How Fleetworthy’s Stopped Vehicle Alerts are Changing Driver Behavior

A truck stopped on a highway shoulder poses serious hazards to both its driver and approaching traffic, as heavy commercial vehicles require significantly more stopping distance than passenger cars. While some stops due to breakdowns or driver illness are unavoidable, others happen when drivers pull over simply to rest or make a phone call—stops that should be avoided. Without real-time visibility, fleets cannot distinguish between necessary and unnecessary stops, nor can they track duration or frequency.

A study of an alert program in Ohio tracking slowdown warnings showed that secondary crashes involving trucks fell by 29% after alerts were introduced. Furthermore, a Fleetworthy comparison between two driver groups on the same roads found that roughly a quarter more of the alerted drivers slowed down by 5 mph or more.

Fleetworthy Safety+ features Stopped Vehicle Alerts designed to address shoulder stops. The system operates in two distinct ways: first, the fleet’s safety team receives an immediate notification day or night to verify driver safety and assess whether the stop is necessary. Second, verified stops are shared with navigation apps such as Wave and Apple Maps to warn approaching motorists and help prevent rear-end collisions.

Carrier KLLM Transport, which operates approximately 1,500 trucks, implemented the technology after previously lacking any visibility into shoulder stops. Wilson Risinger, safety leader at KLLM, noted the high effectiveness of the behavior-changing technology. KLLM instituted a strict policy where every alert triggers an immediate phone call to the driver with no exceptions, a rule backed up personally by night dispatch follow-ups.

While initial alerts frequently caught unauthorized breaks on the shoulder, drivers quickly adapted when they realized every stop resulted in a call, driving unauthorized shoulder stops down to near zero. Current alerts are now almost entirely for legitimate reasons. Additionally, the mandated calls incorporate vital safety checks, ensuring flashers are active and warning triangles are properly deployed.

Fleetworthy offers a comprehensive technology suite for fleet readiness, uniting safety, compliance, toll management, and weigh station bypass solutions. Trusted by 90% of the largest fleets in North America, Fleetworthy provides an adopted toll management solution and a weigh station bypass network, supporting millions of vehicles and drivers with AI-enabled connected fleet technology.