They’re keeping tabs

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — If you think you don’t need to tell your boss about that drunken-driving arrest last weekend, think again.

Same with that expired license. Or that no-proof-of-insurance ticket.

If the skyrocketing growth of a New Mexico company is any evidence, employers are increasingly interested in their employees’ driving records on and off the job.

“As much as we want to think that people will self-report, think again,” said Linda Atkinson, of the Albuquerque-based DWI Resource Center, which, among other things, counsels businesses on how to reduce drunken driving by employees. “If you haven’t checked an employee’s driving record, you’ve been put at risk. These are liabilities that go back to the employer.”

Founded in 1999 to help provide secure access to auto title information for New Mexico businesses, SAMBA Holdings Corp. has grown to counting 1,000 customers in more than 40 states with a service that lets employers keep tabs on their employees’ driving habits.

Acting as an “infomediary” between often antiquated government systems and business, SAMBA is one of a handful of firms nationwide specializing in packaging complex government data. It converts the information for customers that want to monitor the driving records of their employees without the hassle of dealing with local motor vehicle departments’ cumbersome systems.

Its growth has coincided with the groundswell of attention paid to drunken driving in New Mexico, which has consistently hovered at or near the top of the list in the nation for drunken driving accidents and deaths per capita.

Nationwide, drunken driving deaths and injuries cost businesses $180 billion per year, Atkinson said, citing a study by the Maryland-based Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.

“In a state like New Mexico, where we have a lot of small mom-and-pop companies, that’s a real critical piece that I think can have huge impacts,” she said.

That’s where a company like SAMBA comes in.

Using its access to state driving records, the firm offers an easy-to-use, Web-based system with which employers can download monthly reports on their drivers’ records on everything from drunken driving convictions to soon-to-expire licenses.

“It’s had a great deal of effect on saving us time,” said Bob Morris, safety manager for Denver Public Schools, which is about to enter its second school year using the FleetWatch system.

The Denver district uses the system to monitor 600 drivers of its 485 district-owned buses. Unlike Albuquerque and other New Mexico schools, Denver does not contract with private busing companies.

Besides getting monthly reports, Denver schools use SAMBA to run instant checks on job applicants.

“I take in probably 2,500 and 5,000 applications for drivers per year,” Morris says. “Of those, a good 40 to 60 percent were worthless. But to find that out, we had to go to the motor vehicle department, pull the record and find out they didn’t meet the criteria. Now, through this program, we can pull up anyone that walks in.”

The district also previously audited its drivers’ records twice a year by pulling records at state offices, an arduous process that still let its drivers get away with infractions for up to six months.

“Now, if someone gets a ticket, DUI or has their license suspended, we know right away,” Morris said.

He estimates the system has helped the school system cut its yearly accident costs by more than $30,000. It pays about $9,000 annually to monitor its drivers, down from the $20,000 he says the district formerly shelled out to obtain and analyze state records.

In the wake of high-profile drunken driving incidents, such as the one involving 15-year Bureau of Indian Affairs employee Lloyd Larson in New Mexico that killed two vacationing Nebraska couples in early 2002, more state agencies are requiring continuous monitoring. Larson had several drunken driving convictions and license suspensions by the time of the accident.