Great West Casualty Company Blog

Truck drivers, mechanics, and office workers were asked to identify the skills they felt were most effective in preventing workplace injuries. They agreed on the Essential 7 Work Practices. Read the information below and ask yourself how you can improve your work habits to protect yourself from injury.

In the frenzied pace of motor carrier operations, it is easy to get caught up in the daily grind and lose sight of fundamentals. For any business, three key elements are crucial to success: communication, teamwork, and planning. Revisiting each of these elements periodically is healthy for the entire organization and can help the company achieve its objectives. However, one area that motor carriers tend to ignore in varying degrees is safety. In the Spring 2019 issue of Safety Talk, we discussed how practical drift, an employee’s gradual deviation from established policies and procedures, can erode the effectiveness of a company’s safety efforts, and if allowed to continue unchecked, can negatively define the company’s culture. Senior management at a trucking company can contribute to this erosion as well. Here is an example: A motor carrier may become complacent or resistant to change because it hasn’t recently experienced a crash or injury. Management then adopts a mentality of, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This type of mentality introduces risk into what may otherwise be a healthy organization. If management cannot attribute the company’s success to effective loss-prevention practices, it is essentially saying pure luck is responsible for the company’s performance. Regardless of past loss performance, no company can afford to rest on its laurels if it expects to remain competitive. A periodic review of basic safety practices is essential because new risks may be present that have not been accounted for. Whether a change in customers, equipment, commodities, or personnel, motor carriers should have a process in place to continually assess their risks and determine if current safety practices are sufficient. Below are some assessment methods.

Critical crashes typically result in severe losses and can be catastrophic for everyone involved. Preventing critical crashes requires drivers to recognize the hazards that increase the odds of a crash, know the defense, and to react properly. Read the information below, and ask yourself how you can improve your vigilance and driving style.

One of the most important responsibilities a motor carrier has is to hire qualified drivers. This critical task, if conducted haphazardly or not performed at all, could have a negative ripple effect across the company and affect productivity, downtime, morale, expenses, and profitability. Due diligence should be given to screening applicants and conducting required background checks, but, arguably, the most reliable method to gauge a driver’s abilities and safety attitude is with a comprehensive road test.

Working around the truck can be just as dangerous to a driver as getting involved in a crash. One daily task a driver performs is uncoupling the trailer. This activity, if performed improperly, can result in shoulder and back strains, head injuries (e.g., cuts, abrasions, and concussions), as well as slips, trips, and falls. Read the information below, and determine if there are areas of your uncoupling technique that can be improved.

Summer is here, and a new set of driving hazards is sure to raise a driver’s stress level as fast as the temperature gets warmer. Operations personnel are likely to be the only friendly voice a driver hears during the day. This makes dispatchers, driver managers, and safety personnel important advocates for drivers as well as champions of the company’s safety message. Below is a short list of summer driving hazards. Share this information with drivers and complete the “Call to Action” tasks.

Great question! Unfortunately, there’s not a magic pill to resolve this issue, but motor carriers would be wise to consider retention solutions from the driver’s perspective if they hope to remain competitive and limit the business interruptions caused by driver turnover. Below are the American Transportation Research Institute’s (ATRI) critical issues in the trucking industry for 2018; on this list, you can see that drivers and motor carriers do not share the same concerns. This difference in views is important to point out because if a motor carrier wants to attract and retain quality drivers, it needs to create a culture and work environment that addresses driver concerns.

There is nothing worse for a motor carrier than receiving a call that one of its drivers has been involved in a crash. Everything stops as you react to the situation and start gathering details about who was at fault and whether the driver could have prevented the incident. While drivers are ultimately responsible for the decisions they make behind the wheel, the root cause of a crash could run deeper. There could be mitigating factors within management’s operational control that are contributing to losses – or worse – have lulled the organization into a false sense of security if a loss has not occurred yet.

Great question! Engaging and managing a geographically dispersed workforce is a challenge most motor carriers struggle with, especially those trucking companies that utilize over-the-road drivers who may not see their home terminals for weeks on end. This is an issue that is expanding beyond drivers, though, as more and more companies are weighing the risks and benefits of utilizing remote employees.

Rear-end crashes typically result in severe losses and can be catastrophic for everyone involved. Preventing rear-end crashes requires drivers to recognize the hazards that increase the odds of a crash, know the defense, and to react properly. Read the information below, and ask yourself how you can improve your vigilance and driving style.