Driver Pre-employment Screening

Cellphones outnumber the people living in the USA. The popularity of cellphones is evident everywhere in our society, and unfortunately, on our public highways. A survey by AT&T showed that 75% of all drivers admitted to texting while driving and 65% admitted reading text messages while driving. Many reasons were given by the drivers for their risky behavior and 6% of drivers claimed they were addicted to cellphone use. Now commercial truck drivers are as likely to adopt modern technology as anyone else, and so are just as likely to be lured into bad behavior as well. The three main differences with commercial truck drivers’ use of cellphones from regular drivers are: 1) Use of a cellphone while driving is a violation of federal law, (FMCSA Part 392). 2) A commercial truck accident is more likely to cause the deaths of other drivers. 3) Cellphone bills can be obtained and analyzed, determining if the driver’s cellphone use amounts to a risk, and allowing for intervention before a crash. Addictive cellphone behaviour has another downside as well – lack of sleep causing driver fatigue. For about a decade it is required that a commercial driver have at least 8 hours of rest, and sometimes a little more. Analyzing an applicant’s last three months of cellphone bills can identify people with risky cellphone behavior before they are hired. Using the applicant’s detailed bill it is possible to determine if the applicant talks on the phone excessively, texts excessively, or does not stop using the cellphone for at least 8 hours a day, possibly resulting in fatigue. Driver Cellphone Use Analysis, (DCUA), can quickly analyze the applicant’s cellphone use, and compare it to metrics that quickly point up potentially risky behavior. This allows the trucking firm to be sure the drivers that they hire are as safe drivers as possible. DCUA has been employed as cellphone expert witnesses in numerous court cases about commercial truck accidents. The eye-opener was the fact that all the drivers exhibited excessive cellphone use or lack of sleep due to cellphone use for months before the crash. We are always asked: “Could the trucking firm have been able to know about this risky behavior before the crash?” And our answer is yes, if they had analyzed the cellphone bill. DCUA offers a pre-employment screening service that weeds out dangerous drivers due to cellphone use. This screening and DCUA’s post-employment monitoring ensure that the trucking firm is aware of any rule violation or dangerous behaviour due to cellphone use.