Online risk assessment: the debate rages on

A debate is raging at the heart of the fleet industry over the use of online risk assessments and whether they are a viable part of a risk management toolkit for fleet operators.

Thousands of drivers every year complete online risk assessments - simple tests designed to identify at-risk drivers who may be in danger of having an accident while driving, so they can be provided with additional support and training.

Employees normally take the ‘exam’ at their computer and answer a variety of questions designed to pinpoint key areas of risk, such as high-mileage drivers, speeding or a lack of knowledge about the rules of the road.

Managers then receive a summary for their part of the business, highlighting the drivers who may be at-risk and in many cases suggesting the type of additional training that might be required.

Many leading contract hire and leasing companies and most risk management suppliers offer the assessments, but they have recently been embroiled in an industry row about which systems are the most effective.

The attack on some providers of online driver assessments has been led by fleet software specialist cfc solutions. It labelled some products ‘fraught with problems’ and warned that they could even harm a company’s legal defence in the event of an accident.

Wrath

Those comments incurred the wrath of many risk management providers, with the Fleet Safety Association, the industry body for risk management firms, criticising the company for making ‘sweeping generalisations’.

The software provider, which includes a ‘comprehensive corporate risk assessment’ within its product portfolio, claims that many fleets have bought online risk and driver assessments as off the shelf products and that this ‘one size fits all’ approach means they can be ‘worse than useless’ for the majority of organisations.

Business leader Andy Leech said: “Online driver assessments are a blunt instrument. They appear to fit easily into risk management policies because they offer an easy way of deciding whether drivers are ‘high’ or ‘low’ risk. However, few fleets have actually taken a good look at what these assessments do - and what they don’t.”

He said that the biggest failing of online assessments was that they were invariably non-specific to the culture of a company, the conditions in which it operated, the actual vehicles used and the type of driving undertaken by employees.

As a result, he argued, the procedures and measures they prompted were often unsound in legal terms and drivers ranked as a low risk were sometimes almost ignored.

Mr Leech said: “As an example, it would not be helpful in a court for an employer to say that they knew a driver was ‘low’ risk following an online assessment, but had no idea of how compliant they were with the company’s policies. “If an online assessment tool rates a driver as a ‘high’ risk without explaining why that is the case, then how is an employer supposed to take positive steps to make that driver safer?”

Finally, Mr Leech said, it was all too easy to ‘fool’ online assessments because they were often poorly constructed.

He added: “We have heard of instances where the driver with the worst accident record on a fleet was not picked up by the online driver assessment because he had a reasonable knowledge of the Highway Code.”

Criticised

While, the FSA criticised Mr Leech for his generalised attack on online risk management assessments, the organisation agreed that they were not designed as a panacea for a fleet’s risk management ills. They should never be used in isolation, but rather as part of a coherent risk management strategy, said a spokesman.

A common complaint about many online driving assessments is that they are simplistic and easy to fool. Employees don’t take them seriously and answer questions the way they think they should do, rather than in a way that truly reflects their behaviour on the road.

One way of tackling this is the use of socalled psychometric testing, which uses a much wider variety of questions and more technical analysis of a driver’s responses to give a detailed picture of the danger each employee might pose on the road, even if they try to hide it. Testing can identify the more aggressive characters and those who might be risk-takers, which can be great in business, but can be fatal on the road.

Peak Performance was one of the first companies to introduce a psychometric risk profile, when it launched a service in conjunction with Cranfield University. It has been taken up by a number of other risk management providers, including leasing company ALD Automotive.

The service is based on 20 years of academic research into the psychology of driver behaviour by Dr Lisa Dorn, director of the Driving Research Group at Cranfield University, and uses psychometric principles to predict how company drivers are likely to behave behind the wheel (see panel).

Among companies implementing the service is WR Refrigeration, which operates a national fleet of 380 cars and vans, and this year has worked with Peak Performance to put all its drivers through the DriverMetrics online risk assessment, which includes the Fleet Driver Risk Index (FDRI) profiling system.

Workshop

Drivers identified as ‘medium’ risk attended Peak’s ‘Driving in Mind’ workshop, which helps drivers better understand their own driving behaviours and those of other drivers, and identifies why they are more or less likely to take risks on the road. Those assessed as ‘high’ risk under went one-to-one, behind the wheel training.

