A new benchmark study on injuries to frontline security professionals finds injury rates trending upward, including double digits in some regions. Traditional drivers persist, like slips, trips, and falls and overexertion injuries, while issues like increasingly violent public encounters are compounding today’s risk environment. Vehicle patrols are both — a traditional source of danger and an evolving hazard.
What are security firms doing to counter the risk? Safety leaders from leading security firms say they are leaning into enhanced training and technology interventions to push back against road injuries (Security Officer Safety — Benchmarks and Interventions; GSB Pulse; collection and analysis of safety data from 1 million-plus contract security officers by the International Security Ligue).
Road Rules
The Ligue benchmark study found that transportation-related injuries are the fourth leading cause in terms of frequency, but for security firms that conduct extensive vehicle patrols on behalf of clients, the stakes are extremely high: Vehicle accidents in the security industry, particularly in vehicle patrolling, account for the highest potential risk of serious injury or fatality, and that risk is amplified when guards work long night shifts and face fatigue or distraction.
Cities are changing the rules of the road. More vehicles, more vehicle types, and more complexity — from motorcycles to scooters and bicycles — mean patrol drivers must constantly adapt. As one industry voice puts it, this trend “creates a major challenge for a security company, which must provide perceptual and attentive driver training to see, recognize, and react to events.” The result: firms must rethink training, equipment, and scheduling to keep officers safe in denser, faster-moving urban environments.
Operational Interventions
Security companies are combining policy, culture, and technology to reduce crashes. Common measures include strict no-phone rules, defensive driving courses, toolbox talks, and better-equipped, more comfortable, and technology-enabled vehicles. Some firms also require pre-shift vehicle checks and practical parking exercises to keep routine safety top of mind, according to a member of the Ligue’s Safety & Security Working Group, which shared their experiences in the new benchmark report. “At the start of every shift, they are required to complete a detailed form prompting them to conduct a walk-around vehicle check for damage and to ensure safety equipment is working.”
Many organizations run internal campaigns like safety driving courses and best-driver challenges to build momentum but also recognize that prevention can start before the first patrol. During recruitment, some firms have managers assess driving skills in person to ensure candidates meet baseline standards.
Additionally, fatigue prevention is often treated as a safety program feature, with policies to ensure sufficient breaks between shifts, limits on overtime, and careful management of night-to-day shift changes to reduce sleep disruption.
These human-centered controls are designed to reduce two major non-technical risks: inexperience and exhaustion. When combined with selection criteria and ongoing assessments, experts say they help form a layered defense against accidents.
Technology and Data Driven Insights
Technology is now the backbone of many security firm safety programs, with one firm’s EHS director reporting that “telematics has been a game changer,” cutting accident severity by nearly half.
Safety intelligence comes from patrol vehicles fitted with driving behavior systems, dashcams, accident data recorders, and real-time GPS tracking. These tools monitor speed, harsh braking, and other metrics; score drivers; and trigger managerial action when performance falls short. Dashcam footage and driving data are used in post-incident investigations to check for fatigue, roster issues, or training gaps: “If an accident occurs, our investigation includes checking dashcam footage, reviewing driving behavior data, auditing their rosters and sleep patterns to identify fatigue issues,” explained a Safety & Security Working Group member.
Advanced telematics platforms add features such as accident detection, remote immobilization, sensor alerts, theft recovery, and in-vehicle notifications—turning each patrol car into a connected safety node.
If an accident occurs, our investigation includes checking dashcam footage, reviewing driving behavior data, auditing their rosters and sleep patterns to identify fatigue issues. — Safety & Security Working Group Member
Safer Vehicles, Safer Officers
Security firms are responding to the issue of road injuries with a layered strategy: policy, people, training, scheduling, and technology. The combination of stricter rules, better recruitment and training, fatigue management, and telematics-driven accountability is already showing results, according to several safety leaders. The industry’s next steps are to scale those successes — wider technology rollouts, consistent communication around zero accidents, and continued investment in driver skills — to make vehicle patrols safer for officers and the communities they serve.
Key takeaways
- Fatigue, distracted driving, shift hours, driving amounts, and speeding are issues that warrant attention from security firms.
- Telematics, a method of monitoring cars and trucks with GPS technology and on-board diagnostics to plot movements on a computerized map, can help reduce the number and severity of vehicle accidents.
- Enhancing driver safety requires a mix of solutions, including personnel management, such as facilitating breaks and safe shift scheduling; policy directives, like cell phone restrictions and pre-patrol safety checks; education, such as defensive driving training and awareness campaigns; technology, like dashcams, devices to collect data on driver speed, and accident data recorders; management, such as accident investigation; and equipment safety, like ensuring vehicles are safe and comfortable.