Systems and methods for processing telematics data streams for event detection are provided. The methods involve operating at least one processor to: receive a telematics data stream; define a plurality of sliding windows for the telematics data stream, each sliding window containing a portion of the telematics data stream, each sliding window overlapping with one or more neighboring sliding windows, each sliding window including: a logical window; a first buffer preceding the logical window; and a second buffer following the logical window; the logical window being adjacent with one or more neighboring logical windows of the one or more neighboring sliding windows without overlapping the one or more neighboring logical windows; identify a vehicle event based on the portion of the telematics data stream contained within one of the sliding windows; and store an indication of the vehicle event.