When the deal was announced, Terry Pride, compliance director at WR Refrigeration, said the system was part of a wide-ranging risk management programme. He said: “We recognise our duty of care responsibility to our employees who drive for work, and have worked with our insurance company to deliver comprehensive road risk solutions for all our drivers to proactively reduce our levels of driving risk.”

James Sutherland, managing director at Peak Performance, argued psychometric testing tackled the accusations laid at the industry’s door by Mr Leech.

He said: “There are a lot of assessments using Highway Code-based questions, but the results don’t identify the areas where a driver needs help. The FDRI report can actually be used to inform the company about the specifi c training a driver needs. It also has an impression management scale that can identify people cheating the system.

“This is still a computer programme and nothing is perfect, but it is worth investing in technology that can help clearly identify the problem areas facing companies, explain how to tackle them and tell drivers why action is needed.”

Such support for the benefits of driver profiling doesn’t just end with companies, as there are now calls for it to be introduced as part of the driving test as well.

Robert Gifford, director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety (PACTS), has said the current driving test fails to root out drivers who are prone to breaking the rules.

Introducing psychometric tests could help to identify people with the wrong attitude to the road, he added.

He continued: “It’s very clear that the current driving test is no longer appropriate for driving in the modern world. It is a very good test of hand, eye and foot co-ordination and knowledge of the theory of road use. However, too many young people are killed or injured soon after passing it, so clearly it does not prepare them.

“What can we do to improve it? Well, one suggestion is to look at psychological profi ling. This would allow an assessment of people’s behavioural traits and attitudes to see whether they were more or less risk averse or risk-taking.

“Many employers already use psychometric tests as part of the recruitment process. Such tests are not necessarily based on a pass or a fail.

However, if applied to the driving test, they would be beneficial in identifying those who were more likely to have a crash or endanger themselves or their passengers.”

The call comes as the Driving Standards Agency carries out a review of how people learn to drive. The government has said it will keep an open mind over what changes might be introduced.

‘Murder’ case strategy works for fleets

Traditional online driver assessments ask specific questions about the driver and ask them to answer questions about their vehicle use, knowledge of the Highway Code and their behaviour on the road, before providing a view on the driver’s level of risk.

This can be a valuable indicator of risk, particularly in highlighting drivers with high private or business mileages, as they tend to run a higher risk of having an accident.

However, psychometric testing attempts to more accurately predict future driving incidents by understanding how a driver might behave on the road. Psychometrics provide a consistent and effective measure of people’s traits, abilities, skills, and interests.

Standard online assessments cover what you do, but psychological profiling also examines who you are.

Like a traditional test, it takes about 30 minutes. Questions have been formulated from 20 years of research to create a driver profile that identifies specific driving behaviours that are increasing the risk of an accident.

Norms are established to determine a standard benchmark profile as a benchmark against which all the respondents are judged.

While psychometric tests are not guaranteed to provide infallible measurements, they do represent a much more accurate method of individual assessment than more subjective evaluations of a person’s behaviour.

In the case of the Fleet Driver Risk Index, developed at Cranfi eld University, areas covered include dislike of driving, hazard monitoring, aggression, thrill seeking, fatigue proneness and focusing on key tasks.

Not just Highway Code knowledge

Key questions might identify drivers who are at risk of road rage, fatigue or even identify issues that aren’t directly related to driving that might have an effect. For example, an effective analysis could identify a driver who has a long commute, but is working excessively long hours, so management can take action.

Companies may question whether this is their responsibility, but the case of the Produce Connection should focus their minds.

The case prompted a warning to companies that they must start tracking the working hours of their drivers following the first UK health and safety prosecution of its type.

The Produce Connection was fined £30,000 after one of its workers, not employed as a driver, died when his vehicle drifted into the path of a lorry. He had worked 76 hours in the previous four days and chronic fatigue is believed to have been a major factor in the crash.

Judge Gareth Hawksworth at Cambridge Crown Court said the firm had failed to monitor the hours employees worked.

The court heard that the employee was thought to be suffering from ‘chronic fatigue’ and had fallen asleep at the wheel.

The Produce Connection, admitted breaching health and safety legislation even though the employee died outside working hours.

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