Do you have employees that drive a company vehicle? Or maybe they drive their own vehicle to run errands for the company on a regular basis? If you have employees that regularly drive for your company, you should be running a MVR report, or Motor Vehicle Records report, before letting them get behind the wheel.
What is an MVR Report?
An MVR report provides the driving history of an employee. This includes information such as driver’s license status, citations, accidents, moving violations, and other information associated with their driving history. Although you may require an employee to provide a copy of their driver’s license, you would never know if their license is still active or if they have a good driving history without running a report.
Why Should I Run an MVR Report?
There are many reasons you should not only run an MVR report at hire but also on an annual basis. One reason is to protect your employees. As the employer, you have a duty to protect your employees within reason and checking that an employee has a valid license and acceptable driving history before allowing them to drive for your company falls into this category. This is even more important if you have other employees that will be riding with the driving employee or impacted by their driving ability. If an employee has multiple traffic accidents, there is a good chance they can end up in an accident during the course of work too, resulting in a worker’s comp claim.
You also want to ensure that you are not putting someone behind the wheel that can end up harming another person on the road or causing property damage. If your employee is driving as a part of their job duties and gets into an accident where they cause bodily injury to a person or property damage, your company can be liable; if this same employee has a long history of traffic accidents, DUIs, or is even driving with a revoked or suspended license, your company could find itself at the center of a costly lawsuit, even if the employee was driving their own vehicle, since not running an MVR report could be considered a failure of due diligence on your part.
Lastly, your commercial vehicle policy or general liability insurance policy may have a provision that requires any employees driving for the company to maintain an appropriate driving record. Failing to check their driving history could put your coverage in jeopardy if you were to have a claim filed against your company and they discover the employee has a poor driving record. Many times, the insurance company will even have a list of disqualifying incidents so you should consult with them on their requirements.
What Steps Should I Take?
Running an MVR report is considered a consumer report, meaning you must comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act or FCRA. Because of this, you should utilize a trusted company to process these reports and ensure that the proper notices are provided to employees.
You should also implement a policy that provides information on the MVR report process. Here are some items to address:
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How often do you process MVR reports: Best practice would be to process these reports at hire and annually. An employee may come in with a clean driving record but you should check on a regular basis to ensure they are still eligible to drive throughout employment.
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What would disqualify an employee from being about to drive for the company: Many employers will consider three moving violations or one major violation (such as DUI, hit and run, or reckless driving) within three years to be a disqualifier. You can also ask your insurance company if they have a list of disqualifying reasons for drivers. As obvious as it sounds, you should also state an invalid license due to suspension or revocation is a disqualifier.
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What would happen if an existing employee is considered disqualified from driving for the company: Would the employee be transferred to another position if available? Would they be suspended or terminated? Address these questions in your policy.
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What should an employee do if they receive a citation while working: If they are cited while on duty, you should require the employee to report it the same day. Include in the policy that this may result in corrective action.
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What should an employee do if they receive a citation while off duty: If the citation occurs on their own time, you should still require the employee report this within a certain timeframe and specify that timeframe. However, you should refrain from issuing corrective action unless the citation results in the need to move them to a new position, suspension, or termination if the citation causes them to no longer be eligible to drive (as addressed above).
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What are the consequences of not reporting citations or license suspension/revocation in a timely manner: If you run your annual MVR and discover someone is no longer eligible to drive for your company and failed to report this, you want to include in your policy the consequences for this failure to disclose, even if it may not have resulted in them being disqualified from driving.
Processing an MVR report is a simple process that can help keep your employees and the public safe as well as protect your company from claims due to unsafe drivers. If you’re not sure where to start with getting an MVR report process in place or if you would like to sign up to have FrankCrum run your MVR reports for you, reach out to your FrankAdvice HR Consultant.