Kodiak AI has achieved the highest Visually Enhanced Risk Assessment (VERA) Score for safe driving performance in assessments by Nauto.
The VERA Score is Nauto’s safety benchmark that summarizes a fleet’s driving events and behaviors into a single score, enabling fleets to assess overall driver safety over time. The Kodiak Driver, Kodiak’s AI-driven autonomous system, earned a VERA Score of 98, tying for the top spot among the more than 1,000 commercial fleets in Nauto’s network. All other commercial fleets in the evaluation were operated by human drivers. By comparison, the average VERA Score for a Nauto-equipped fleet is 78, while fleets not equipped with Nauto’s AI safety technology average a VERA Score of 63.
Between 2021 and 2023, over 15,000 people died in crashes involving large trucks in the USA. Truck driving remains one of the most dangerous civilian jobs, ranking seventh in fatality rates in 2023. Long hours, distractions and tough conditions heighten risk — challenges that advanced safety tech like AI driver monitoring and autonomy can reduce.
“Nauto’s findings add support to our belief that the Kodiak Driver is already among the safest drivers on American highways,” said Don Burnette, founder and CEO, Kodiak. “We believe Nauto’s VERA Score model provides a true apples-to-apples metric for evaluating the safety of trucking fleets. As we work to expand our driverless safety case to public roads and highways, we are supplementing our internal analyses with independent, AI-powered safety validation approaches like Nauto’s to evaluate the Kodiak Driver. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Nauto, as we work to show the results of safety being the foundation of the Kodiak fleet.”
The Kodiak Driver earned top scores in Nauto’s latest safety evaluation, achieving a perfect VERA Score for Inattentive Driving, High-Risk Driving and Traffic Violations, far exceeding baseline fleet averages and outperforming top human-driven fleets. In Aggressive Driving, it scored 95, ahead of the average human-driven fleet. These results highlight Kodiak’s ability to deliver safe, consistent and reliable performance in real-world conditions.
“Our mission at Nauto is safer roads for all by providing objective, data-driven insights into safety performance in real time to drivers to prevent collisions and to fleets to manage their risk,” said Dr Stefan Heck, CEO of Nauto. “Kodiak’s near-perfect VERA Score demonstrates how AI can support and enhance fleet safety. By integrating Nauto’s advanced safety technologies, we believe fleets can better prevent risk, protect their drivers and operate more safely on the nation’s roads.”
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