West Virginia Board of Risk and Insurance Management (BRIM) officials announced August 14, 2009, that the National Safety Council has chosen their agency as a Defensive Driving Course Award recipient for outstanding training efforts for 2008.
The award is for Best Performance for their online Defensive Driving Course. The National Safety Council will be recognizing BRIM officials at its 2009 Congress and Exposition in Orlando, FL, on October 24, 2009.
This year, BRIM partnered with the National Safety Council to provide online defensive driving training for state employees, who drive a state-owned, leased or personal vehicle on state business. BRIM provided this training to promote safe driving practices to reduce and control automobile incidents that could result in claims.
Some of the benefits of this training for state agencies and employees included:
- Reducing crash and injury rates for state agencies;
- Providing potential reductions in insurance premiums;
- Reducing down time as a result of fewer automobile incidents;
- Extending vehicle life spans through reduced incidents;
- Reducing safety and health problems;
- Increasing driver confidence;
- Developing new skills to promote driver and passenger safety;
- Reducing vehicle maintenance and replacement costs;
- Improving efficiency in work tasks through incident free driving.
BRIM provided a reward for full participation in this program. If 90% or more of the agency’s drivers successfully completed the training before the end of this fiscal year (June 30, 2009), an agency would receive a 2% credit toward its automobile insurance premium for the 2011 fiscal year. Conversely, if fewer than 80% of agency’s drivers completed the program, a 5% surcharge would be applied to an agency’s premium.
“BRIM has been pleased to offer this program to state agencies to assist them in making sure state drivers are practicing safe driving skills while conducting business on behalf of the state of West Virginia. The cooperation of all agencies in encouraging its employees to participate has been overwhelming,” said BRIM Executive Director Charles Jones. “This training is our contribution to helping make the highways a safer place to travel. By educating and informing state employees, they become more aware of some of the hazards and distractions that may occur while driving.”
The National Safety Council’s Defensive Driving Course began in 1964. With 8,000 instructors worldwide, the Defensive Driving Courses have graduated more than 60 million drivers. James Solomon, Defensive Driving Courses Program Development and Training Director for the National Safety Council, will personally congratulate BRIM officials at this event for their hard work in making the highways safer.