Thanksgiving 2016

It's easy to get down on yourself when your out on the road on a long weekend that celebrates family. But all it takes is a short conversation with the person you are most thankful to have in your life to put the world back into order.

When I'm out on the road I call my wife Debbie every evening. It's the daily phone call that puts any fears to rest that a trucker's partner must live with and puts this truckers mind at ease knowing that all is well on the home front.

But last night was special. Debbie was looking after our two grandchildren, Nate, 5 years old, and Morgan age 3. Debbie told me that they decided to play "baby bears" at one point during the day and needed Grandma to help them build a cave. The cave is always constructed of pillows, blankets, cushions off the furniture and so on. The two bears then decided it was time to search for food to store away for the winter. Taking that cue my wife put some treats in paper muffin cups and hid them throughout the house for the "bears" to find and gather for the winter. When all the food had been gathered it was time to sit in the cave and picnic on the spoils.

The two little bears told Grandma that they should come to Grandma's house every Saturday now and play this game. Ha ha ha!

I'm thankful for the incredible support I receive from my wife day in and day out. It is so easy to become centered on your own daily challenges when you live on the road as a trucker. But that partner we have at home deals with all the stresses of separation that we endure on the road and the worry of the hazards we face that are completely beyond their control. But more importantly a truckers partner fills the void the trucker leaves behind every week playing duel roles of mother AND father or grandmother AND grandfather.

So last nights phone call to home exemplified the love we share in our home. I'm so incredibly thankful for my wife and all the love and life we have shared together over the past 37+ years and I'm so thankful there are many years of sharing yet to come. I couldn't do this job without her by my side.

No, No, No

Who knew?
Drivers can eliminate paperwork and run by the book, while fleets save time and money through automation. ELDs can put drivers and dispatchers on the same page when it comes to planning. For instance, they can both see why it makes sense to send the driver to the shipper the night before so his waiting time can be done off-duty.

Above is a paragraph taken from a column written by a member of the trucking industry but a non-driver. I have provided the link below to the full article.

http://www.trucknews.com/features/keep-elds-urs-blind-spot/

Sending a driver to the shipper the night before making a delivery in order to log the waiting time off duty goes to show the complete lack of understanding of a drivers responsibilities and challenges that they face in this profession.

This is a typical response of Industry insiders that do not work within the confines of a truck cab.

I think I will just leave it at that and allow any discussion on this to go where it may.

Technology Can't Give a Pat on the Back

This post appeared in the August 2016 edition of Truck News

Technology is a wonderful thing. We can’t get by without it in today’s world. But those of us that find ourselves “managed” by that technology would like to give it a try.

The problem with truck driving and using technology to measure performance of drivers is the almost complete lack of human contact in the drivers’ workplace. Software is used to report the failure of a driver to meet a specific standard. So the only feedback a driver receives is negative. It is rare that a driver will be caught doing something right by the measures employed in today’s trucking industry. Many of us that earn our living as professional drivers follow the “no news is good news” formula when it comes to judging our own performance. In most professions you can count on a manager in the workplace to recognize an above average performance by an employee. But in the trucking industry there is not anyone to re-enforce all the positive things that a driver does in the course of his or her day. A driver is doing a good job when they are not caught doing anything wrong. Layers of measurement tools are being added all the time to measure performance in the cab but performance appraisal by another human being is becoming increasingly rare.

I recently ran into a situation that provided me with the opportunity to do something about this inequity. I heard about one of my fellow drivers doing something right so I reported it to our Safety Manager. Think about that for a minute. As drivers we have the ability to let our managers and owners know when our fellow employees (drivers) are doing something really well. We are certain to let them know when something is not right so why do we not report above average performance.

We had a new hire at one of our terminals recently, a brand new city driver with little driving experience. I had heard some positive feedback from the experienced driver that was mentoring the new driver and then I was told by one of our long-time customers about the great job this new driver was doing when I made a delivery there a few weeks later. So with all the talk about retaining drivers and creating an inviting work environment I realised that I had an opportunity to walk the walk so to speak. I picked up the phone and made a positive report to the drivers local supervisor and on my return to my home terminal, that is also the head office, I had a short sit down with our Safety Manager and let him know what a great job this driver was doing and why.

This is actually a lot bigger deal than many drivers realise, myself included. I had forgotten how difficult it has become for managers to encourage, coach, and strengthen a driver’s performance by catching them doing something right when most of the tools they have available are designed to activate reports based on sub-standard performance. So as drivers the best measure our manager/owner has of our performance is when they don’t hear anything at all. If we are not seen and not heard from then everything is just fine. Only the squeaky wheel that is about to fall off receives the attention it deserves.

It should be no surprise that under these conditions morale is difficult to maintain and communication, that is, building strong workplace relationships, is a long term endeavor that does not receive the attention it deserves.

