How AI dashcams prevent nuclear verdicts

In the past 10 years, trucking nuclear verdicts, or judgments above $10 million in civil suits related to crashes, have become a top concern for fleets, as well as their maintenance and manufacturing partners. To put it more frankly, they scare the hell out of the industry. They drive up insurance premiums and legal costs, and, unfortunately, are spreading like a mushroom cloud at a time when fleets need to keep costs down as economic factors such as tariffs threaten to increase equipment and parts prices.

According to David McKnight, a principal at consulting firm The Brattle Group, commercial auto liabilities have experienced an annual growth of 10.1% since 2016.

“This is the highest growth among the segments that we track in our ‘Tort Costs in America’ study and exceeds growth in inflation or GDP over the same period,” McKnight told Fleet Maintenance.

McKnight’s research points to costs and compensation related to the U.S. tort system reaching $529 billion in 2022, more than 2% of the U.S. GDP. And 11%, or $58 billion, was related to commercial vehicles.

“Nobody can deny the fact that our industry is targeted,” asserted Drew Hofley, VP of sales for Phillips Industries. He mentioned a certain personal injury lawyer in Dallas who brags on billboards that he earned a client $27 million for injuries he suffered in a truck accident.

The lawyer’s fee was $21 million. He was also reported to have spent $6 million on his daughter’s quinceañera. It certainly seems things have gotten out of hand.

“For every dollar of revenue that [trucking companies] make, 90 cents of it goes to cover their costs,” he noted. They now must self-insure, shaving their razor-thin profit margins even more.

“Anybody who says it’s not inflationary is delusional,” Hofley opined.

And from 2022 to 2023, the amount of nuclear verdicts overall in the U.S. rose to 89, a 27% YOY increase, Marathon Industries found in the research firm’s Corporate Verdicts Go Thermonuclear report. The median award was $44 million, though the amount of thermonuclear verdicts—those above $100 million—are on the rise. Marathon said these grew by 35% in 2023. Juries from Missouri ($4 billion) and Texas ($3.7 billion) gave out the most nuclear verdicts overall across several industries.

Missouri is the same place where a jury levied $450 million in punitive damages against Wabash because an intoxicated driver sped directly into a nearly stopped 15-year-old trailer’s backend and died, as did his passenger. Judge Christopher McGraugh decided that was “grossly excessive” and lowered it to $108 million, which is still a fairly gross interpretation of justice. Texas, meanwhile, can claim the $100 million verdict against Werner Enterprises and a $160 million decision against Daimler Truck North America.

This report noted Florida dropped from second place to seventh after tort reforms were signed into law by Gov. Ron Desantis.

Taking action

With the proliferation of nuclear verdicts, fleets cannot wait for other states to reform their tort law, and they certainly cannot “duck and cover,” the recommended practice for actual nuclear explosions. They must face the threat head on. And while plaintiff lawyers emotionally manipulate juries to achieve their lucrative payouts, fleets have found technology to strike back.

In the cab itself, this means advanced driver assistance systems, including collision mitigation, lane keep assist, and blind-spot monitoring. These are always active and provide surface-level protection. Fleets can go deeper with AI-enhanced dashcams, available facing forward, inward, or both, as well as trailer options. In the event of an accident, they can provide video evidence that may exonerate a fleet. And preventatively, they act as in-cab coaches giving real-time alerts if a driver is speeding (via an accelerometer) or engaging in behavior that would distract them.

Video can also be sent to management to review certain unsafe practices for more in-depth coaching. Positive and negative events can also be used to train other drivers. Some may show how a fleet’s star driver turned certain doom into a near miss, while another can show how a momentary lapse in judgment can create a fatality.

Dashcams combined with ADAS, proper driver training, and of course, following best practices to maintain braking systems and tires, are the best offense against whatever madness awaits drivers when they leave the terminal.

“The roadways have never been more unsafe, when you think about the distracted drivers, aggressive drivers, and/or impaired drivers that are out there,” asserted Jeff Martin, global director of safety at Lytx, a provider of telematics and dashcams. “The only thing that companies can do, big and small, is put their drivers and field techs in a winning position by giving them the coaching and the technology to promote defensive driving skills.”

The results speak for themselves.

Teletrac’s dual-facing IQ Camera monitors and provides alerts for drowsy and distracted driving while also warning the driver of lane departures, following too close, and imminent forward collisions.

“We have seen customers that reduced [accident] rates above 70% and really saved millions of dollars,” explained Abhishek Gupta, Motive SVP of Product Management. “The use of AI coaching and workforce management will only help reduce the impact of potential nuclear verdicts, because what it’ll do is create more documentation, less risk, and less liability for all these fleets.”

Alain Samaha, president and CEO of Teletrac, pointed to the power of video proof as another reason to invest in dashcams. After adopting Teletrac’s AI-powered IQ Camera, he said one fleet “had three back-to-back incidents across their fleets, and they got exonerated from all of them.”

These were fender benders, to his recollection, so not enough to detonate a nuclear verdict, but still speak to AI dashcams’ potential. Teletrac’s system not only detects driver fatigue and distracted driving, but also alerts operators to lane departures, tailgating, and forward collisions. Side and trailer cameras are also available. Drivers can also press a button to activate recording, which is sent to Teletrac’s fleet management system, TN360.

Samsara’s AI Dash Cams saved Foundation Building Materials around $100,000 in savings due to exonerating evidence, according to Ted Gill, VP of fleet and safety at FBM. “We’ve seen injury incidents go down because we have fewer traffic accidents, and we’ve had fewer DOT violations for speeding and other moving violations,” he added.

Utah’s Canyons School District, meanwhile, said their fleet of 500 buses saved $80,000 in claim payouts and cut accidents by half.

There are several options at various price points, but they all have one thing in common: they are an immediate nuclear deterrent that every commercial fleet should consider.