UPDATE 3rd Quarter 2012
SAFETY & MAINTENANCE Safety Insights
“SMMC, what’s in it for me?”
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Tim Frazier, CDS ATA Director of Safety and Member Services
‘To be able to learn from folks who go all the way back to the deregulation days of trucking, has provided many do’s and don’ts that helped my career.’
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arly in my career, living in another state, I had my first exposure to a safety and maintenance council. As a maintenance director I had heard of the safety council, but didn’t realize it was made up of safety and maintenance professionals. I attended my first meeting of the Arkansas Trucking Association Safety & Maintenance Management Council back in 1991, and thus began a 20plus-year road of PARTICIPATION. I soon realized it was going to be a wealth of knowledge that could not be learned in the classroom or from books. Through the years, I’ve been exposed to some of the best safety and maintenance professionals in the industry while attending council meetings, truck driving championships, training events and many other activities. When my family and I moved back to Alabama in the mid-1990s, I soon became involved in the Alabama Trucking Association’s SMMC. It has been through this continued avenue that I’ve had the opportunity to learn valuable information from some of the best of the best. To be able to learn from folks who go all the way back to the deregulation days of trucking, has provided many do’s and don’ts that helped my career. That stated, you might ask the question, “What’s in it for me” if I join and PARTICIPATE in the SMMC? I believe I can share even more information than I discussed in the previous comments that will help you understand. One of the most valuable tools in our profession, whether it is safety or maintenance, is to be able to network with fellow professionals who may actually know something about a particular situation that you don’t. I’ve seen many situations where two, three, even four or five folks gather before or after a meeting to discuss an issue of concern. It’s great to hear in these conversations someone say ‘what would you do” or “how did you handle this type issue”. It’s even
better when you see a “new guy or gal” seek out information from one of our more “seasoned” folks. This often provides an avenue for a relationship that continues many years. We are able to discuss everything from Hours of Service, CSA, tires, engines, regulations — and the list goes on and on. We have the opportunity to hear from some of the most knowledgeable experts in our industry on any given topic. It’s a pleasure to hear from our FMCSA partners and the state Motor Carrier Unit throughout the years regarding regulatory issues we face or changes coming in the days ahead. When you have the opportunity to hear information that will save lives, cut costs, and even increase profits, I assure you your senior management folks will be encouraged by your PARTICIPATION. My goal in this article is to encourage more of our safety and maintenance professionals to become active, PARTICIPATING members of our SMMC councils. We now have three councils covering the state from north to south. With chapters in Birmingham, Montgomery and Mobile, you have access to PARTICIPATE in or very near your area. I realize we are all busy and our industry requires a lot of hours and hard work, but I promise you will benefit greatly from being involved in one of the SMMC chapters. Our Association has a great deal to offer its members. Involvement is very inexpensive (often times free), and you will benefit from your membership. If you are interested in helping your company succeed in a business that requires top notch performance, then you need to become an active, PARTICIPATING member of the SMMC. The opportunity to hear and learn from the best of the best will only increase your success. Did you happen to notice the word PARTICIPATING mentioned in this article once or twice?
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MANAGEMENT COUNCIL NEWS FMCSA sets December date for CSA changes Many of the changes to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s safety ratings program announced earlier this year will be implemented in December, administrator Anne Ferro. FMCSA will rename the Compliance, Safety, Accountability program’s Cargo-Related Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category the Hazardous Materials Compliance BASIC, but only motor carriers and law enforcement officials will have access to carrier safety scores in that category for the first 12 months. Ferro said the CSA changes will allow the agency to sharpen its focus on which motor carriers and bus operators are most in need of agency intervention. “Our preliminary data shows that fatalities involving commercial vehicles dropped 4.7 percent last year compared to 2010,” Ferro said. “Still, on average, nearly 4,000 people die in large truck and bus crashes each year,” she said. “That is why we are implementing these important changes to make CSA even more effective.” The agency also will implement a planned change to include cargo-related violations in the Vehicle Maintenance BASIC, Ferro said in a telephone news conference. In addition, she said the Fatigued Driving BASIC will become the Hours-of-Service Compliance BASIC. FMCSA also said it will remove 1-mphto-5-mph speeding violations to ensure cita-
NATMI certification ATA candidates for the North American Transportation Management Institute (NATMI) certified director of safety (CDS) accreditation. After completing a week’s worth classroom study at the Association’s headquarters in Montgomery last summer, candidates will develop and submit a presentation later this fall to complete their accreditation. ATA’s 2012 NATMI candidates from left, front row, Judson Bates of Cobbs, Allen & Hall; Darren Beard of Lockton Companies; Adam Amorose, LinkAmerica Corp.; and NATMI Instructor Mike Bedreaux. Back row, from left, Ronnie DeMonia, American Proteins; Avery Bain, ABC Transportation; and Scott Rankin, Industrial Warehouse Services.
