Driver Safety: The Essentials of a Safe Driving Program

When it comes to managing risk in their vehicle programs, companies use several methods to protect their business and mobile employees. These include verifying auto insurance, Motor Vehicle Record (MVR) checks and driver training. How do these methods work to protect employer and employee? Let’s take a look.

A Driver Safety Program 

Employees that drive for work are an essential part of most businesses. However, whether they’re unaware or they’ve prioritized other initiatives, too many companies haven’t put enough thought into driver safety. Fortunately, solutions exist to address this issue. What goes into those solutions? Let’s dig in. 

The Essentials of a Driver Safety Program 

A driver safety program should include one or all of the following: insurance verification, motor vehicle records and driver safety training. Each covers an essential aspect of driver safety. Companies may implement one or two of these, but without all three they still have blind spots. Most businesses will outsource each of them. We’ll go into each in detail below, beginning with insurance verification and monitoring. 

Insurance Verification and Monitoring

Auto insurance is as essential to driving for a company as a driver’s license. Yet companies are still surprised when they find out that one of their drivers does not have auto insurance. Checking auto insurance should be one of the first things a company does when hiring an employee for a driving role. Safety program vendors can simplify this process.

Some times auto insurance expires without employer or employee realizing. While the estimated percentage of uninsured drivers was around 14% in 2022, that marks a 3% increase since 2019. This coincides with a notable trend of driving employees canceling their auto insurance once they’ve obtained registration. The right vendor can offer a continuous monitoring option to catch this change and inform both employer and employee. 

Motor Vehicle Records (MVRs) 

Motor vehicle records are the record of a person’s driving history, include vehicle events such as traffic citations, accident reports, DUI convictions, and license suspensions. When someone pulls an MVR report, they receive the most up to date version of this information. It’s another essential for a company hiring employees for driving roles. In fact, most companies use MVRs early in the hiring process. If a potential candidate has a worrisome record, an MVR report can quickly disqualify them from a driving position. 

However, once a candidate has been hired for the driving role, most companies never run another MVR. This can pose a problem. Say an employee hired years prior are found to be at fault in an automobile accident. That’s information an employer would want to know, especially if the employee is trusted to drive for the company. Unfortunately, businesses that only pull MVR reports during the hiring process won’t know of the incident unless the employee informs them. To prevent this, proactive companies establish yearly, quarterly, or even monthly recurring MVRs.   

Driver Training 

Insurance verification and MVRs can prevent employees who shouldn’t be driving from taking on, or continuing in, driving roles. However, these measures are reactionary, based on red flags in driving behavior. To prevent red flags, or even accidents, companies need to implement driving safety training.  

There are many forms of driver safety training available. Most of them are general lessons that paint the problems of reckless driving in broad strokes. The right safety training begins with an assessment of the driver’s current performance. Following the assessment, the program can analyze reaction times and bad driving habits. From there, they can provide modules specific to the issues of each driving employee, addressing problems before they become accidents. 

Consider Motus Protect 

The driving employees of a company are essential to the continued operation of their business. And because they’re driving more than most Americans, they’re at a greater risk to get into accidents. Ignoring the risk or waiting until it becomes an issue isn’t the right way forward. Prioritize mobile worker safety and reduce company from liability with Motus Protect. Ready to learn more about our safety solution? 

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