Great West Casualty Company Blog

  Each year, pedestrians are struck and killed by motor vehicles due to distracted walking. Additionally, work-related injuries and fatalities caused by employees not paying attention to where they are walking have caused workers compensation costs and out-of-pocket expenses for employees to skyrocket. Incidents involving distracted walking are 100 percent preventable. Read the information below about the three types of distractions and what you can do to protect yourself.

Distractions are a high-risk exposure that motor carriers cannot overlook. Incidents like a distracted employee slipping in the shop or losing focus while driving and hitting another vehicle can have a lasting, negative impact on your company’s bottom line.

Training is essential to helping any organization meet its business objectives. In fact, the number one requirement of any training effort is that it must hold value for the company. Otherwise, training is a waste of time and resources. From onboarding new employees to conducting road tests with drivers, employee training serves an invaluable purpose and demands proper planning, execution, and follow-up. Unfortunately, this is where training usually fails, especially on the follow-up. Below is a brief list of reasons why training often fails in each of these areas and how you can have better chances of success.

Mistakes happen. As frustrating as that may sound, mistakes are inevitable because humans are imperfect beings. In fact, most crashes and injuries are the result of human error rather than factors outside of a worker’s control. Depending on the severity of the error, an employee making a mistake can be understandable. It is important for managers and supervisors to separate acceptable mistakes from unacceptable mistakes and to be mindful of how they respond to each.

Every truck driver has a pattern to the way he or she drives. These patterns, or habits, can be good or bad, or more precisely, safe or unsafe. A driver who integrates safety into all of his or her driving decisions, regardless of the environment, has established a pattern of behavior that reduces the risk of a crash. On the flipside, pattern driving refers to practicing unsafe behaviors, such as speeding and tailgating. Pattern driving also can occur when a driver gets too comfortable with his or her route or routines and lets his or her guard down. This type of pattern driving is common when drivers run dedicated routes to the same customers day after day and become complacent. In this case, complacency becomes a distraction, and the driver loses focus of his or her surroundings and the potential hazards that could lead to a crash. Read the list of driving patterns below and ask yourself if there are actions you can take to improve your driving skills.

Slips, trips, and falls are one of the leading causes of workplace injuries. For drivers, these types of injuries commonly occur when improperly entering or exiting the cab and trailer. The result can be quite painful and, in some cases, prove fatal. The key to avoiding a preventable injury is to recognize the hazards that contribute to slip, trip, and fall injuries associated with entering and exiting equipment, and knowing how to protect yourself from harm. Read this information and put the recommendations into practice to help protect yourself and others.

Lane change crashes may be prevented if drivers recognize the hazards that increase the likelihood of a lane change crash and take defensive measures to avoid a loss. Read the information below and ask yourself if there are actions you can take to improve your driving skills and reduce the risk of a lane change crash.

What is Truckers Against Trafficking? Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT) is an organization committed to its mission of educating, equipping, empowering, and mobilizing members of the trucking, bus, and energy industries to combat human trafficking. As truck drivers play a vital role in identifying human trafficking situations, being educated on the issue of human trafficking is essential in the fight to end this epidemic.

When a motor carrier starts seeing a trend in vehicle crashes, employee injuries, or even turnover, it is easy to look at the company’s culture as the cause and the cure. All too often, senior leaders look to create the right environment in the hope that it will bring the results they seek. In truth, one cannot directly fix a culture. Culture change comes as the result of making operational changes, sometimes involving painful decisions that affect processes, procedures, personnel, and even the company’s leadership team.

The winter months bring shorter days and increased driving hazards due to adverse weather. The change in season can be difficult to adjust to, especially for older truck drivers. One way normal aging affects older adults is fading night vision. The eye’s retinas function like photo film, reacting to light and images and then transmitting those signals to the brain for interpretation.