tions are consistent with current speedometer regulations. While some of the adjustments the agency announced were responsive to motor carrier concerns, most were related to improving compliance rather than crash risk, said Rob Abbott, vice president of safety policy for American Trucking Associations. Separately, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association said the announcement “shows that [FMCSA] is listening to what truckers have been saying and taking those things into consideration,” said Todd Spencer, OOIDA’s executive vicepresident. But he added that “impatience from truckers should not be unexpected when a program has real-life consequences on professionals that know of no other way to do business but safely,” he said in a statement. —Transport Topics
834-3983 to reserve your spot at least a week in advance.
Calendar Birmingham Chapter Chapter meetings begin at 6 p.m. and, with the exception of the Safety Awards and Christmas Party, are usually held at the Bessemer Civic Center in Bessemer, Ala. Registration to attend meetings is required. Call Brandie Norcross at 334-
Oct. 18, 2012 Clanton Roadside Inspection Nov. 12, 2012 Regulatory Update Dec. 10, 2012 Christmas Celebration (Pelham Civic Center) Jan. 14, 2013 Driver Wellness/Agility Feb. 11, 2013 Electronic Recordkeeping
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Pre-employment screening program audits and fines take effect Boyd Stephenson, Manager of Safety Operations for the American Trucking Associations, says that FMCSA’s contractor administering the Pre-Employment Screening Program (PSP) has begun enforcing the program’s required audit process this month. The PSP allows a motor carrier to view five years of crash data and three years of inspection reports for a prospective employee driver. As part of this process, motor carriers must get a signed release form from the driver and retain it for 3 years. FMCSA has also mandated language for the release form and placed it online at the PSP website. The PSP contractor will begin auditing carriers this month. If a carrier is selected, the PSP contractor, NIC Technologies, will ask the carrier to pro-
Wiregrass Chapter Chapter meetings begin at 3 p.m. and are usually held at the Association Headquarters in Montgomery, Ala. Registration to attend meetings is required. Call Brandie Norcross at 334-834-3983 to reserve your spot at least a week in advance. October No Meeting Nov. 15, 2012 Audit Role Play
Dec. 10, 2012 Christmas Party & Celebration (Pelham Civic Center) Jan. 17, 2013 DOT Update Feb. 14, 2013 PSP/DataQ
Gulf Coast Chapter October 11, 2012 Grand Bay Roadside Inspection This growing chapter meets quarterly. Meetings are held randomly throughout the quarter. For more information contact Randy Watson at randyw@ evergreentrans.com 3
News duce up to three specific release forms for drivers whose PSP records that had been requested. National ATA advises motor carriers to remember that PSP searches are only allowed for prospective employees—not current ones—and that you must retain PSP paperwork for three years. Failing an audit can result in losing access to the PSP system and other penalties. For more information contact Stephenson at bstephenson@ trucking.org.
