During 2003 and 2004 groundbreaking evaluation research undertaken by Napier University's Centre for Mathematics and Statistics showed a clear statistical link between drivers' performance on the Virtual Risk Manager® RoadRISK™ assessment and their reported collision outcomes. In total the four studies involved eight, thirteen and twenty-six thousand people.

This remains the only driver risk assessment validation study that we are aware of, and means that as a tool for driver risk assessment, monitoring and improvement, the Virtual Risk Manager® is unique in that it has been validated through applied University research.

The outcome based on 26,000 drivers can be seen in the following graph. It shows a clear relationship between their collisions over the previous three years and their assessment outcomes on attitude, behaviour, knowledge, hazard perception and personal exposure.

Since these original studies, a number of smaller scale evaluations have been undertaken, the most recent of which is shown below, based on the RoadRISK™ Profile and Defensive Driving assessment outcomes of a mixed group of 50+ commercial and company car drivers employed by a large logistics and express delivery operator in the UK.

Based on this type of data from our research and experience with many organisations around the world we have developed the following risk assessment allocation rules.

These continuing projects mean that driver risks can be targeted directly on the basis of need and in a cost effective way. They are described in detail in the three following papers:

• Rea M, Murray W, Darby P and Dubens E. Comparing IT-based driver assessment results against self reported and actual crash outcomes in a large motor vehicle fleet. Road Safety Research, Education and Policing Conference, Perth, November 2004

• Murray W and Cuerden A. Virtual Risk Manager® Validation Studies. Interactive Driving Systems® Research report, November 2006

• Darby P, Murray W and Raeside R. Applying online fleet driver assessment to help identify, target and reduce occupational road safety risks. Safety Science, 47 (2009) 436-442

The full versions of all the above papers are available from Interactive Driving Systems®, as are a number of award wining case studies from around the world.