BARRIE, Ont. — 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 found out the hard way that there was “an issue” with his employee’s licence and therefore was illegally driving. It was an issue which left Dominion Messenger exposed to serious consequences.

The driver’s fate had been swift (he was gone the next day, Bertrand says) 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 says “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 coal mining disaster in Nova Scotia which cost 26 miners their lives in 1992 – it has resulted in a handful of cases where charges have been laid against employers because of the actions, or inactions, of their employees. In the case of invalid licences, there’s a potential for the company to be found negligent because it sent drivers out onto the roads without proper documentation to do so.

“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 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 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 $2 to $4 a shot, depending on volume.

“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 percent.”

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 a simple report 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 3 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.

In Ontario, fleet managers and owners have the option of plugging in to a new program developed by the Ontario Trucking Association 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.

Robyn Robertson, president and CEO of the Traffic Injury Research Foundation, 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.”