Construction fleets record five times as many severe speeding events than transport operators, research finds



New SambaSafety research reveals significant differences in driver risk across industry sectors, raising questions about operating pressures, safety performance and the importance of benchmarking fleet behaviour.

Construction fleets record more than five times as many severe speeding events per 100,000 miles as transport and warehousing operators, according to new research from SambaSafety, highlighting significant differences in driver risk across industry sectors.

Drawing on more than 500 million miles of telematics data from fleets across multiple markets, covering more than 95,000 drivers and 245 fleets, alongside UK road safety statistics and industry research, the report identifies speeding, driver distraction and fatigue as key areas requiring greater attention.

The findings raise questions about the extent to which differences in driver behaviour reflect operating conditions, journey patterns and the effectiveness of fleet risk management.

The research also highlights the wider consequences of work-related driving. In Great Britain, 445 people were killed and 6,015 seriously injured in collisions involving a working driver during 2025, underlining the importance of identifying and addressing preventable risks.

The morning risk window

One of the clearest findings is the concentration of risky driving events during the morning.

Some 41% of severe speeding events and 42% of distracted driving events occurred between 6 am and midday.

The report suggests that greater vehicle activity during these hours may contribute to the findings, but also raises questions about operational pressures at the beginning of the working day.

Delivery schedules, early starts and the expectation that drivers remain contactable could all warrant closer examination by fleet operators.

Severe speeding events, defined as travelling at least 21 mph above the speed limit or exceeding 85 mph, occurred at a rate 21% higher during the morning than the all-day average.

Construction fleets show elevated risk

Risk varies significantly between industries, although differences in operating environments, vehicle deployment and journey patterns may influence the findings.

Construction fleets recorded 254 severe speeding events per 100,000 miles, compared with 48 among transport and warehousing fleets, a difference of more than fivefold.

A similar pattern emerged for distracted driving, with construction fleets recording 187 events per 100,000 miles, compared with 76 for transport and warehousing.

While these differences do not necessarily indicate that one industry manages road risk more effectively than another, they reinforce the importance of benchmarking performance against comparable operators.

Crucially, sector averages should provide a starting point for understanding risk, rather than defining what constitutes acceptable performance.

Commenting on the findings, Ian Richardson, Managing Director of FleetWise, said:

“The Fleet1000 represents a diverse mix of industries, fleet configurations and vehicle operating requirements. What stands out in this research is the significant variation in driver risk between sectors.

“While some differences may reflect the nature of the work, they also raise important questions about how effectively risk is being managed.

“Benchmarking driver behaviour against comparable fleets within the same sector should be a minimum requirement. But sector averages are only the starting point. Understanding what best-in-class operators are doing differently provides an opportunity to set more ambitious targets, improve driver behaviour and strengthen safety performance over time.”

Short journeys and harsh cornering

The report also identifies an important relationship between journey distance and speeding behaviour.

Shorter journeys of one to five miles showed a greater proportion of moderate-to-aggressive speeding than longer journeys.

In a separate analysis of more than 23,000 drivers, covering 9.2 million miles, harsh cornering accounted for nearly two-thirds of recorded telematics events.

The dataset was dominated by vans, which represented 91% of vehicles monitored.

SambaSafety cautions that roundabouts, narrow roads and vehicle characteristics can influence event frequency, highlighting the importance of interpreting telematics data within its operational context.

Fatigue remains difficult to detect

Driver fatigue presents another significant challenge.

Research cited in the report found that 48% of occupational drivers obtained fewer than seven hours of sleep before a shift, while 78% carried accumulated sleep debt.

The report also identifies clusters of harsh braking between 2 am and 6 am, and between 2 pm and 4 pm, as potential indicators of fatigue-related risk.

These findings reinforce the need for fleet operators to consider working patterns, journey scheduling, rest opportunities and driver wellbeing alongside conventional vehicle monitoring.

What should fleet managers do?

The research suggests that effective risk management starts with understanding where and why dangerous behaviours occur, rather than simply counting incidents.

For larger fleets, this means examining speeding, distraction and harsh driving by time of day, vehicle type, journey profile and operating environment.

Benchmarking performance against comparable fleets within the same sector can help identify areas of concern, while best-in-class comparisons provide a basis for setting more ambitious improvement targets.

Combining these insights with targeted driver coaching, clear policies and ongoing measurement can help fleet operators move from monitoring risk to actively reducing it.

The challenge is not simply to identify which drivers present the greatest risk, but to understand the operational factors contributing to that behaviour and what can be changed to improve safety.

These findings are drawn from SambaSafety's wider, multi-market telematics analysis and should not be described as exclusively UK fleet data. The comparison identifies differences in recorded driving behaviour, not necessarily differences in safety management effectiveness.

Research source: SambaSafety, 2026 UK Driver Risk Report: Current Trends Shaping UK Motor Risk, published October 2026. FleetWise's analysis is independently produced using selected findings from the report and publicly available road safety statistics.


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