Tyre and autocentre company Universal Tyres has rolled out Mobileye’s collision avoidance safety technology across its fleet of more than 100 vehicles, the majority of which are 3.5-tonne vans from Mercedes-Benz and Fiat.

The company, which provides fleet tyre services including roadside assistance, mobile tyre fitting, MOTs and servicing, as well as brakes and air conditioning services, is expecting the investment to pay for itself within a year.

The Mobileye technology automatically warns a driver of an imminent collision with another vehicle, a pedestrian or a cyclist, as well as unintentional lane departure, an unsafe headway time or speeding.

Andrew Wright, managing director of Universal Tyres, said: “We trialled Mobileye on a sample number of vehicles but the results were so compelling that we’ve now rolled it out across the fleet. We expect the investment to have paid for itself within a year.

"We work really hard on our driver standards but we had seen an increase in incidents - including rear-end collisions - that, in addition to the direct financial impact, threatened to increase our insurance costs long term.

"By turning to Mobileye, we’re now going to save money, rather than spend it, as well as dramatically increasing safety standards."

Universal Tyres has more than 2,500 accounts mainly in London and the South East, turns over £35 million a year and employs 175 people.