You’d Be Surprised at How Much Tech Goes Into Truck Safety

We often think of trucks as huge lumbering machines. To witness these massive vehicles barreling down a highway is as scary as it is impressive. As most people already know, when you’re dealing with that much mass and speed, ensuring that you don’t crash the truck is going to take much more skill and and much more care than you would need with a smaller vehicle.

We’ve long been dependent on our technology to help us with tasks that would normally be too difficult to sustain over a long period of time. The same is true with trucks. So, what safety tech lies beneath these monsters on the road?

Dynamic Routing

Dynamic routing allows truck drivers to plot a course to their destination, along with updating them in real-time to provide drivers with alternate routes. This can help drivers to avoid traffic jams, along with allowing them to avoid congested areas where accidents are more likely to happen.

LiDAR

Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) refers to a remote sensing method that makes use of a pulsed laser to determine the distance of objects in a truck’s path. What sets LiDAR apart from other sensor arrays is that it’s quicker and more accurate and it allows trucks to alert drivers of imminent danger well ahead of time.

Electronic Logging Devices

Electronic logging devices, or ELDs, are no longer just a safety option. After the Canadian ELD Mandate, these have become a mandatory addition to any commercial truck. These devices track and record a driver’s hours of service to ensure that drivers do not work more than the limit set by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA). While it may not be a direct safety measure, it does help the FMCSA enforce a rule that needs to be strictly observed.

Truck Tracking

GPS devices are rather common on vehicles that belong to a fleet. And while most people think that GPS trackers are to prevent theft, it also serves to give truck drivers notice regarding the status of the area they’re passing through. GPS tracking, paired with a system database that keeps track of whether an area is a high-theft area, will help truck drivers greatly as they navigate through these areas.

Not only that, but a truck tracker will also be valuable as an additional sensor for internet-of-things connectivity in relation to other vehicles in the fleet.

There are many pieces of technology that manufacturers and companies invest in their commercial trucks.The value of understanding these technologies goes beyond simply satisfying a passion for curiosity. The importance of knowing the safety tech in a truck helps form a better understanding of how trucks work and why they are as expensive as they are.