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Risk Management Alert Topic: Driver Selection and Control The safety of the children entrusted by their parents into your care is of utmost importance. You are very careful to make certain that your programming incorporates precautions that minimize the chance of incident. It is crucial that you are equally as cautious with regard to transportation of the children, as the roads and highways constitute the most dangerous work place in our country. You have no control of the environment, the participants, or the activity. You don't even have direct supervision of your staff when they are so involved. Federal statute requires commercial driver's licenses (CDLs) for drivers of vehicles that are designed to carry 16 or more people, including the driver. Several states (MN, NJ, NY, OH, PA, TN, and possibly more now, as statutes change) go beyond federal regulations and require a CDL of any driver of a school bus, regardless of the capacity. Others have even more stringent rules (MI requires a CDL for drivers who for pay regularly transport children to or from school, regardless of size or capacity; CA requires a CDL for drivers of any vehicle intended to carry 10 or more people, including the driver). Although your drivers may not be required to have CDLs, they are still transporting children, and that is the issue under such close scrutiny. Statistics show increased accident rates for younger drivers and for drivers that are new to an organization. They also indicate a correlation between prior accidents (and citations) and future accidents. As you cannot control the arena into which you send your vehicles, you should be very careful whom you place in the driver's seat. This is no time to take a chance. You have a responsibility to both children and drivers: to keep the first safe and to not set up the second for failure. The following table may help select and maintain drivers that are less apt to have accidents, whether or not they have CDLs. As those who transport children need both driving experience and maturity, they should be at least 21. Under the following criteria, a new employee under 25 needs a clear record to drive. This is strict, but the stakes are high. Do not gamble with the lives of the children in your care.
Please call us at 800-463-8546 if you would like to discuss any Risk Management safety tips, or visit our web site at www.redwoodsgroup.com to learn more about YMCA risk management related issues. We would appreciate any feedback you might have to offer concerning this article. Please click here to send your feedback.
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| Risk Management services are provided by The Redwoods Group to assist the management of insured organizations in fulfilling their responsibilities for the control of potential loss-producing situations involving their operations. The Redwoods Group does not warrant that all potential hazards or conditions have been identified or evaluated, or that they are safely controlled. The liability of The Redwoods Group is limited to the terms, conditions, and limits of the policies it has issued when conducting Risk Management Services. |
| released 08/15/00 |