Technology for a Safer Fleet

Safety is paramount for pest control professionals—whether in the field or on the road. Protective equipment and protocols keep technicians safe at a jobsite, but out on the road, many of the risks they face while behind the wheel are simply out of their control.  

Advances in electronic monitoring technologies are helping pest control companies combat these risks through coaching programs that make for better drivers and video evidence that protects technicians against wrongful claims.  

“The more mileage you have, the higher risk that you are,” says Katie Sisterman, safety, health, and environmental director at Ecolab. With a network of more than 6,200 drivers globally at her company, this is a fact Sisterman takes very seriously. So seriously, that in 2024, Ecolab implemented about 3,700 dashcams in its vehicles across North America in an effort to improve driver safety and control rising insurance and vehicle costs. The investment resulted in a 17% reduction in the company’s total vehicle accident rate in 2025—more than twice the reduction seen over the last eight years.  

“We’ve tried other types of safety programs … and with each thing that we would implement, we’d see some progress, but it was always limited,” Sisterman says, emphasizing the dashcams have made the biggest impact on fleet safety because the feedback is specific, direct, and often in real time, allowing for coaching that creates lasting driving improvements.   

Data-Backed Coaching Programs  

Pest management companies use electronic monitoring tools not just to catch bad behavior, but to systematically improve driver safety through coaching and accountability. While dashcams with artificial intelligence technology can offer real-time correction for things like speeding, the camera’s telematic systems also collect data to help improve driver behavior over time.  

Data is collected on events as they happen to identify which areas employees may need to improve on and to notify managers that a certain behavior may be an issue. Rolling through stop signs, for example, can be particularly eye opening, because most technicians don’t realize they are doing it until they see the video evidence.  

“You see the behavior change because they’re now seeing, ‘Oh, this is just a habit I didn’t even realize I had,’ and they can make the change and improve that,” says Sisterman, explaining that this type of feedback can be effective because driving for many people becomes almost automatic.  

“We’re not really paying attention; we get a little bit complacent,” she says. “We roll through the stop sign because it’s the same stop sign you go through every single day on the way home, and so the camera is giving the associate that real-time feedback to allow them to change the behavior.” 

For Ecolab, manager-associate coaching is built into its program so that supervisors are notified of certain driver events based on predetermined parameters. This means that although there is a camera pointed at the driver, the driver isn’t actually being watched at all times. The camera is only looking for problematic behavior like cellphone usage.  

“We can decide what things we want … to coach on,” Sisterman explains. “We can decide which ones we want drivers to just coach themselves on, or which ones we want our managers to do the coaching on.”  

Speeding thresholds, for example, can be set so that the driver is alerted if they go above a certain speed. The dashcam can sense an unwanted behavior and remind the driver to slow down. Or if there are rolling stops, a threshold can be set to say a driver should receive self-coaching for every single rolling stop via a video clip sent to an app on their phone.  

“They’re going to have to go in and review that coaching event and acknowledge that they saw the video, but we can also set something that says every third time they roll through a stop sign, now we want the coaching to go to the manager, and then the manager will get alerted,” explains Sisterman.  

Steve Bopp, fleet and safety manager at Rottler Pest Solutions, based in Missouri, takes a similar approach. Direct managers are responsible for coaching their drivers if specific events come up.   

“When I first started managing the program, we had a lot of events coming in, and so it was really concentrating on those larger, more impactful events,” says Bopp. “Rolling stops used to be our No. 1 issue, by and far a lot, and we’ve gotten that to where we have very few drivers doing even one rolling stop in a month, much less multiple in a month.  

“It’s taken years and a lot of hard work from our managers on coaching our drivers to get to that point,” he adds. 

Sisterman had a similar experience with the initial dashcam rollout. The program required a few weeks of baseline data collection to determine what the biggest problems were and where the company needed to focus its attention. Ecolab’s telematic system is critical in analyzing this data and customizing its coaching.  

“You can’t just coach on everything, or it’s going to be way too overwhelming,” says Sisterman. “You really have to pick the focus areas, and then as the program evolves and we get better at certain things, you change your focus.” 

The Business Case for Dashcams  

Electronic monitoring devices serve a purpose beyond improved fleet safety, offering insurance reductions, liability protection, route optimization, and customer service benefits.  

“We have found that … the better we manage our camera system and our driving habits, the better our insurance policies are,” says Bopp. “We have fewer accidents, fewer fender benders and different things like that, so therefore fewer claims, and we can help keep those premiums down, as well as major accidents that really drive up those premiums.”  

These cost reductions were a major consideration for Ecolab as it considered fleet safety measures that would also contribute to lower insurance and vehicle repair costs. 

“There’s inflation in all of the spaces, and so for us to try to kind of control and manage those costs a little bit was to really figure out what is the next thing that’s right for our business,” says Sisterman.  

Dashcams also provide a record of truth, helping protect technicians in the case of accidents or false claims. They support accurate police reports, discourage fraud, and document incidents that might otherwise go unresolved. 

“Now we have the camera footage; we could see our driver was doing absolutely everything right, and you can see who is at fault,” says Sisterman. “And then they don’t have to go through months, or sometimes even years, of litigation proceedings and having to sit through depositions to talk about a situation where it’s one party versus the other, because it’s very clear, and we have the evidence.”  

This benefit was almost immediate for Ecolab, adds Sisterman, noting that it had several incidents where its drivers were not at fault within weeks of activating the cameras.  

“We had numerous situations where associates were like, ‘This was not my fault,’ and the footage clearly showed that it was not their fault,” says Sisterman.  

Often backed by powerful telematic systems and data, dashcams are more than just recording devices. Certain telematic systems include weather updates that notify drivers of upcoming severe weather, and they provide maintenance support through push notifications and alerts for upcoming services, vehicles issues, and repairs.  

The benefits even extend to company branding, with opportunities to project a better company image through safer, more experienced drivers.   

“Coaching and having better drivers out there create a better image,” says Bopp. “I do feel that [dashcams] are a benefit in a lot of aspects that just simply go outside of safety.”  

Implementing Monitoring Without Destroying Employee Trust 

Despite the benefits, pest control companies are often apprehensive about infringing on employee privacy. Nobody likes the idea of being watched or “monitored,” but there are ways to implement dashcams without destroying employee trust.  

The first step is establishing a policy of transparency and education before implementation even begins. Managers should be answering all questions around privacy concerns, explaining what they will be seeing and why, and how dashcams actually benefit drivers.   

Ecolab worked closely with the human resources and legal teams to ensure they addressed employee concerns in a meaningful way and focused on the protections dashcams offer. They also installed cameras in all company vehicles—including those of senior leaders—so that employees at all levels have an opportunity to address their driving behavior.  

“You have to just come out and say, ‘I get this feels different or uncomfortable,’ ” says Sisterman, noting that since implementation the company has had very few complaints or concerns about the dashcams. Beyond the initial phase, Sisterman has found that employees have come to see the personal benefits to dashcams. 

“The more you can share how great of a reduction on crashes you’ve had, reduction on (poor) driving behaviors, reduction in speeding or rolling stops, the more you can market and talk about all the benefits, the more easily employees come along with you in the process,” says Sisterman.  

Though Rottler’s dashcams have been in place for several years, Bopp says he does still see some resistance here and there.  

“There’s still rumors going around that we dial in and watch them driving down the road for no reason, that we’re monitoring them all the time, and it’s really just kind of reassuring everybody that that’s really not the case,” he says. “We all really have much better things to do with our time than to sit there and watch somebody drive down the road, and we’re really only getting in on that stuff when an incident pops up.”