Iteris Inc. announced that Prime Inc., a refrigerated, flatbed and tanker carrier with headquarters in Springfield, Mo., will offer Iteris’ Lane Departure Warning system as standard equipment on its national fleet of 2,600 leased and company-owned trucks.
Prime already has installed more than 100 Iteris LDW systems and expects to have its company-owned trucks fully outfitted within the year. LDW systems also will be made available to drivers of leased trucks at no additional cost on their lease and will be installed at Prime Inc.’s Springfield facilities.
LDW is designed to prevent sideswipe, run-off-road and inadvertent lane-change accidents that are usually caused by driver drowsiness, fatigue or distraction. The system uses a windshield-mounted camera that tracks lane markings using image-recognition software and proprietary algorithms that monitor the relative position of the truck within the lane. If the truck inadvertently crosses the lane markings, the system automatically emits a distinctive rumble strip sound alerting the driver to make a correction.
“Prime has always been on the cutting edge of the transportation industry when it comes to personnel, equipment and especially safety technology,” says Don Lacy, director of safety for Prime Inc.
The addition of Prime, the largest U.S. fleet to make the Iteris LDW system standard to date, brings the total number of fleets specifying the system to 25 with a combined fleet size of nearly 13,000 trucks. There are another 50 fleets with about 105,000 trucks conducting field tests.
According to a report to Congress just released by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), 32 percent of accidents involving large trucks are the result of crossing over the lane line or departing from the roadway. This type of event was the single-largest cause of truck accidents reported where the truck was the critical reason.
