For Geotab, the central fleet-safety problem in Southeast Asia is an evidence gap. When managers cannot see what happened on the road, the consequences can range from an unresolved claim to the loss of a life. The numbers demonstrate the scale of that risk:
- In the Philippines, the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority recorded nearly 86,000 road crashes in the country’s capital region in 2023.
- Thailand, meanwhile, registered 11.4 road traffic deaths per 100,000 people in 2021.
- In Singapore, traffic deaths reached a 10-year high of 149 in 2025, up by about 24% from 2021, while traffic violations increased by about 38% over the same period.
Beyond helping to prevent accidents, data can protect enterprises against lawsuits and help exonerate drivers when an accident does occur.
Road risks continue to multiply
In July this year, a cargo truck swerved into the opposite lane of the Maharlika Highway in Quezon province in the Philippines and ploughed into a group of people gathered outside a wake. The crash left four people dead and 11 others injured.
The police investigation revealed that the person behind the wheel was not the truck’s original driver, but a helper serving as a relief driver. The helper allegedly fell asleep shortly before midnight, sending the truck speeding off course.
Also in July, the driver of a trailer truck carrying compressed rubber blocks died after the vehicle crashed, overturned, and burst into flames while travelling downhill on Highway 304 in Na Di district, in Thailand’s Prachin Buri province. Investigators identified possible brake failure as the cause of the accident.
Although accidents cannot be prevented entirely, their frequency and severity can be reduced. Fleet managers cannot operate without visibility into what their vehicles are doing on the road or how their drivers are performing.
Why fleet managers should be concerned
When a commercial vehicle is involved in a road mishap, fleet managers deal with two types of costs.
The first category, direct costs, includes vehicle repairs, towing, third-party vehicle repairs, and, in most cases, third-party medical treatment and hospitalisation.
The second category, indirect costs, can affect fleets more severely. These include revenue lost because of vehicle downtime, higher insurance premiums, management time and administrative work, driver replacement and retraining, and legal fees in the event of a lawsuit.
Sample calculations in the Philippines indicate that direct costs can range from 145,000 PHP to 613,000 PHP, while indirect costs range from 135,000 PHP to 440,000 PHP.
Under Philippine law, employers may also be held liable when an employee causes a road accident while acting within the scope of their assigned duties. Without clear evidence of fault, insurance claims can take three to six months to settle, potentially resulting in three to six months of vehicle downtime, lost revenue, and mounting bills.
In Thailand, staged accidents and inflated claims threaten not only fleet operations, but also a company’s overall reputation. Fleet managers therefore need reliable visual evidence that can exonerate their drivers and protect their businesses.
In Singapore, the 2026 Road Traffic (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill makes simply holding a mobile phone while driving a criminal offence that can be enforced using camera evidence, with first-time offenders facing a fine of up to SG$1,000, up to six months in jail, or both.
Safety is non-negotiable
With road risks increasing, fleets are increasingly treating dashcams as non-negotiable. However, not all dashcams offer the same capabilities. Fleet managers need to be able to extract relevant data from their cameras so that, when accidents occur, they can shift the burden of proof in their favour.
Geotab’s GO Focus Plus, a native AI dashcam built for commercial fleet deployment, has been launched in the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore. Its road-facing camera provides wide-angle, continuous recording of the road ahead, establishing an objective record of details such as traffic position, signal state, and pedestrian presence. Its driver-facing camera provides a view of the cabin and monitors driver alertness and behaviour, directly addressing claims involving distraction or fatigue.
GO Focus Plus automatically saves event-triggered clips when the device detects harsh braking, sharp cornering, rapid acceleration, or a collision-level event. Fleet managers no longer have to wait for a vehicle to return to base because they can access live or historical footage remotely through the MyGeotab platform.
Emphasising proactive safety, GO Focus Plus detects and flags risky driver behaviour rather than waiting for an accident to occur. Mobile phone handling, distraction, tailgating, and seatbelt violations trigger immediate in-cab voice alerts, allowing drivers to correct their behaviour before it results in an accident or enforcement action.
Specifically, Geotab’s GO Focus Plus reduces risky driving through the following process:
- Step 1: On-device computer vision detects risky driving behaviour, including fatigue, distraction, tailgating, and hard braking.
- Step 2: Events are analysed on the device as they occur.
- Step 3: The driver immediately receives an in-cab voice alert.
- Step 4: The driver can correct the behaviour immediately, reducing the risk of an incident.
- Step 5: High-severity or repeated risky events are automatically flagged for the fleet manager.
- Step 6: Managers review the video and event data, then use the driver-coaching workflow to assign targeted feedback or coaching.
- Step 7: Drivers use in-app feedback and recommended actions to improve their future driving safety.
By prioritising incidents according to risk, the system saves fleet managers time by immediately surfacing the most urgent and complex cases, eliminating the need to search through irrelevant footage from multiple vehicles.
A conventional dashcam provides only video and audio recordings. An AI-driven video telematics solution such as Geotab GO Focus Plus combines those recordings with a broader set of features designed to protect drivers and fleet managers, prioritise safety, and help prevent accidents. Beyond the financial considerations, fleet managers must always aim to ensure that their drivers return home safely to their families every day. GO Focus Plus can help make that a reality.
