Driver Profiling
Managing the risk of employees driving for work is important for moral, legal as well as financial reasons. Whilst in the past many organisations invested in driver training to reduce the number of driving-related incidents, more recently so-called driver profilers are increasingly being used as a way of identifying those employees whose driving may put them at a higher risk of a crash. |
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Profiling is at the heart of a controversial debate but, especially in times of recession, it can offer large organisations a rationale for targeting limited safety budgets.
TRL has launched a web-based profiler that allocates a risk rating for employees driving for work, based on information relating to their driving exposure, demographic data, their driving behaviours and attitudes and the safety culture in the organisation they work for. TRL offers the tool at a per-driver rate to its customers and is currently putting some of its own drivers through the process.
In developing the tool it was TRL's belief that profiling should not merely employ a driver deficit model, assuming that crash risk is entirely the driver's ‘fault', but should take into consideration the nature of the work-related driving and the organisation's contribution to risk, in terms of its prevailing safety culture. Therefore, the outcome of the profiler comprises remedial action plans that not only include training recommendations but also flag management problems such as overly demanding work schedules. This point is particularly important when considering employees' frequent perception of profilers as big brother devices that must be tricked by socially desirable responses. Early communication and consultation with employees about the aims of the use of a profiler are crucial to ensure acceptance of the tool as a support mechanism helping to keep employees safe.
The profiler, which was developed on behalf of the insurer Chartis as a means of helping its clients reduce claims for work-related road crashes, was initially based on data from over 1200 employees of different organisations to empirically derive the algorithm that predicts a driver's risk of a crash. Being dedicated to continued optimisation, TRL works on expanding and validating the tool with data provided by private and public sector organisations.
If you are interested in helping with the on-going validation or with trialling the profiler, please contact:
Britta Lang
Road Risk Consultant
Tel: +44 1344 770024
Email: blang@trl.co.uk
