What are risk points and how do they work?

Risk points are applied to a vehicle whenever a driver's behaviour is flagged as risky, most often speeding. Argus takes into account other factors happening at the same time — such as the time of day, location and weather — because the combination of factors changes how much risk the event represents.

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What do risk points do?

The more risk attributes that apply to a single event, the more risk points it earns, because the combination puts the driver and others at greater risk. You can view the evidence collected against a driver or vehicle on the Driver Behaviour page, or by running the risk point reports under Reporting.

How do risk points work?

Argus reports on six attributes: Speeding (10 km/h or more over the limit), Open Road (10 km/h or more over the limit on the open road, a higher-crash area), Night Time (10 km/h or more over the limit after sundown, a higher-crash time), School Zone (10 km/h or more over the limit through a school zone), Adverse Weather (speeding in bad weather conditions), and Cruise Speeding (a sustained overspeed — the vehicle logs its position every 500 metres, so this attribute means at least 1 km was covered at a high speed; the sustained column shows how many 500-metre check-ins were logged).

When comparing drivers against each other, Argus takes an average of the points accumulated over the distance travelled — this is the Points Per 100km figure, and it keeps the comparison fair regardless of how much or little a driver drives.

How are overspeed alerts different from risk points?

The 10 km/h-or-more threshold above is what determines whether an overspeed event earns a risk point. A real-time overspeed alert, or an emailed overspeed report, uses a separate threshold that's configured independently — see real-time overspeed alerts. Because the two are set up separately, your account can receive overspeed alerts that generate no risk points, or see no emailed overspeed report despite an alert having fired. For a full walk-through of why a specific event triggered one, the other, or both, see why you got an overspeed alert or a risk point.

If a small number of isolated overspeed events look wrong, GPS signal reflection off buildings, bridges or large vehicles can briefly distort a position or speed reading — see why a vehicle's position can bounce or jump around on the map for that explanation.

Who uses risk points, and when would I use them?

Fleet managers and safety-focused roles use risk points to identify at-risk drivers and driving patterns for coaching, safety reviews and compliance.

What do I need to use risk points?

Viewing risk point evidence on the Driver Behaviour page, or running the risk point reports under Reporting, needs the MIDI plan or above.

How do I get started with risk points?

Open Driver Behaviour to see your current risk point activity. See how to read the Driver Behaviour page for how to navigate it, and how the driver behaviour star rating works for how points roll up into a star rating.

This article doesn't cover querying or disputing a risk point you think is wrong — see how to query or dispute a risk point.