GOAL

Well, to play devils advocate here, and since I am the Company Man here, I will just say this: there have been entirely too many backing accidents. IF everyone had been doing their job safely the way they had been trained to do, as you say, we would not have had these accidents. It literally takes a minute to get out of the truck, walk 60 feet to the rear, look, and get back in your truck to make sure it is safe.

Yes, the messages every time you back is a little much, and tooting your horn every few feet is too, but I am willing to bet that we will soon find backing alarms on our trucks.

Backing accidents are 100% preventable. I drove before, I have nearly a million miles as a driver, and I never had a preventable. I backed 500 feet down an alley 10 foot wide before. So I know what it is like, lest you think I am just some office desk jockey that knows nothing about trucks.

Do I think sending a message every time you back is a little extreme? Yeah, I do. And I do not understand what the point is. But really, why are there so many backing accidents? How can a driver be comforable backing 40 tons of truck up and not be fully aware of what is behind him, or changes? If I saw a shadow change, or a reflection of some kind, I would stop and look.

But anyway... this will change soon. Eventually there will probably be backup cameras on trailers when the price of equipping it outweighs the price of the accidents. And back up alarms, so that Swift trucks sound like garbage trucks when they back up.

 

I had a talk with my terminal manager thismorning. he shed some light onto the goal and honking, so I'll share it

the Goal came from a terminal that made drivers with previous backing accidents send it in. Pheonix was having 2-3 backing accidents a day. So there terminal manager decided all there trucks would do this. There backing accidents decreases to 2 a week. So now do to its success it has spread to the rest of swift.

The honking has be implemented due to that spokane washington accident.

 

The honking is getting out of hand, or there are those that just do not have common sense. Last night in Laredo, was finally getting into a sound sleep when I hear this air horn. Get up to look, and it was a driver backing up his bobtail, next to me. This is taking it too far, and oh, this was about 10 o'clock. I doubt that I was the only one that was awoken at that time

 

When I was in truck driving school (no, I didn't attend the Swift Academy), we were taught to "toot" the air horns a couple times before we backed during our training. Everytime we put the truck in reverse, before we moved we had to hit the airhorns. When I attended the orientation/training at TMC, it was the same thing: airhorns before backing. When I went on the trainers truck with TMC, he didn't do it and didn't require me to either.

When I came to Swift and was on the Mentors truck, it was the same thing. He didn't honk his horns when backing and also didn't require me too. However, I have been in truck stops and shippers where I have heard drivers give a quick toot on their city horns before backing. Honestly, this is a good move safetywise as it does alert others that you are about to back up. The problem is that Swift has taken it to an extreme measure by asking us to beep the horn every few seconds. That is nothing but annoying and pointless and as mentioned before, does not keep the driver from backing into that object or ripping doors off.

The same thing with this GOAL message. When at a shipper or customer, you should already be getting out to open the doors before backing into the dock, so there is the GOAL there. Then it is up to you whether to send the message or not. Myself, IF I do send the message, it's AFTER I've hit the dock and I'm sitting there waiting to be loaded or unloaded, or dropped and hooked. If I'm in a truckstop, I've got way too much other stuff to worry about than sending a stupid message, such as getting set up right and backing in safely. And Like Scottie said, I'm confident enough in my abilities to know when I'm fine and when I need to get out and look. And I have gotten out to look many times.

And for the record, experience doesn't mean squat when backing up. I once watched a driver with 40 years driving experience (I asked him later how long he has been out here) back right into another drivers mirror, then pull up and almost do it again. Didn't once get out to look. To be honest though, he didn't need to get out to see that he had too much room between him and the truck on his driverside which would mean a lack of room on his passengerside.

I still maintain that these "requirements" that Swift is implementing are just knee-jerk, reactionary steps to a real problem rather than actual solutions to the problem. Honking the horn is a sound safety procedure, though it really does nothing to help with the problems they are having. The back-up alarms, though equally annoying, may be just as effective. The "GOAL" message is nothing more than punishing the whole fleet for a few idiots and has absolutely no affect on safety.

If Swift is truly concerned with backing safety, they should take a pro-active approach and develope a dedicated backing safety course. When it comes down to it, the problem is drivers who don't know how to back safely. Either they were not trained properly or maybe just have forgotten what they were trained to do. Swift can refocus their backing training at their schools for starters. That will help with some of the new drivers just starting out. But not everyone goes thru their academy. The LCQT course after getting off the mentors truck, is a good refresher, but is not very extensive. As I said before, either refocus the LCQT course to consentrate mostly on backing, or develope a dedicated backing course AND REQUIRE ALL COMPANY DRIVERS TO TAKE THIS COURSE. Make it voluntary for lease/owners. A refresher once a year wouldn't be a bad idea either.

I know that some of you may not like that idea, but which would you rather have: some additional, beneficial training that actually does some good, or more stupid qc messages requiring us to do more stupid stuff that have no benefits at all.

 

"Do airline pilots get monitored more than truck drivers? Or are the allowed to just fly the plane and do their jobs safely?"

Yep, they got one of those black boxes. It even records your conversation. Don't give the companies any ideas, OK?
Ricky

 

Today I got the message threatening to pull my contract if I did not start sending G.O.A.L. messages. I immediately called OOIDA and asked them if Swift could really do that...short answer was yes.

So i sent a message that said...I am 53 yrs old, I thought after 10 yrs as an O/O, and about 1.5 million miles driven, it was condescending to have to send those messages. I would rather concentrate on doing it right instead of stopping in a right-of-way and sending that silly message. maybe they would like to hold my hand when I pee, or maybe have me send a message about bowel movements too. I was not a child and did not appreciate being treated like one. Please let me know the name of the study that shows the decrease in backing accidents when GOAL is sent, I would love to read it.

They responded that someone would call me to "Discuss my problem". I said "Thats OK, I'm Good".

When I remember to send it, I will...but my memory......

Things sure have changed here.....

 

I was talking to a driver for Dollar General. The Werner drivers have to get out and look. Honk and back 15ft (marked on the pavement) get out again, mark the ground, honk, and repeat. Several have been fired for not following the rules.

 

I don't GOAL very often, but when I need to I try to remember to send the message,
If it is at a place that won't put even more of a delay on traffic or other drivers I do it before.
If not, then usually it is after I am safely backed in.

It is such a distraction, to have to stop what I'm doing and get into the QC - I have to totally take my mind off backing and set it into 'send message' mode, then try to get railed again.

It is just one more thing to think about while backing, and while backing I like to keep focused on BACKING!
There are enough things to think about without having to also keep in mind to send a message.

To me, sending a GOAL message while in the process of backing is simply dangerous.

I guess I'm just not good at multi-tasking.
Quite frankly, I never wanted to be. I like to concentrate on one thing at a time, and devote my whole attention to that one task.

I am not a computer program, nor a machine.
And with this 'send GOAL before you G.O.A.L' and Plus-1 scheduling, that is how I feel I am being treated - like a machine that can be turned on and off at anyone's whim, or a computer that is simply running a set of programs.

 

Not a computer? You are a bad machine..........