Chapter 11: Public Safety and Corrections
Create an Interactive Driver
Record Retrieval System
Summary
Texas should create an interactive driver-record retrieval system that
employers could use to obtain up-to-date information on their employees’
safety history. Such a system also would help protect Texas schoolchildren by
allowing school districts to review the current safety records of applicants for
bus driver positions as well as current bus drivers.
Background
In 1999, 6.3 million traffic accidents occurred in the US, resulting in 3.2
million injuries and 41,611 deaths. An average of 114 people die each day on
American roads—one every 13 minutes.[1]
Texas bears a disproportionate share of these accidents and costs. The latest
available statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
show that Texas’ rate of fatalities per 100,000 residents in 1997 was
18.12, compared to the national average of
15.69.[2] In 1994, traffic accidents cost the US
an estimated $150.5 billion.[3] The economic cost
to Texas in the same year totaled $11.2 billion, or 7 percent of the national
total.[4]
In an analysis of 183,749 crashes involving fatalities between 1993 and 1997,
the Texas Transportation Institute found that 20 percent of them involved
improperly licensed drivers. This figure includes drivers with no license; those
with suspended, revoked, or expired licenses; and drivers who left the scene of
an accident without providing license
information.[5]
An interactive driver-records retrieval system could help Texas reduce the
number of improperly licensed drivers on its roads and improve traffic safety.
Such a system is already authorized under state law. A driver-record retrieval
system would allow businesses with large vehicle pools, such as delivery and
trucking companies, to determine whether they are employing drivers with poor
safety records. School districts could use the service free of charge to ensure
that their bus drivers have good safety records.
An interactive system would be enormously useful to Texas businesses. Traffic
fatalities are the nation’s leading cause of work-related deaths and
injuries, claiming the lives of three American workers every
day.[6] According to one estimate, work-related
motor vehicle crash injuries cost employers more than $55 billion in 1994, or
$350 per employee, and resulted in 2,000 deaths and 323,000
injuries.[7] Traffic injuries cost Texas
employers almost $4 billion. That translates to $480 per Texas employee,
substantially higher than the national
average.[8] Better knowledge of prior driving
records could help reduce this toll. In 1999, for instance, nearly 30 percent of
fatal crashes in the US involving large trucks featured truck drivers with at
least one prior speeding conviction.[9]
School Bus Safety
Roughly 23 million children ride school buses in the US. Crashes involving
school buses injured about 19,000 people in
1997.[10] From 1989 to 1999, 1,445 people in
the US were killed in school bus-related crashes, for an average of 131 deaths
annually.[11] In Texas, nearly 1.4 million
children ride school buses each day.[12]
Section 521.022 of the Texas Transportation Code requires school bus driver
records to be checked annually. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), as
authorized by the Texas Administrative Code, allocates “points” for
school bus drivers’ traffic safety violations. Drivers convicted of
driving while intoxicated (DWI), for instance, are allocated 10 points. Drivers
convicted of speeding violations receive three points, as do those caught
driving without a driver’s license. Accidents with no indication of fault
cost drivers two points.
According to state law, school bus drivers can have no more than 10 points on
their record during any three- to seven-year period, depending on the type of
violation.[13] This point system covers
drivers’ records both on and off the job.
Unfortunately, Texas’ process for checking school bus driver records is
slow and tedious. Typically, a school district forwards drivers’ names to
DPS’s School Bus Transportation Section to obtain their driving records.
The section then forwards these names to DPS’s Records Section, which
manually enters the names in its system, prints any matching records it finds,
and mails them back to the school district. The district then totals the
violation points for each driver and takes appropriate steps depending on what
it learns.[14]
DPS charges private citizens from $5 to $6 for checking each three-year
driving record; the precise amount varies with the number of records requested.
School districts pay no fee.
Interactive Driver-Records Systems
New Mexico contracted with SAMBA Holdings, Inc. to speed up its driver-record
checks. Through its interactive software DriveWave, SAMBA obtains an electronic
copy of New Mexico’s driver records each day and provides the information
for a charge to authorized users such as insurance companies and motor fleet
operators. Company fleet administrators submit driver names and license numbers
to SAMBA and establish criteria that must be met before SAMBA notifies them of
violations. SAMBA then monitors the drivers continuously, and notifies the
company’s fleet administrator whenever a violation meeting the
company’s criteria is recorded on New Mexico’s driver database.
