One Reason Why Your Company Truck is Governed at 62 Miles Per Hour

Ours are staying at 68. At 62 you are a hazard on the road honestly

 

62 or 68...don’t really Make difference...when companies hire morons who drive like reckless fools, bad things happens...never a good outcome when you hire for quantity over quality.

 

Premiums have been steadily increasing over the past few years, in some cases it's insurance carriers trying to catch up to historic inadequate pricing, and other just trying to stay slightly ahead of the loss development.

As a insurance company, our biggest issue is the ongoing escalation across the country of plaintiffs attorneys asking for the policy limits early in the "adjustment" phase on losses, where we may value the claim at $ 200,000 or so, they ask, up front, for the policy limits. If it can't be settled in negotiation/mediation we historically have moved on towards jury trials.....but the recent development by plaintiffs attorneys have put us in the circumstance that if we lose on the jury verdict, we are often then required to pay more than policy limits due to "un-fair claims practices" or "bad faith"....we have seen judgments in CA, LA, TX & FL recently where with a $ 1,000,000 limit of liability we were forced to shell out $ 3.1MM; $ 4.4MM; $ 5MM and the icing on the cake $ 10MM. It's hard for an insurance company to predict these kinds of payouts....we can predict frequency by class of vehicle and use, but when you get payouts this much more than the limits that were contemplated in your rate level development it makes carriers question the viability of writing heavy truck business.....especially in some legal jurisdictions. Insurance companies need to make a profit, to satisfy their stockholders who invested in them.....but hits like these, so far outside the "norm" can bury some in-adequately capitalized insurance companies.......even some of those Best's rated A.

Anyone who deals with the various Risk Retention Groups (RRGs) need to be very careful, and fully investigate the capitalization of the RRG.....fully investigate the "fronting carrier" (the insurance company whose paper is being used in some cases), and investigate who the re-insurer is and what their financial integrity is.

 

FFE had governed our tractor at 63, we had some time sensitive freight that we thought was moving at 65 but constantly failed the milepost timecheck. Once we got laptop with real time GPS on her and showed 63 max when speedo displayed 65 throwing off our schedule and being late a few times we took it into the shop to recalibrate speedo by work order.

Safety took us into the back office and said this stuff you bury it, keep mouth shut. It benefits FFE to run 63 Never mind the false speedo reading. (In those days the presidents fleet of select drivers got 70 mph trucks within the company.) Even though the proof was in the computer screen showing the disrepancy between 63 and 65.

We just finished up a doctors visit today as well as a hospital last night and many of the local trucks were moving at 75 already on our freeway. So if we were doing 62 or whatever we would become a liability and in the way of everyone on these two lane roads. Arkansas is going 75 about mid July and 65 on rural state roads.

 

People in cars cry about trucks going too fast then they limit them and now they cry about them going too slow and taking too long to pass each other. It sucks trying to pass someone whos limited at 65 when your truck can only go 67. Thats why the lane is blocked and cars cant get by so they get angry

 

This is another reason why owner operators will be disappearing in the future and only the megas will survive.

 

Take all lanes and go 55.
Mirror to mirror, door to door.

If it's good enough for us, then EVERYONE has to do it!

 

As by design.