MasTec Enhances Safety, Efficiency with Zonar Coach Technology
BY Zonar
Reducing liability, training up better skills with fleet monitoring technology
Imagine you’re driving between job sites and approaching a construction zone, where a three-lane highway narrows into a single lane in a matter of yards. Traffic slows ahead. Suddenly, a car swerves between lanes, darts onto the shoulder and cuts in front of you. The inevitable happens—metal meets metal in a jarring, violent crunch. Later, that car’s driver tells the police you were the one driving erratically.
That was the scenario faced by one driver for MasTec, Coral Gables, Florida.
MasTec specializes in hardscapes and other infrastructure for a variety of industries. The company employs nearly 22,000 skilled professionals and has been involved in some of the largest and most complex infrastructure construction projects across the country, but even industry giants face challenges protecting drivers from fraudulent insurance claims.
Fortunately for MasTec drivers, this scenario no longer means automatic blame or costly settlements. Over the last year, the company partnered with Zonar, Seattle, Washington, to implement Zonar Coach, a dual-facing dashcam solution that uses AI to detect and capture specific safety events inside and outside the cab.
MasTec uses the in-cab video footage to train and retain drivers, develop safety scorecards and streamline coaching workflows.
To successfully implement Zonar Coach, MasTec focused on reinforcing how much the company values drivers, making it clear that the technology is designed to support them. Management explained that tracking driving patterns wasn’t for chastising drivers; it was about correcting risky behaviors before “bad actors” outside of the company could take advantage of them.
Another Set of Eyes on the Road
“We were able to back [the video] up from when that driver first left his shop to when the collision happened,” said Tony Cruz, desert southwest regional fleet manager at MasTec Communications Group, during a joint webinar featuring MasTec and Zonar.
This lets them avoid legal expenses and false insurance claims with the power of video exoneration. The cameras provide multiple viewpoints out the front of the windshield and one inside the cab. The system also provides a “panic button” for the driver to utilize if they need to capture a specific incident instantly. “I’ll be able to see what the driver was experiencing when they felt they needed to push the panic button,” Cruz said.
The implementation of Zonar Coach had already helped MasTec keep drivers safe, clear multiple claims and avoid countless legal expenses as of December 2024.
During the webinar, Cruz also stated the industry faces an insurance fraud phenomenon called the swoop-and-squat. This tactic involves individuals targeting company vehicles, intending to provoke accidents by suddenly merging in front of them and then braking sharply.
“We’ve observed significant benefits from using dashcams in these situations,” he said.
In addition to safety benefits, Zonar Coach also offers custom reporting using Microsoft Power BI, providing added situational insight through data visualization that supplements recorded video. This can be set up to automatically deliver a report to the fleet’s back office for management to review and have a record of the incident.
The driver scorecard report leverages Zonar TCU and video data to create an overall company safety score, breaking down to individual driver behavior and safety events.
Protection Outside and Inside the Cab
The Zonar Coach cameras help to prevent incidents before they happen with real-time, in-cab alerts. MasTec uses the in-cab video footage to train and retain drivers, develop safety scorecards and streamline coaching workflows. Through this system, supervisors can see different events—labeled as low, medium, high or catastrophic—such as where they’re coming from or the intended destination. Zonar helped them identify what were low, medium and high-risk metrics in the driver behaviors and what needed to be high priority versus lower priority for coaching.
Zonar’s solution helps MasTec supervisors pinpoint poor driver behaviors and patterns of hard cornering, hard acceleration, hard braking, lane drift, drowsy driving, rollover detection, tailgating or speed infractions, providing personalized feedback for future trips.
“Everybody’s human,” Cruz said. “What I may consider tailgating, someone else may not consider tailgating. The camera’s reading speed [and] distance of the vehicle in front of me and determining collision potential.”
Something as simple as checking your phone at a red light may seem like a low priority item but should be prohibited for all drivers. In many states, having your phone in your hand while driving can lead to a ticketed offense. As of September 2024, 29 states, including the District of Columbia, prohibit all drivers from using handheld cell phones while driving.
The AI-detected safety event features help MasTec with training drivers for new laws. By monitoring what’s happening inside and outside the cab, MasTec has been able to coach and correct such behaviors.
Driver Buy-In
Not every employee was initially excited to have recording devices monitoring their driving behaviors, but Cruz shared how MasTec supervisors introduced the program.
“For driver buy-in, we explained we were testing it for safety,” Cruz said. “We had some drivers who felt like we were putting it in to keep tabs on them. We have to abide by the federal government and federal laws on that. But no one’s going to be tapping into a camera to see what you’re doing or listen in on your conversations. This is here to catch if something else happens to you.”
To successfully implement Zonar Coach, MasTec focused on reinforcing how much the company values them as drivers and employees, making it clear that the technology is designed to support their driving and day-to-day activities. As Cruz explained, tracking driving patterns isn’t about chastising drivers; it’s about correcting risky behaviors before “bad actors” outside of your company can take advantage of them.
“There are people out there who will try to take advantage of you or your company,” he said, so self-correcting and coaching suboptimal driver behavior can make it more difficult for the bad actors to take advantage of your company.
This not only helps reduce risks and prevent accidents, but as drivers became more familiar with this system, they recognized its benefits—particularly the value of having video evidence to clarify situations where hard driving resulted from external factors beyond drivers’ control.
“A lot of my big-rig drivers would tell me they couldn’t say how many times they’ve had someone cut them off and then slow down and they have to slam on their brakes,” Cruz said. Now that MasTec drivers have dashcams recording non-employee driver behavior, they have proof of reality.
Turning Liability into Reliability
Insurance scams and individuals attempting to cover up mistakes often leave company drivers at an unfair disadvantage. As Cruz put it, “You’re either [in] an at-fault collision or a not-at-fault collision. It’s awesome that we’re able to pull up that on-demand video clip.”
Since implementing Zonar Coach technology, MasTec has not only seen improvements in driver safety, but also significant savings in claims costs. This data-centric approach to fleet management has enhanced both efficiency and safety. For MasTec drivers, Zonar Coach has transformed uncertainty into irrefutable evidence—proving that sometimes, the best defense is simply the truth.