The Role of Technicians and Mechanics in Safety

By Sulev “Swede” Oun, Owner, O&K Truck Repairs

At the time I’m writing this, summer is coming to an end. Approaching fast is fall and, of course, in my region, the dreaded winter (depending upon your perspective). Actually, by the time the magazine comes out, the first snow may have fallen.

This brings to mind a couple of events that coincide with the end of summer. One is National Truck Driver Appreciation Week in September. The American Trucking Associations (ATA) launched this program in 1988 to recognize the contribution of truck drivers to our daily lives and economy. Many state associations and fleets provide different ways of showing appreciation to drivers. In this same month, the ATA Technology and Maintenance Council (TMC) has a Technician Appreciation Week, which is in its fifth year.

I Googled the two events, and to no surprise, the driver event had many articles about it, compared to just a few articles about the technician event. I do recognize there are a number of differences between drivers and technicians, and not every technician belongs to the TMC. CVSA also has the International Driver Excellence Award event/program to recognize a driver who stands out in all areas, not just in safety but also in community involvement, etc. Driver recognition is definitely important, but comparatively little is ever mentioned about technicians.

I want to take this opportunity to bring up technicians. I feel I have a good grasp of their world, not because I am a technician and own a shop but because I have been fortunate enough to provide training to thousands of technicians in my state through the Trucking Association of New York (TANY) and the Dorman Products Lunch and Learns throughout the years. But this is not about me. This is about the guys and gals who have invested in keeping our commercial motor vehicles (CMV) safe while they travel our busy highways and keep our economy going. I have been so fortunate to work with these folks from fleets of various sizes, shops of numerous types, dealerships, authorities and agencies. I rarely run across a person in my training who cops an attitude, thinking they are only in the class because their boss told them they must be there.

Most techs are just like CMV enforcement people. They want the training. They want to do the right thing. They want to be the best. The sad part is that neither entity realizes its contribution to safety – primarily due to a lack of recognition, which goes a long way in expressing appreciation. After all, how do you gauge the number of lives saved due to proper inspections and repairs?

A typical technician will invest early in their career with a few thousand dollars in tools and could end up spending as much as $100,000+ in tools by the end of their career. Many technicians spend countless hours, days and weeks going through various trainings. These techs make significant investments with their time and money to keep CMVs in a safe condition.

Most companies reward their drivers for socalled “clean inspections” to coincide with the concept of driver appreciation. After all, a good safety rating is very beneficial in today’s climate of rising insurance costs and competition for loads and drivers. I have no qualms about asking fleet owners and managers: What about technicians?

When the conversation turns to drivers, pre-trips and rewarding drivers for those clean inspections – do you reward technicians, too? That driver would likely not get a clean inspection if it wasn’t for a technician who goes underneath the vehicle and checks all the systems and components, whether it be a preventative maintenance (PM) routine or an annual periodic inspection. Drivers are limited to performing just a walk-around inspection, which is also essential to CMV safety. However, when I do driver training, I suggest that, from time to time, a driver should be given the opportunity and tools to get underneath the vehicle for a better perspective of what is “under the seat” to put it all together.

I feel there is a closer ethos between CMV enforcement officers and technicians. Both entities perform similar inspection tasks, regardless of the environment, such as hot sun, rain, snow or other conditions. It comes with the territory. However, it is a different kind of passion that is not for everyone. If it were, we wouldn’t have a shortage of techs or inspectors.

Quite often, we shrug off when others brag that they or a family member graduated from a prestigious college or university with a degree and ended up with a high-paying job. However, if you remove us technicians from the equation, I am quite confident that without us, there would be no trucks on the road to drive, and the economy would suffer. So, let me walk everyone through a typical day and the tasks a technician/mechanic goes through.

You come to the shop at the beginning of your shift, quite often not knowing what your first job or task will be. It could be a PM task on a vehicle, which involves a full service, changing the oil and filters, greasing and, of course, performing the PM inspection to discover any deficiencies. Hopefully, everything goes smoothly, and you don’t get covered with oil, fuel, grease and anti-freeze in the process –not to mention water, after the truck comes off the road and hasn’t had the time to melt off the snow and ice completely. (That includes the enforcement officers, too, not just techs. Welcome to our world. It’s a messy job.)

Maybe you discover an issue with the brakes, requiring a brake job. Hopefully everything comes apart easily, which most often is not the case. But you invested in tools to assist you in those situations, not to mention your investment in training. You might get a job requiring light repairs that, back in the day, were relatively simple to diagnose. Not so today, with all the different controllers, circuits and strategies utilized in today's vehicle lighting systems. That’s when you hope the tools and electrical training you invested in pay off.

Your next task might be performing an annual inspection. Now, you want to ensure you are making the right decisions on what passes and what is rejectable. But you are confident because you were fortunate enough to participate in some form of regulations training.

(NOTE: I will not get into the deficiencies regarding annual inspections and some of the regulations making our job harder in this article, which I do bring up often in my regulations training. But those deficiencies do make our job harder to ensure that our vehicles are in a safe condition. That’s for a future article.)

All of the above are just examples of the activities in a typical day for a technician/ mechanic. Oh, but I did forget to mention the cuts, bumps and bruises that go along with the territory. Ideally, at the end of the day, the tech goes home to a family who appreciates all the hard work done to provide the best possible comfortable lifestyle: shelter, food, and care and education for your children. Let’s walk away with this final thought for all the techs – and CMV enforcement, too: Yours is an honorable profession. Be proud that all your actions save lives. Wishing everyone to be safe out there. n

Afterthought: Years ago, through TANY’s Safety and Maintenance Council, I proposed an award for technicians to provide a means of recognizing them without having a competition. We called it the “Golden Wrench Award.” It was hard putting the criteria together. I still have some issues with it when judging every year.

I developed a point system dependent on the various types of technician training. To be honest, I wind up tweaking it every year. All that to hopefully even the playing field. Some technicians have access to training through dealer systems, etc., that others don’t. I have learned to place a lot of emphasis on supervisor/company recommendation letters. We offer 1st, 2nd and 3rd place awards to participants, sectioned out into regions of New York state. It is a form of recognizing the tremendous effort our techs take to keep CMVs safe. I would greatly appreciate any thoughts on extending it beyond our state, and I welcome messages at okswede1@aol.com.