How does your company promote safety?

My company's safety culture is quarterly safety meetings, Smith System with a refresher class every couple of years. Messages over the Qualcomm come and go with the wind, sometimes you get a flurry of them then silence, safety-wise, for 3 or 4 months. We have loads of stickers and slogans at the terminals.

 

##### Rocks, what company do you work for? Sounds like every legitimate truckers dream...

And as far as prepass goes, going through the scales hardly bothers me. Only reason it seems to bother other drivers, at least from what i've gathered listening to the CB, is if they know or suspect something is wrong.

 

Sending you pm...

I have always done my best with regard to inspecting the truck... However, I know that if an officer "wants" to find a violation, he/she will... And even if the violation is "inaccurate" and I challenge it and win, that will take a lot of my time and effort... For that reason I don't like entering inspection stations... Besides, it's time consuming... specially if there's a long and slow line...

Despite of the fact that my co. uses freaking Peoplenet and elog, their trucks don't have the elog sticker outside... But I never had any DOT officer asking me if I use paper or not... I guess they know we are on elog and don't care checking it... My co. does audit our elogs randomly though...

 

Well, not everywhere can be perfect. I've heard some ranting about Peoplenet on this forum, if I ever have to use it I'll be curious about finding work-arounds for any bugs. I like computers and had a small business fixing computers and so on.

SNI does similar audits, they just recently flagged a handful of people on the JcPenny account for not logging their pre-trip in. (They'll do their pre-trip, but won't let their clock start until they start driving.)

 

At my company they are fairly safety-conscious. It is becoming more important though lately as our CSA scores have increased significantly due to a few bad inspections. Typically a new hire is given a training ride by an employer certified trainer to see if they can actually operate the truck safely. If a trainee passes that, then they spend two weeks with a trainer learning how to operate the industry specific equipment and where locations are at. We as drivers are required to fill out safety assessments once per day at one of our sites, these are supposed to help us with risk assessment and help us to avoid getting hurt.

If a certain item keeps coming up as noncompliant in roadside inspections, then every driver in the company is required to sit through a training course tailored to fixing that specific item. We are also required to attend company provided Smith Training.

 

That is very similar to how the Walmart Private Fleet treats safety. They do, however, have Prepass. The safety manager, will randomly follow drivers for pretty decent distances now and then, and sends them an assessment of their driving and anything that needs to be worked on. The quarterly bonus's plus a paid safety day (at full ADP) are great incentives, as are safety goals being met for the DC's, BBQ's, and mdse rewards.

As most know, Walmart has the best, or is in the top 3 of safety, and their CSA score is second to none.

 

Money is a good way. We use the Smith System more but we are local in the city. But I still believe you could up that program more. Just don't make it a joke. It will turn south real fast if there's no meaning behind any program. Have the drivers take more control over their truck. If they want to add a safe item to the truck let the company pay for it. Like for example Moto-Mirrors. I would not want to drive with them because of the tight turns and area we get into. Just make your program sound and make sure the company stands behind the drivers. Safety should always go over cost unless of course it will bankrupt you. Give out awards to drivers that come up with safety items. Get the big bosses involved. There's a lot of little things you can do to improve your program. But have one item or event go away from safety and your program becomes a joke to the driver.

 

Our company promotes, routinely across the qualcomm, they're policy of sticking a driver facing camera in your truck if you have a boo boo. How many drivers want to be on trucking's version of Candid Camera?

 

"Don't get caught."

Seems to be the standard in NJ.