Safety Isn’t Expensive—Until It’s Ignored

Safety Isn’t Expensive—Until It’s Ignored

For years, the insurance industry has said it “prices risk.” In trucking, it often profits from risk instead. Clean fleets see their premiums climb after industry-wide losses, while repeat offenders hide behind loopholes and self-insurance schemes.

It’s time to flip the model and reward prevention, not payouts.

The Broken Incentive Loop

• Premiums react, they don’t prevent. Rates spike after crashes, leaving proactive carriers paying for others’ mistakes.
  
  

• Self-insurance shields mega-fleets. Large carriers cap liability internally, dodging meaningful oversight.
  
  

• Lobby dollars push liability caps— not stronger safety reforms.
  
  

Result: Safety investments look like “extra costs” instead of the ROI they truly are.

Who Pays the Price?

Stakeholder	Cost of the Status Quo
Safe owner-operators	Blanket premium hikes cut into already thin margins
Shippers & retailers	Supply-chain volatility and missed delivery windows
Motorists & communities	Higher crash rates and public health costs
Taxpayers	Emergency response bills and infrastructure damage

Numbers That Demand Change

• $3.4 M — Average payout per fatal crash (FMCSA, 2024)
  
  

• Top 20 % of carriers = 56 % of catastrophic losses
  
  

• A 0.5 % drop in severe-loss frequency → $870 M saved per year
  
  

Use these figures when you talk to insurers, brokers, or lawmakers.

Aligning Money With Safety

1. Premium Credits for Prevention
   
   

• Automatic emergency braking, tire-pressure telematics, real-time driver coaching.
  
  

2. Transparent Risk Scoring
   
   

• Tie FMCSA BASIC scores directly to rate calculations.
  
  

3. Safety-Weighted Freight Bids
   
   

• Shippers require proof of safety-linked premium discounts.
  
  

4. Blacklist Chronic Offenders
   
   

• National registry bars repeat violators from government loads.
  
  

5. Whistle-blower Protections
   
   

• Shield drivers who report forced dispatch or maintenance neglect.
  
  

Voices From the Road

“Eight years accident-free, and my premium still jumped because somebody else wrecked two states over.”
— Derrick S., Owner-Operator

“Let an underwriter ride with us for a week—they’d rewrite the whole pricing model.”
— Lena M., Hazmat Team Driver

What You Can Do

• Carriers: Compare claim history to prevention spend; share results with your insurer.
  
  

• Policymakers: Tie federal freight contracts to transparent safety credits.
  
  

• Insurers & Brokers: Publish annual “Safety Dividend” reports showing how prevention lowers claims.

Final Word

Every dollar funneled into prevention is a dollar that never has to cover tragedy. Let’s pay for safety up front—because the alternative is always more expensive.

— DrivenBy Valerie
Keeping the spotlight on the practices that put drivers—and the public—at risk.