When Safety Technologies Backfire: How Monitoring Affects Drivers' Safety Behavior

ABSTRACT Despite widespread investments in advanced vehicle safety technologies (VSTs), crashes in the trucking industry remain persistently high. This study reveals why technologies designed to make roads safer sometimes erode the very behaviors they aim to improve. Drawing on 40 narratives from 25 driver managers and follow‐up study with 31 professional drivers, we use narrative inquiry approach grounded in theories of technology avoidance, technology dominance, and managerial feedback. The findings reveal that drivers often experience these technologies as intrusive and misaligned with real‐world driving conditions, leading to behaviors such as avoidance. Over time, reliance on automated alerts can erode drivers’ judgment and skill. However, when managers use technology‐generated data to provide empathetic and proactive feedback and feedforward explanations tied to personal safety, drivers are more likely to engage with the technology constructively. The findings show a critical paradox: VSTs can be hindering or enabling, depending on how human‐VST and manager‐driver relationships are managed. The study advances understanding of how frontline behavioral safety emerges not from VSTs itself but from the quality of human sensemaking around it.