An impending bogus insurance claim against home service business Fords has been dropped thanks to vehicle tracking technology.

One of the Sidmouth firm’s heating engineers was accused of driving at an excessive speed and colliding with a driver on a country road near Exeter, smashing his door mirror – the employee, however, disputed the allegation.

“We invested in Navman Wireless vehicle tracking, and so were in a position to discover which engineer was allegedly responsible and generate a report detailing his precise speed and location at the time of the purported incident,” said managing director Tim Ford.

Navman Wireless’s system provides managers with real-time information on the exact position and speed of vehicles while generating data on journey times and driving speeds.

It also enables two-way messaging and integrated routing via business-specific in-cab satellite navigation units.

Ford added: “Our employee maintained he had pulled over, giving way to the other driver and that it was therefore not correct that he was travelling at speed.

"This was proven by consulting Navman Wireless records and the member of the public, when faced with the evidence, backed down.

“All too often we find that easily identified liveried vehicles are blamed for road traffic collisions, as telephone numbers can be obtained and false claims made.”

Fords is using the integration of tracking, messaging and navigation technology to send job instructions via text message to their workforce’s in-cab M-Nav units.

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