The foundation has considerable support. The board includes co-chairman Woody Collins, president of M&T Bank Mid-Atlantic Division, and former state Transportation Secretary William Hellman. Its honorary chair is O'Malley's wife, District Judge Catherine Curran O'Malley.
Terry Neimeyer, chief executive of KCI and a member of the foundation board, told the gathering that his company adopted its driving code to protect its employees. But he said the program has had the additional benefit of saving money on insurance.
Neimeyer said that in 2005, his company had a wreck in which an employee was at fault once every 108,000 miles. By 2007, after the adoption of tough new policies backed by sanctions, crashes were down to once every 180,000 miles. He said he's now aiming to get that down to one in 250,000 miles - a big saving for a company that self-insures.
"Businesses should do this. There's a reason to do this. You'll save lives and you'll save money. It's a coincidental good," he said.
KCI's program has included a cell phone ban since February because the company determined that 40 percent of its at-fault crashes involved distracted driving and that in half those cases the distraction was a wireless call. Neimeyer said he rejected the argument that employees were getting work done while driving.
"I'd rather you not do business when you drive," he said.
The company's program also involves checks of the driving record of all new hires as well as yearly checks of the records of existing employees.
"Ninety percent of them are clean. It's the 10 percent who aren't clean that are a worry," he said. If the company's chief safety officer determines that an employee represents a high risk, the worker can be denied use of a company vehicle.
Neimeyer said the policy paid off recently when it acquired an Ohio firm and found that one of its 30 employees was driving on a suspended license.
KCI also requires each of its staff members to complete a defensive driving course - and cancels workers' gas credit cards if they don't pass a test on defensive driving. One of KCI's toughest sanctions is that it charges workers who are at fault in a crash in a company car half the cost of the $1,000 deductible the firm pays. Neimeyer described the reaction to the $500 co-payment as "pained." But he's not worried that employees would leave the company over objections to the policy.
