Bridging the Gap Between Safety Culture and the Driver Experience

Published on September 23, 2026

There’s a good chance that if you asked drivers at the industry’s best fleets whether their company takes safety seriously, most would say yes. The Best Fleets to Drive For^® data backs that up: 80% of drivers at Top 20 and Hall of Fame fleets strongly agree that their company believes safety is a top priority.

That’s a strong result, but the other 20% is worth paying attention to. These aren’t drivers at fleets with poor safety records or weak safety programs. They’re drivers at some of the best fleets in the industry who don’t strongly feel that safety comes first.

So, what’s behind that gap?

It may not have much to do with whether a fleet has the right safety policies or technology in place. Most leading fleets have plenty of both. The bigger issue may be what happens after those policies and technologies come into play, and how those day-to-day interactions shape the way drivers experience their company’s safety culture.

Technology Is Part of the Culture, But It Isn’t the Culture

Today’s fleets have more information about driver behavior than ever before, and it’s easy to equate safety culture with safety technology. If a fleet is using forward-facing cameras, analyzing telematics data, spec’ing trucks with the latest advanced driver assistance systems, among other safety technologies, they must have a strong safety culture, right? It very well could, but according to the Best Fleets data, it’s not that simple. For example, the Best Fleets all use forward-facing dashcams, while 23% use inward-facing cameras as standard practice and another 9% use them for new drivers or corrective action.

The difference, according to Best Fleets evaluators, isn’t necessarily whether a fleet has the technology. It’s how the fleet uses the information that technology provides.

A dashcam can help identify a hard braking event, issues with following too closely or other potentially risky events, but the footage itself doesn’t tell a fleet how to respond. One company might use a safety event as the starting point for a conversation about what happened, what circumstances contributed to it and what could be done differently. Another might treat the same footage primarily as evidence of a violation and move directly into corrective action.

Both fleets have the same technology, but the driver experience can vary. That distinction matters because drivers don’t experience a company’s safety culture by reading its policies or looking at the technology installed in their trucks. They experience it through their interactions with dispatchers, safety managers, fleet managers and supervisors.

This may also help explain the 20% gap in driver perception. Leadership can believe safety is the company’s highest priority, and the safety department can have excellent policies and procedures in place. But if that message isn’t consistently reinforced by the people working directly with drivers, the driver’s perception of the company can be very different from what management intended.

What Happens After Something Goes Wrong?

The response to a safety event may be one of the clearest ways for a driver to determine whether a company truly values safety and its drivers.

The Best Fleets data shows that 80% of fleets provide remedial training after an infraction, suggesting that most leading fleets recognize the importance of addressing unsafe behavior and preventing future problems. That training can take many forms, from one-on-one coaching to online driver training that allows fleets to address specific areas of need. However, only 44% check on driver welfare, while driver involvement in accident reviews has fallen to 33%.

Those numbers don’t necessarily indicate that fleets are doing a poor job. There are good reasons for having formal accident reviews, corrective-action procedures and documented training requirements. But they do raise a question about how much attention is being given to the driver as part of that process.

After a collision or serious safety incident, the fleet needs to understand what happened and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. That process can also provide an opportunity to better understand the driver’s experience and the circumstances surrounding the incident: How is the driver doing? Was there something unusual about the situation that isn’t obvious from the accident report? Is there something the company could have done differently? What does the driver need to make sure a similar event doesn’t happen again?

Those conversations can provide information that isn’t available through a camera, telematics system or accident report. They can also help determine whether a driver sees the safety process as something being done to them or something the company is working on with them.

Are Fleets Measuring Safety Culture?

The Best Fleets data also raises a related question about how fleets determine whether their safety programs are working.

Nearly all fleets use technology and traditional safety outcomes as primary measures of performance. Crashes, violations, CSA scores and other safety events provide valuable information, but fewer fleets measure the effectiveness of their interventions or whether those interventions actually change driver behavior. Even fewer appear to measure how drivers perceive the safety culture.

That creates a potential blind spot. Fleets can measure whether a safety event occurred, whether a camera captured it, whether an alert was triggered and whether a driver subsequently completed training. Those measurements tell the company what happened and what actions were taken, but they don’t necessarily tell the company whether the intervention worked or how the driver experienced the process.

Driver perception is more difficult to quantify than a crash rate or CSA score, but it provides important context for those measures. If a driver believes management genuinely cares about their safety, they may be more comfortable reporting concerns, asking questions and discussing situations in which they aren’t sure what the right decision is. If every interaction with the safety department feels primarily punitive, drivers may be less inclined to raise concerns or admit when they need help.

Building a Safety Culture Drivers Can See

Across the board, the Best Fleets have consistently shown their ability to adapt and innovate their safety programs. As new technologies, data and approaches become available, these fleets continue to look for ways to make their operations safer and more effective. That willingness to evolve is an important part of what makes these fleets leaders in the industry.

When drivers know their company is committed to getting them home safely, they’re more likely to trust the people and programs around them. That trust can carry into other areas of the driver experience, from communication and recognition to professional development, equipment and overall engagement. In that sense, it helps create the environment where drivers want to work and stay.

The Best Fleets data suggests that most drivers at these top-performing fleets already recognize that commitment. The challenge is making sure the experience is consistent for everyone, because safety culture isn’t simply what a fleet says it values. It’s what drivers experience when they’re behind the wheel.