From ADAS Awareness Gaps to Safety-First Culture: A Chat with On the Road Garage's Katie Mueller and Adam Newberry
Joel Adcock sits down with Katie Mueller (safety advocate and consultant) and Adam Newberry (ADAS specialist and instructor) from On the Road Garage to discuss what separates shops that get ADAS right from those still guessing. Moreover, you'll hear why investment in people matters more than equipment alone.
Katie comes from the National Safety Council and is a fatality crash survivor. She focuses on driver behavior, vehicle safety technology, and helping consumers understand the features protecting them. Adam spent 20 years in automotive repair, including extensive work with Mobile Service Group diagnosing and repairing safety systems before joining On the Road Garage to build ADAS capability from the ground up.
The conversation covers practical realities: how shops stay current with weekly OEM position statement changes, why Honda and Subaru now require OEM-specific scan tools (not just OEM-compatible), what happens when calibrations fail, and how proper shop culture creates 99% first-time calibration success rates.
🔧 What we discuss:
- Why ADAS is on 90% of vehicles today (not a future problem)
- How On the Road Garage maintains culture where every vehicle gets proper ADAS attention
- Weekly review process for OEM service information and position statements
- Prerequisites for technicians doing ADAS work (electrical systems, alignment, diagnostics)
- Real failure scenarios: sensors installed backwards, paint thickness problems, missed prerequisites
- Why dedicated calibration space reduces cycle time and improves success rates
- Apprenticeship programs training next-generation ADAS technicians
- Consumer questions to ask shops: "Is everything included in this estimate?"
- How service advisors present ADAS calibrations to retail customers (minimal pushback)
- Why sublet liability always traces back to the originating shop
- The shift from OEM-compatible tools to OEM-required tools (Honda, Subaru leading)
Katie and Adam both emphasize the same advice for shop owners: invest in your people. Training, continuous learning, proper environment, and team buy-in matter more than any single piece of equipment. The conversation also covers why FMVSS 127 (automatic emergency braking mandate by 2029) will accelerate OEM requirements and why shops need dedicated calibration space before that deadline.
Whether you're a collision shop owner, technician, estimator, or insurance professional, this episode demonstrates what proper ADAS process looks like in practice—and why culture drives results.
Host:
Joel Adcock, Revv
Creators and Guests
