Lytx has unveiled technology designed to address distracted driving: enhanced machine vision and artificial intelligence-powered risk detection.

Each day in the U.S., more than 1,000 people are injured, and nine are killed, because of distracted driving. To help combat this epidemic and alleviate other high-risk behaviors for its clients, Lytx, a provider of video telematics solutions for commercial, public sector, and field services fleets, has enhanced its machine vision and artificial intelligence (MV+AI)-powered technology to provide near real-time insight into risky behaviors like texting and driving.

This cutting-edge technology acts like a co-pilot, constantly monitoring the road and the driver, detecting risky driving, and triggering short video clips to provide insight into what’s really going on inside the vehicle. Lytx’s risk detection technology is included as part of its Driver Safety Suite and now includes the following four new MV+AI triggers: handheld device, no seatbelt, food or drink, and driver smoking. It can be coupled with Lytx’s Fleet Tracking Service to provide a complete and integrated solution for fleets looking to optimize their vehicle technology with a single vendor.

“Because of the vast scope and scale of our driving data, we have advanced the use of MV+AI to unprecedented levels within the industry. We now have the ability to more fully and accurately capture and identify risk for the fleets we serve even better than before,” said Brandon Nixon, Lytx chairman and CEO.

Lytx boasted 95% accuracy across more than 60 risky driving behaviors. In 2019 alone, Lytx labeled over 1.75 million minutes of video with cell phone use, driver unbelted, smoking, and food/drink behaviors. With this wealth of data, Lytx can now combine the precision of artificial intelligence (AI) with the discernment of professional human review.

The new triggers are an extension of Lytx’s existing MV+AI road-view triggers launched in 2015: rolling stop, lane departure, following distance, and critical distance. Both sets of triggers monitor for driving behavior patterns and select short video highlights to be analyzed and screened by Lytx’s artificial intelligence for accuracy. The validated video clips are then automatically sent via a 4G LTE cellular connection from the vehicle to the cloud, where they may be viewed by a client via their Lytx account from any internet-connected computer, smartphone, or tablet.