SAMBA estimates that it has made more than 1 million driver-record reports
since it contracted to provide the interactive service in July 1999. The system
has dramatically reduced the burden placed on the state by business
users.[15]
New Mexico’s arrangement provides an easy way for organizations and
businesses to check driving records, while reducing the burden on state workers.
Electronic processing has reduced the process’ turnaround time and cut
expenses for printing, mailing, and faxing.
Since Texas school districts are required to check records only once a year,
a school bus driver with a DWI or suspended license could continue operating for
up to a year before being identified. An interactive driver records system would
immediately alert districts of employees with unsafe driving records. In
addition, the knowledge that they are being monitored continually may encourage
drivers to drive more safely.
Section 521.055 of the Texas Transportation Code already authorizes DPS to
implement an interactive system with private vendors. The fee for three-year
driving records under such section is $4.50.
Under current state law, entities eligible to obtain DPS driver records must
meet certain legal requirements to ensure that Texans’ rights to privacy
are not violated. Any vendor operating an interactive system in Texas would have
to follow the same statutory requirements. Periodic DPS audits of the
vendor’s operation would ensure compliance with these statutes.
Recommendation
| A. | Under the authority granted by Section 521.055 of
the Texas Transportation Code, the Department of Public Safety should contract
with a private vendor or vendors to establish a system, separate from its
mainframe computer, allowing interactive access to certain driver’s
license record information.
DPS should require the vendor(s) to comply with state law governing the
proper disclosure of driver records information through stringent security
requirements and periodic audits. |
| B. | Private vendors of a system authorized by Section
521.055 of the Texas Transportation Code must provide their services to school
districts free of charge. |
Fiscal Impact
An interactive driver-records system could be established without additional
state funding. Such a system may generate new revenue for the state because the
interactive system would make it easier and quicker to conduct driver-records
searches.
[1] National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis,
“Traffic Safety Facts 1999: Overview” (Washington, DC)
(http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsa/pdf/Overview99.pdf).
(Internet document.)
[2] National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, Traffic
Safety Facts 1998: A Compilation of Motor Vehicle Crash Data from the Fatality
Analysis Reporting System and the General Estimates System (Washington, DC,
October 1999), p. 149
(http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsa/tsf-1998.pdf).
(Internet document.)
[3] National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis,
“Traffic Safety Facts 1999—Overview.”
[4] National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, “State
Traffic Safety Information: Texas” (Washington, DC)
(http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsa/stateinfo/texas.htm).
(Internet document.)
[5] AAA Foundation for Traffic
Safety, Unlicensed to Kill, by Lindsay I. Griffin III and Sandra
DeLaZerda, Safety and Structural Systems Division, Texas Transportation
Institute, The Texas A&M University (Washington, DC, June 2000).
[6] National Institute for
Occupational Safety and Health, “NIOSH Report Highlights Motor Vehicle
Crash Risk for Workers, Recommends Practical Protective Measures,”
Washington, DC, July 27, 1998
(http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/motorveh.html).
(Internet document.)
[7] National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, “What
Do Traffic Crashes Cost? Total Costs to Employers by State and Industry”
(Washington, DC).
[8] National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis, “State
Traffic Safety Information: Texas.”
[9] National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis,
“Traffic Safety Facts 1999: Large Trucks,” Washington, DC
(http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsa/pdf/Truck99.pdf).
(Internet document.)
[10] National Safety Council,
“School Bus Safety Rules,” Itasca, Illinois
(http://www.nsc.org/library/facts/schlbus.htm). (Internet
Document.)
[11] National Highway Traffic
Safety Administration, National Center for Statistics and Analysis,
“Traffic Safety Facts 1999: School Buses,” Washington, DC
(http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/people/ncsa/pdf/Schbus99.pdf). (Internet
document.)
[12] Texas Department of
Public Safety, “School Bus Safety Week Kicks into Gear,” Austin,
Texas, October 13, 2000. (Press release.)
[13] 37 T.A.C.
§14.14.
[14] Telephone interview with
Jo Patterson, Texas Department of Public Safety, Austin, Texas, November 21,
2000.
[15] Memorandum from Chris
McKay, Business Development, SAMBA Holdings, Inc., November 17, 2000.
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