The material handling and transportation provider Bettaway Supply Chain Services says the eight new Cascadia Class 8 tractors it bought this week from Freightliner will deliver more than just cargo-pulling power, also providing a jump in road safety for the company’s drivers.
New Jersey-based Bettaway said the trucks offer an integrated driver safety and assist system called the Detroit Assurance safety systems package. Those features include: active speed intervention, side guard alerts, active brake assist with pedestrian detection, brake hold mode, adaptive cruise control, active lane keeping assist, and electronic steering assist.
According to Freightliner, the system works by fusing bumper-mounted radar with a windshield-mounted camera. It combines those sensor signals and communicates information to the truck’s brakes, engine, and transmission in real time, helping to mitigate collisions and enhance driver safety.
That package of safety technology capabilities may seem familiar to drivers of the latest high-end passenger vehicles, but they have not been available in commercial trucks until now, Bettaway President John Vaccaro said in a release. “These are the first trucks to hit the road with the Detroit Assurance ABA 5 complete suite of safety systems,” Vaccaro said. “Class 8 trucks are finally catching up to the technology in the world’s best automobiles.”
Across the industry, those safety technologies have been part of many firms’ long-term designs for creating autonomous automobiles. Those efforts are slowly improving, but in recent months, several autonomous technology providers have chosen to roll those features into dashboard suites that help human drivers stay safe instead of replacing them completely.
From Bettaway’s point of view, those safety tools could also help to shrink its commercial vehicle insurance costs, since insurance carriers reduce their premiums for vehicles that use accident-avoidance technologies. The company operates a fleet of 150 tractors and 900 trailers throughout the northeast U.S. As a pallet network operator, Bettaway’s fleet provides staging, delivery, and distribution of pallets for beverage, consumer products, and other customers nationwide through more than 500 pallet depots.