Roadcheck 2012 Out-of-Service rates 2nd lowest on record Out-of-service rates both for drivers and for vehicles inspected during this year’s Roadcheck were the second lowest in the 25-year history of the safety event, the Commercial
Vehicle Safety Alliance recently announced. According to Transport Topics, slightly more than 95 percent of all truck and bus drivers passed inspections during the annual three-day stretch of stepped up commercial vehicle inspections through North America. Only 4.6 percent were placed out of service, CVSA said, trailing last year’s record low 4.2 percent out-of-service rate. Likewise, the overall out-of-service rate for all vehicle inspections was 20.9 percent, compared with the record low of 19.3 percent set in 2011. CVSA also said the out-of-service rate for Level 1 inspections, the most comprehensive, declined to 22.4 percent, from 22.8 percent last year. “Out-of-service rate did uptick a little bit,” Stephen Keppler, CVSA’s executive director, told Transport Topics. “But historically, when you look at the program over its 25-year history, they’re still fairly low.”
Trucking firm installs fitness program for improved driver health
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By Ford Boswell
riving a truck is a difficult job for many reasons. Time on the road away from family and loved ones is stressful, and the long hours behind the wheel can often take a physical and mental toll on drivers. What’s more, the professional driver lifestyle is clearly not good for one’s overall physique. Some studies show up to 80 percent of truckers are overweight – and more than half of those are considered obese. A sedentary lifestyle, coupled with a steady diet of unhealthy fast food is causing long-haul truckers to have the highest obesity rate compared to other occupations. Obesity can lead to health issues, like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, sleeping disorders, etc. Prime Inc., a for-hire carrier, based in Springfield, Mo. is working to reverse the trend. The trucking firm, which is ranked among the largest for-hire carriers in the country, has developed what is likely the industry’s first fitness program specifically for truck drivers. The focus on employee health started more than 10 year ago when the Siphiwe Baleka company installed a state-of-the-art fitness
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Out-of-service violations can range from brakes requiring adjustments to improperly inflated tires and broken suspensions, Keppler said. David Osiecki, senior vice president of policy and regulatory affairs for American Trucking Associations, called the latest numbers encouraging. “Both the enforcement community and the trucking industry should share in the credit for the continued positive trend in violation reduction and, more importantly, the historically low crash rates,” Osiecki said. Law enforcement inspectors conducted a record 74,072 truck and bus inspections during Roadcheck, Keppler said. Of that total, 48,815 were Level 1 inspections. “Despite the positive trend in the Level 1’s, this highlights that one in five vehicles selected for inspection was found with a violation serious enough to be considered an
facility at its main headquarters. “We have two fitness instructors, [who offer] classes and do weight training and yoga,” Prime Inc. founder Robert Low told local television station, KSPR 33 News, recently. “We’re very aware that truck drivers typically haven’t been very healthy, and that’s a shame.” When Low built his fitness center, he felt the effects personally, shedding 30 lbs. in only a few months. That’s an easy task for a CEO who can most likely make time for exercise, but what was surprising is that other employees, including drivers, followed his example, and started dropping weight, too. The company even won a weight-loss competition against other trucking companies. The dedication to employee fitness was already well established when 41-year-old Siphiwe Baleka, a former collegiate swimmer, started driving for the company in 2008. “I had absolutely no experience with truck driving when I entered Prime’s student driver training program.” he explains. “When it was time for me to go out on the road with my instructor, I adapted to his habits. When he ate, I ate. Where he ate, I ate. We did not stop to exercise or workout.” Within three weeks he began to noticed that he had the beginnings of a dreaded “trucker’s gut,” and by six weeks he had packed on more than 15 lbs. to reach nearly 170 lbs. “I realized that if I didn’t do something, I was going to weigh more than 200 lbs. within a year and end up like the typical truck driver – fat and out of shape,” he said. “Consequently, I made a commitment to myself that I A LABAMA T RUCKER • 3 RD Q UARTER 2012
imminent safety hazard,” CVSA said in a statement. “These mixed results indicate that, while the attention paid by industry to maintenance and regulatory compliance is improving, more needs to be done by industry and enforcement alike.” CVSA’s Roadcheck report said that 84.4 percent of the vehicles passed hazmat inspections, and 15.6 percent were placed out of service. During the 2011 Roadcheck, 17.9 percent of hazmat vehicles were placed out of service. Keppler said he was pleased that the percentage of hours-of-service, brake adjustment and brake system violations had decreased — areas of emphasis in this year’s Roadcheck. “That shows that people did pay attention and did their best to try and stay in compliance,” he said. But Keppler said the slight increase in the rate that vehicles and drivers were placed out of service bears close attention.
