Instead of relying on crashes and insurance claims as the primary safety metric, fleets will soon be increasingly relying on other metrics like near-collisions, fatigue, distraction and other behavior-based signals captured by AI dashcams when evaluating safety risks. This is according to the latest Motive 2026 AI Road Safety report released Jan. 8.

For every collision, fleets now see seven near-collisions. And these near-misses, Motive says, are becoming the most important leading indicator of risk, because they allow safety managers to intervene before someone is hurt or equipment is damaged.

Fatalities on decline in 2025

Collision trends in the U.S. in 2025 varied by state, Motive says, citing federally-reported data. Several large freight states reported a steep decline in collisions, including Florida, North Carolina and New Jersey, with 42.6%, 29.8% and 24.8% declines, respectively. Meanwhile, some other states recorded increases, including Rhode Island, Montana (13.5%) and Maine (11.3%). And despite the 24.8% increase in total collisions, Rhode Island reported no fatalities.

Overall, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is reporting an 8.2% decrease in traffic fatalities on the U.S. roads in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, the largest mid-year decline in more than a decade, even as Americans drove more than 12.1 billion more miles.

This leads Motive to say that higher mileage does not equal to higher collision risks.

“Our data suggests that what has changed isn’t driver behavior – it’s visibility,” said Hamish Woodrow, head of strategic analytics and data engineering at Motive, in the report. “If anything, driving is getting harder, with more distraction from cell phones, denser traffic, and tighter delivery pressure. The risk has always been there. What’s different now is that AI allows organizations to see it earlier, coach drivers more consistently, and intervene before unsafe behavior turns into a collision.”

Routes, driver behavior matter more than miles driven

Motive’s report analyzed 1.2 billion hours of data from commercial drivers’ Motive AI Dashcam across the United States, Mexico, and Canada. And one of the findings was that even though transportation and logistics fleets drive the most miles, they also have the lowest overall collision rates. Meanwhile, industries like agriculture, waste and recycling, and field services face far higher collision exposure, even though they typically operate fewer highway miles. But drowsiness is a strong predictor of collisions, remaining a main contributor to crashes across all fleet and service types.

Drivers in the agriculture sector show the highest rates of cell phone use – one of the top five most distracting behaviors linked to collisions, Motive identified, adding that generally, cell phone use peaks in the late afternoon.

At the same time, smoking behind the wheel occurs around 3,800 times per day, making it one of the most underestimated forms of distraction Motive sees across its platform. The company says that last year it detected more than 1.3 million smoking events, warning that just like phone use, smoking takes hands, eyes and attention away from driving  and becomes increasingly dangerous when combined with speeding or fatigue.

Drowsiness is common among drivers who work in overnight operations or have an early-morning start, Motive says, adding that fatigue increases sharply between 6 and 7 a.m. Risk worsens when it is combined with fatigue and low visibility.

Late-night and early-morning driving, for example, carries the highest risk, with collision rates peaking around 3 a.m. prior to fall, when risk is nearly three times higher than at midday, according to the report. Risk also increases around 1 a.m.

Another dangerous time to drive is at dusk, especially after daylight saving time ends in October, when darkness falls earlier. Collisions have been highest around 6 p.m., during dusk, at about 2.4 times higher than the midday rate. 

“Evening and early-morning risk isn’t new. What’s new is how consistently it shows up across regions and industries,” said Woodrow. “Drowsiness has always been a leading indicator of collision risk, but it’s been one of the hardest to quantify until now.”

Seasonal factors must be taken into consideration as well, as Motive says collision rates rise at fall and peak in winter. This is when visibility decreases along with fewer daylight hours, weather and holiday-related workload increase.

Aggressive driving, too, remains one of the most dangerous risk factors on the road. Drivers involved in crashes often exhibit consistently high rates of speeding, hard cornering, and lane swerving, compared to those who avoid collisions. In October 2025 alone, drivers who experienced a collision were 25% more likely to hard corner or swerve lanes and 7% more likely to speed, Motive says, adding that collisions most often preceded by an accumulation of risky behaviors over time. 

Unsafe patterns vary by city

However, those risky behaviors that most often lead to collisions differ by location.

Analyzing data from San Francisco, Calif., Austin, Texas, and Nashville, Tenn., Motive found that speeding was the most common risky behavior in all three cities and the behavior most strongly correlated with collisions. Cell phone use also ranked among the top five.

But Nashville stood out with its aggressive highway driving patterns, the report says. Drivers there speed at nearly twice the rate of drivers in Austin, and close following and unsafe lane changes are also among the city’s top collision-linked behaviors. Motive links that to heavy interstate use, fast-moving suburban traffic, and rapid population growth, adding that as commuter traffic continues to expand, these risks are likely to persist into 2026.

Austin, meanwhile, also sees high levels of speeding, but fewer aggressive secondary behaviors. And yet, the city’s drivers are about 20% more likely to be involved in a collision than those in Nashville.

“What’s interesting is how differently speed shows up across cities,” Woodrow said. “In places like Austin, speed is a key risk, but it’s less often paired with aggressive maneuvering — likely reflecting wider roads and commuter-driven traffic rather than dense, high-pressure driving environments.”

In San Francisco, dense urban conditions create a very different risk profile. While it has the highest collision rate of the three cities, most crashes occur at low speeds, averaging under 5 mph, compared with more than 20 mph in Austin and Nashville. Drivers in San Francisco are also 25% more likely to be involved in a collision than Austin drivers. Stop sign violations there  occurring 3.5 times more often than in Nashville.