drivewyze Free, they also have “access to agency-sponsored real-time traffic slowdowns and other safety alerts generated in partnership with select state transportation and enforcement agencies through the Drivewyze Smart Roadways highway safety program for connected trucks.”

Participating state departments of transportation, including New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Georgia, Delaware, Connecticut, Ohio, Texas, Arkansas, and Virginia, have already joined the initiative. Additionally, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, Colorado State Police, and Wyoming Highway Patrol are active participants.

Drivewyze expresses its eagerness to collaborate with more state transportation and enforcement agencies, aiming to expand the reach of this safety-oriented service. According to Heath, essential safety alerts and advisories play a pivotal role in cultivating safer roadways.

“Unsafe driving behavior is a leading cause of truck crashes,” he said. “Messaging delivered in the vehicle, where and when drivers need it most, shows the power of connected truck technology to positively affect driving behavior. For instance, when approaching a high-rollover area, we have data that shows our alerts have reduced speed by an average of 7.3 mph for those that are going more than 5 mph over the posted speed limit. That’s an impactful difference and an example of the power of in-cab messaging to improve driver behavior and highway safety.”

A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) study underscores the significance of such initiatives, revealing that nearly 30% of all collisions occur on interstates. Of particular concern are secondary incidents, where a tractor-trailer or car rear-ends a vehicle involved in the initial crash. The NHTSA study also highlights that 46% of these secondary crashes transpire over an hour after the first incident, emphasizing the need for proactive safety measures.

“Advance notice for routes experiencing sudden or unexpected traffic slowdowns gives truck drivers time to prepare,” Heath said. “In North Carolina, where we partnered with the North Carolina DOT, studies found that 70% of drivers that received an alert slowed down ahead of an incident. And the slowdown was significant — on average by 11 mph compared to 2 mph in a control group.”

With Drivewyze Free, the aim is clear: to empower truck drivers with the information they need to navigate the roads safely and prevent accidents on our highways.

Source: The Trucker

Image: Drivewyze

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, roadway fatalities have remained steady in 2022 after two years of alarming increases. Despite Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s concerns about a national crisis of traffic deaths, the trucking industry seems to have improved its safety measures.

An annual report by video safety and telematics provider Lytx reveals that there has been a significant decrease in collisions per mile traveled among fleets using their platform. In 2022, risky driving behavior was reduced by 29%, resulting in a 23.1% decrease in collisions per 1 million miles driven compared to 2019. This drop is significant, considering that 2019 was a baseline year, and 2022 driving behaviors were impacted by COVID-19.

Lytx’s EVP and GM, David Riordan, believes that the driving environment has changed, and fleets can leverage this data to analyze their performance within the new environment and make the necessary improvements.

“This last calendar year was really the first year that everybody got back to work. We heard from clients that the transition from pandemic-level roadways to almost back to normal has been a challenge. Driving during the pandemic, there were a lot fewer cars, the speeds were higher, and all of a sudden there got to be more cars, and so you had a lot more starts and stops and risky situations,” Riordan said. “Our fleets have been able to operate in those environments and actually improve their collision rates and improve their risky driving behavior.”

According to data, the 5 driving behaviors that have improved the most from 2021 to 2022 include drivers paying more attention to scanning the roadway, avoiding blank stares, and driving at appropriate speeds, with significant reductions in these risky habits ranging from 9% to 18%.

It’s clear that fleets are taking driver safety seriously, as implementation of technology and AI is credited with these improvements. In fact, driving too fast for conditions has seen a 52% reduction between 2022 and 2020, making it the top risky behavior improvement. See how these changes are positively impacting our roads and drivers.

“During that time window was the full-scale adoption of AI to better identify new risks and actually have in-the-cab interaction with drivers so they are aware of it and can take active measures, or actively make improvements themselves in the moment,” Riordan said. “Increase in AI is proactively encouraging folks to not be distracted on their cell, or to be attentive in their driving, wear their seatbelt, maintain a proper following distance, have proper speed – all of those proactive, in-the-cab alerts have really been adopted over the course of the last three years.”

Lytx’s cutting-edge technology empowers clients to reduce risks by seamlessly integrating coaching workflows, automated driver self-improvement, and state-of-the-art machine vision and AI-based in-cab alerting solutions.

“It’s just helpful context. If you can tell them things that are industry-wide benchmarks, they can then look at their specific performance in collisions and specific behaviors and use that to set targets and have a meaningful discussion internally about where they want to improve,” Riordan said.

Lytx documented over 14 million examples of risky driving across vehicle fleets last year. The consequences of risky driving can be severe, resulting in loss of life and damage to property. Shockingly, the National Safety Council reports that the death toll on American roads increased by almost 22% compared to pre-pandemic figures in 2019.

Furthermore, the NHTSA’s annual report states that there were 31,785 fatalities on American roads during the first nine months of 2022. This is despite an increase of 39 billion miles in vehicle travel during the same period.

“The environment and the statistics on fatalities are going the wrong direction, and yet commercial fleets are getting safer and having fewer accidents,” Riordan said. “I would say this data absolutely supports the fact that commercial drivers are safer and less a contributor to the increase in collisions … The percentage (of accidents) that are preventable are such that it just further supports the fact that the outside public is the main contributor to the trends.”

Below are some other interesting finds in the study:

Time of day impacts the likelihood of a collision

• In 2022, the highest total number of collisions occurred during the daytime hours (6 a.m. to 4 p.m.), with the majority occurring at 11 a.m.
  • Alternatively, the highest collisions per vehicle (those on the road at each hour) occurred in the middle of the night (2 to 6 a.m.), with 2 a.m. the most likely time for a collision.

Day of the week impacts the likelihood of a collision

• In 2022, the highest collisions per vehicle occurred on Tuesday
  • Saturday was the safest day of the week with the lowest collisions per vehicle. Sunday was second lowest.

 Top five riskiest driving cities

1. New York, NY
   2. Philadelphia, PA
   3. Los Angeles, CA
   4. Chicago, IL
   5. Dallas/Fort Worth, TX

Top five riskiest public roadways

1. Michigan (I-94 at Merriman Road, Romulus)

– A complex airport interchange

2. New York (George Washington Bridge near Riverside Drive, NY)

– The world’s busiest vehicular bridge

3. California (Edom Hill Road and Varner Road, Desert Hot Springs)

– A lack of lane markings

4. New Jersey (NJ19 and I-80 in Paterson)

– A complex interchange with highways terminating into city streets

5. Connecticut (I-95 near Fulton Terrace, New Haven)

– A curved freeway entering the busy port of New Haven

In 2022, Lytx supported its clients in saving an impressive total of $1.4 billion in claims, including workers’ compensation and insurance claims. This was complemented by a huge saving of $402 million on vehicle maintenance. On top of that, Lytx played a significant role in helping clients to save an estimated $920 million on fuel costs, partly attributed to a commendable 16% reduction in idle times. The positive impact of this reduced idle time has prevented over 90 million tons of CO2 emissions and saved more than $24 million in wasted fuel.

Source: CCJDigital