“The economy is turning around in the trucking industry, and there are capacity issues,” he said. “People need to move loads. Sometimes when that’s the case, people don’t pay as much attention to regulatory compliance and maintenance.” Keppler said he also was concerned with an increase in the rate of logbook violations as a percentage of all out-of-service violations. “Fifteen percent of the drivers’ out-ofservice violations were for false logs,” Keppler said. “That’s the highest it’s ever been.” ATA’s Osiecki cautioned that the Roadcheck numbers are not statistically valid. “I don’t believe CVSA runs statistical significance tests on their Roadcheck data because the data are not collected in a random manner,” he said. “In other words, they target trucks for inspections based on information they have about the carrier’s past compliance record.” Osiecki said the trucking industry should
work closely with CVSA to encourage a shift away from Level 1 inspections and toward driver-focused inspections resulting from more traffic-enforcement activity. “The condition of the truck does not cause many crashes,” he said. “Drivers, both noncommercial and commercial, cause most of the crashes.” For that reason, inspections should focus on improving driver behavior and compliance with traffic laws, Osiecki said. But Keppler said Level 1 inspections include drivers and are necessary: “While I would agree that drivers are principally part of the crash picture, in an evasive maneuver or in a crash type scenario, your vehicle needs to be operating optimally to be able to perform,” he said. “The driver could be the best driver in the world, but if his braking system isn’t operating at an optimum level it doesn’t matter,” Keppler said.
He researched and even remembered training routines he went would find 15 to 20 minutes to exercise every day and to watch what I through as a competitive swimmer to put together a workout regiate. This is when I started to develop the concept of Fitness Trucking.” men and a business plan, and then pitched the business to Prime While still a driver for Prime, Baleka developed a workout program owner Low. that could be performed in about 15 minutes. There are 31 different “Already an advocate for driver health, Mr. Low was very receptive exercises, performed in different combinations, and all designed to be and gave me an opportunity to build this program, using Prime drivperformed within a few feet of the truck. ers to develop the system,” he said. “I realize I’m kind of unusual as far as drivers go,” he admits. Baleka now heads the company’s Driver Health and Fitness pro“When it comes to my personal fitness, I am extremely motivated. gram, which is thought to be the nation’s first fitness program excluWhen I was driving regularly, I made time to exercise; ate right; and sively for professional truck drivers. constantly thought about training, and how I can improve my health.” The 13-week fitness program is open to any driver who wants to He eventually started training for triathlons. “I jogged in the participate. They keep a food journal, and Baleka tracks their progress morning, and carried my bike with me on the truck, so I could ride online with software he had developed specifion breaks,” he says. “I even used a GPS device cally for his business. to locate YMCA branches that had pools along It costs $300 to participate, but if a driver my route. I’d call ahead to see if there was a completes the program, he or she keeps all the place to park my truck nearby, and I’d try to equipment and receives a full refund from line up my route so I could swim on my offPrime. So far, the program has about 18 particiduty time. I even trained in the sleeper berth pants, and, according to Baleka, all of them while my partner was driving.” have lost weight in the first 6 weeks – a few Other drivers begin to ask questions about have lost up to 25 lbs. his routine. “I soon realized there was need for “We’re still developing the program, but it’s a fitness program designed for professional pretty close to where we want it.” truck drivers,” he says. “I knew that most drivIf successful, Baleka says he’d like to one day ers weren’t going to go through the trouble I offer his service to other trucking companies did to make exercise part of their daily routine, that want to help drivers shed weight and imso I focused on developing a program that maximized workouts in 15 minutes, and I deprove overall health. For more information, visit www.fitness signed it all to be executed near the truck. I figtrucking.com or email Mr. Baleka at sbaleka@ ure the further a driver got away from his Baleka during his driving days. primeinc.com. truck, the less likely he would be to exercise.” A LABAMA T RUCKER • 3 RD Q UARTER 2012
