Policies and procedures are necessary for high-hazard industries like trucking. They add structure and consistency to operations to ensure the highest quality product or service is being delivered. Unfortunately, a lack of oversight by senior management can cause the company’s policies and procedures to deteriorate over time and lead to a phenomenon known as practical drift.
Practical drift is a term coined by Scott A. Snook in his book Friendly Fire . It occurs when an employee gradually diverges from written policies or procedures to the point where the employee’s maladaptive behavior becomes his or her norm. To illustrate this, consider a driver who decides checking the tire tread depths during his/her pre-trip inspection is too tedious and simply skips that step. If skipping the step results in no negative consequences, the behavior is reinforced and will most likely be repeated. This poses a serious risk to motor carriers because deviating from proper vehicle inspections can lead to costly business interruptions and, possibly, crashes.
Practical drift is not a new concept. The investigation into the space shuttle Columbia disaster found previous shuttle flights had experienced similar mechanical issues, but no one did anything about it. According to Rasmussen, “The investigation suggested that NASA had suffered from the same type of drift towards danger as the Challenger accident ten years earlier.”¹ Despite NASA’s reputation for high reliability and rigid structure, even it found itself victim to practical drift.
Motor carriers can avoid practical drift by being more engaged in employee performance and leveraging technology to monitor conformance to policies and procedures. Below is a brief list of technologies to aid in this effort.
Motor carriers can use ELDs to monitor a driver’s hours of service. When connected to other fleet management systems, ELDs can gather data on vehicle inspections, fuel economy, mileage, maintenance, and more.
Onboard cameras have proven effective in changing driver behavior and also in resolving claims. Footage can exonerate a safe driver involved in a non-preventable crash or provide evidence to indemnify claimants.
ECMs are valuable for monitoring hard braking, speeding, and other engine data which could show a driver in direct violation of company policy.
The SMS and the PSP are similar tools used to track roadside and moving violations as well as crash involvement. Motor carriers can use the SMS to monitor current drivers and the PSP to evaluate driver applicants.
¹Source: https://risk-engineering.org/concept/Rasmussen-practical-drift
Note: These lists are not intended to be all-inclusive.
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