It was more than 15 years ago that Daryl Bertrand was taken to court over an accident involving one of his drivers, but he remembers the frustration all too well.

The president and owner of Dominion Messenger in Edmonton, Alta., found out the hard way that there was "an issue" with his employee’s licence — an issue that left Dominion exposed to serious consequences.

The situation spiraled even further, threatening to involve the customer for whom he was hauling freight.

"The insurance was trying to bring us into it and then trying to bring my customer into it because we had a load of my customer’s product on the vehicle," says Bertrand.

The driver’s fate had been swift — he was fired the day of the accident — but for almost two years, the case against Dominion dragged on, taking its toll in lawyer’s fees, time away from work, and plain old aggravation. Three days after pre-trial discovery testimony was heard, Dominion was finally released from the suit.

The lesson was clear to Bertrand: Avoid this from ever happening again by being sure every driver has a valid licence to drive.

According to lawyers, the failure to do so could constitute nothing less than a criminal act, as defined in Section 217.1 of the Canadian Criminal Code (formerly Bill C45). It states: "Everyone who undertakes, or has the authority, to direct how another person does work or performs a task is under a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent bodily harm to that person, or any other person, arising from that work or task."

A plain language guide to Bill C-45 can be viewed here.

Known as "the Westray Bill" — after a 1992 coal-mining disaster in Nova Scotia which cost 26 miners their lives — it resulted in four cases where charges have been laid against employers because their actions, or inactions, put other people at risk. In the case of invalid licences, a company could be found negligent because it sent drivers out onto the roads without proper documentation.

"I can see this being an issue moving forward," Bertrand says. "Once someone wins a big court battle, it’s going to be a matter of pulling the arm on a slot machine, right?"

Bob Dameron, executive vice president of VerX Direct in Barrie, Ont., says protecting employers from just such an outcome is what his company’s product is all about.

VerX has developed a seamless way to instantly check the validity and status of any Canadian driver’s licence. It’s an alternative to buying a driver’s licence abstract from the provincial licencing agency, which offers a wealth of information but which costs anywhere from $12 to $30 and takes a minimum of 24 hours to get.

VerX, on the other hand, takes a matter of seconds, can be run automatically, and costs between $2 to $4 a shot, depending on volume.
 

There are more than a few reasons why a driver’s
licence status could change (see Sidebar below)

"It’s one of those elephants in the room," he says. "No one really understands how big an issue this could be for a company. We could have some companies that have no problems with invalid licences. We could have some companies running at 10 per cent."

The system was developed by George Sutej, an entrepreneur in Barrie, who kept running into trouble with invalid licences in his truck driver recruitment business. He found that the only way to be sure a driver had a proper licence was to run an abstract, which took too long and cost too much for his liking.

Sutej figured if he could deal with a single government data-sharing agency in Ottawa which consults provincial databases, he might be able to run a simple check for the validity of driver’s licences. So he did some research, found financial backers, and started having code written.

All of the provinces had to sign off on the program. Alberta was the toughest nut to crack, being particularly concerned about the potential invasion of privacy. But when officials caught the vision of how the program could be used to make roads safer, they became enthusiastic.

"Statistically speaking, people who lose their licence are more prone to get into accidents," says Dameron. "Governments want to keep the roads safer. So getting improperly licenced and unlicenced people off the road, well, that’s a good thing."

The VerX system requires only the driver’s licence number and the driver’s date of birth. A request for validation is sent off and within seconds it comes back. The licence is either valid, suspended, interlocked (the driver requires a breath alcohol detection device to operate the vehicle), or the record was not found.

The program went live in 2009, and in the first 2,000 checks or so, they’ve had about 60 licences come back with a problem — an average of about three percent. That’s 60 drivers who would have been on the road with licence "issues" exposing their companies to the risks of violating Section 217.1.

The service has drawn particular interest from car and truck rental companies.

And, of course, truck fleets are a big target for VerX.

Indeed, the VerX web site quotes Lenny Malley, general manager of AMJ Campbell Vanlines in Waterloo, Ont. as saying the technology has the potential to "immediately improve our on road exposure of drivers with either suspended or invalid licences."

In Ontario, fleet managers and owners have the option of plugging in to a new program developed by the Ontario Trucking Association (OTA) which allows members to check if their drivers hold valid licences of the proper class and endorsement.

The OTA Truck Driver Licence Status Check is offered to members for $5 a year per driver. Users of the program also have the ability to order an MTO detailed (three-year) driver abstract through this service, with overnight electronic ability, for a $10 fee per driver – $2 less than the MTO’s $12 abstract fee.

Once a company logs onto the OTA’s secure website and submits a list of drivers’ licence numbers, OTA will submit the data to MTO on a quarterly basis for a status check on every driver. Discrepancies are immediately identified and the member is instantly notified by email of which drivers have been flagged for a licence status discrepancy.

The information can be used to investigate the discrepancy or opt for an automatic issuance (with overnight electronic delivery) of an MTO detailed (three-year) driver abstract for the affected driver.

Ensuring all drivers have valid licences brings a number of benefits, including:

♦ mitigating the risk of prosecution under Section 217.1 — especially when an invalid driver is in an accident and damages are sought by victims;

♦ reducing the costs and embarrassment of impounded trucks.
avoiding invalid insurance claims (most policies contain clauses which require a driver to have a valid licence before a claim can be honoured);

♦ reducing the risk of OOS trucks given that statistically speaking, unlicenced drivers are five times more likely to be in an accident;
reducing administration time and costs;

♦ easy adaptation to existing safety and compliance programs; and the ability to keep all driver/employee/contractor data current.
Meanwhile, the potential impact on road safety is significant, experts say.

Robyn Robertson, president and CEO of the Traffic Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) believes licence status verification technology is an important tool that can help licencing authorities, the enforcement community, research and safety agencies, and private companies better understand, manage, and address the unlicenced driver problem and improve road safety.

"This technology can help employers avoid the unwanted and costly liability of employing unlicenced drivers and promote safe driving practices across industries," he says.

"The contributing role of unlicenced drivers in road crashes has been a recognized and unsolved problem in the traffic safety field for more than three decades." 

SIDEBAR

Why a driver’s licence can change status:

* Unpaid traffic fines;

* Delinquent child support or alimony payments;

* Missed renewal dates, failed re-examinations, missed or failed medicals; (In Ontario, for example, A/Z drivers must re-write their road-rules and air-brake tests every five years or else their permits are downgraded.)

* Health. Physicians are often required to report at-risk to the Ministry of Transportation which will in turn cancel a licence until the driver can prove there’s no danger;

* Serious charges such as impaired or dangerous driving.