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Alabama driver wins Twins Class at National TDC Mike Umphrey, a Con-Way Freight professional driver from Decatur, Ala., won the Twins Class at the National Truck Driving Championships, held recently in Minneapolis, Minn. The 75th annual “Super Bowl of Safety” is sponsored by the American Trucking Associations. Umphrey bested 48 other drivers in his class with a combined score of 549 points, edging his closest competitor by 53 points. His was the third highest overall score of the competition. Meanwhile, Scott Ward, also of Con-way Umphrey Freight in Decatur, took third in the Straight Truck Class with a combined 463 points; and Gary Nuckolls of AAA Cooper made it to the finals in the Sleeper Berth Class, but missed securing a spot in the top three for a trophy. The competition’s overall high score came from Don Logan, a FedEx Freight professional truck driver from Topeka, Kan., who posted a whopping 645 points to earn the title of 2012 Bendix National Truck Driving Championships Grand Champion. Logan’s topped 425 other professional drivers from all across the U.S. Logan has logged 25 years as a professional truck driver, with more than 2.1 million miles behind the wheel. Don began competing in his state truck driving championships in 2006, and this year he made his sixth trip to the National Truck Driving Championships. This is the third win for Don at the national level, placing first in the three-axle class in 2009 and in the twins class in 2010. Don holds six state titles. The contestants were the state champions in nine truck types from all 50 states. Collectively, they have driven 604,122,031 accident-free miles. In their respective classes, drivers tested their expertise in the driving skills they use daily. The competition course inside the Minneapolis Convention Center challenged their knowledge of safety, equipment and the industry. The skills course tested drivers’ ability to judge distances, maneuver tight spaces, reverse, park, and position their vehicle exactly over scales, before barriers or around curves. “The National Truck Driving Championships competitors are the best of the best – the safest, most skilled and most knowledgeable among professional drivers,” said
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ATA President and CEO Bill Graves. “I applaud all the competitors for their achievements and dedication to safety, and congratulate Don on his Grand Champion award which showcases his superior driving skill and commitment to safety.” Logan also won the individual flatbed truck driving competition. Joining Logan and Umphrey as champions in their respective classes were: Straight Truck: PA – Robert Dolan, Con-way Freight, Allentown, Pa. Three-Axle: MA – Roland Bolduc, FedEx Express, Windsor, Conn. Four-Axle: NE – Scott Stroup, YRC Freight, Omaha, Neb. Five-Axle: ID – Michael Grogan, Con-way Freight, Boise, Idaho Flatbed: KS – Donald Logan, FedEx Freight, Topeka, Kan. Tank Truck: KY - Brent Quire, Con-way Freight, Louisville, Ky. Sleeper Berth: PA – Leo Flack, A. Duie Pyle, Inc., West Chester, Pa. Step Van: Edward Gertz, FedEx Express, Londonderry, N.H. Robert Sutton, a driver for ABF Freight System, Inc. from Boise, Idaho, was named the 2012 National Rookie of the Year after competing in the Three-Axle division. Xata Corporation is the sponsor of the award. The Pennsylvania state truck driving championship team won honors as the highest scoring state team, followed by Washington and Georgia, respectively. This marks the 15th time Pennsylvania has won the state trophy, the first dating back to 1956. Logan also won the Vehicle Condition Award, one of the longest running NTDC awards. The Vehicle Condition Award recognizes the contestant who has proven – during this competition – that he or she has a thorough understanding of equipment, an extraordinary ability to inspect and evaluate a truck’s condition, and unequivocal commitment to safety. Biodiesel: America’s Advanced Biofuel was the sponsor of the award. Denis Litalien, a driver for Clifford W. Perham, Inc., from Wells, Maine, was awarded the Neill Darmstadter Professional Excellence Award. Litalien participated in the Five-Axle competition. Marking his 20th year as a volunteer at the state level and 14 years at the national level, Jack Taylor was awarded the Life-Time Volunteer Award. Truck Writers was the sponsor of the Life-Time Volunteer Award.
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