This is where we can make a difference as seasoned drivers. Many of us that have been in this business for a decade or more have found a comfortable place to work. If we have been with one employer for 5 years or more we have built a relationship of trust, hopefully. If we have the respect of our employer then we can leverage that relationship to help those drivers that are new to the industry and still trying to find their feet. This is something that we don’t do enough of.

Everything comes down to training and performance management in our business. If you are an experienced driver you have the unique ability to influence the culture of the company you work for. You can make it more people oriented by becoming more people oriented yourself. Use your experience to help the people around you, especially new drivers breaking in to our industry. It does not take much to mentor others. All you have to do is let them know when they are doing a good job and share your experience, especially your failures. Adding a human touch to our industry is something we can all do. These are simple old school values and practices. Let’s not forget to put them to frequent use. This is a positive difference we can all make.

How Trucking Eats It's Young

This post was published in the July 2016 edition of Truck News

Work the first two weeks without pay and then ten cents per mile while training. That was an offer made to a newly licensed driver by a potential employer. This information came to me through a trusted associate.

I was told by a potential employer that I had to pay a $100 fee when I did my road test. They would refund it to me if they hired me. That was from a thread in a trucking Facebook group posted by a Canadian veteran transitioning to the trucking industry.

With over 30 years’ experience, a clean driving record, and loyalty to my employer, why am I being paid the same rate per mile as new hires, some with little experience and a dirty driving abstract? Again, from a driver commenting in a Facebook trucking group.

I could go on with comments like this gleaned from social media and fellow drivers I have come to know over the years. The hand wringing about the driver shortage continues but to those of us that work the front lines it is obvious where the problem lies. It is all about how drivers are treated. It’s about respect, or rather, the lack of it. For those of us that work for legitimate professional carriers that treat drivers as partners in their business, not pawns, we shake our heads in dismay.

I do my best each month when I sit down to write this column to put a positive light on the career I have chosen not because I feel it is my duty but because I love what I do. My career in trucking has been my salvation both personally and financially. It’s a great way to earn a living. But if I had not cast my lot with J&R Hall Transportation 13 years ago where would I be today? I am truly grateful to be where I am.

It is difficult to address the negative hiring practices and poor treatment drivers receive at the hands of employers.  Where does a new recruit to the industry turn when faced with a situation they recognise as questionable but have no knowledge or industry experience to guide them? The fox has been minding the henhouse for a long time but drivers are becoming much savvier in their ability to weed out the shady operators. Social media groups are not only sharing experiences and rating carriers through their own commentary but are also helping newly licensed drivers to manoeuver their way around government websites and use CVOR and CSA scores to weed out the carriers with poor safety ratings. If a carrier isn’t taking the time to do things right on the operations and maintenance side of their business it is a strong indicator they probably don’t take the time to maintain and nurture their human resources.

Training and certification. It is long past time to recognise this truck driving profession as a skilled trade. I know I sound like a broken record. Every month I come back to this same theme. But it is the one issue that cuts across all lines of the trucking industry. If we had a system in place with the same approach to training and certification as other trades do we would be able to tackle this issue of a driver shortage in earnest. We have to face the fact that there is no shortage of people wanting to earn a decent living but there is a shortage of people that will accept being treated like crap.

Let’s go back and look at the example of the newly licensed driver looking for work. This individual has been unemployed for a period of time, has scrimped, saved, and tried to source funding for the six to eight thousand dollars they need to complete a legitimate training course. They have been told there is an abundance of good paying jobs with on the job training by recruiters. But upon graduation the sharks are circling ready to pick off their victims one by one. Many of these new graduates are hungry for work, any work, because the bill collectors are at the door, the rent needs to be paid, and their family needs to be cared for. I have been there myself. Desperation can easily cloud sound reasoning.

So unfortunately many new recruits accept these sub-standard offers of employment and many of them don’t last in the industry. They end up driving crappy equipment at a poor rate of pay and their expectations of a new and exciting career are shattered. It is easy to sit back and say that people don’t need to accept to work under those conditions. But that does not fix what is broken. We need to train, certify, and recognise our drivers as professionals and make sure the wages and benefits reflect those skills and training. It’s the right thing to do. Period.

Is Trucking Really a Lifestyle?

This post was published in the June 2016 edition of Truck News

Although I have used the description myself, I’m tiring of truck driving being promoted as a “lifestyle”. Trucking is a field of specialized training (profession) not a set of attitudes (lifestyle) in my opinion. Or is it both? For every truck driver you talk to and ask the question - Is truck driving a lifestyle, a profession, or both? - You will receive a different interpretation unique to the individuals’ circumstances and personal values.

A huge problem that we face as professional drivers is that we don’t have a broad set of standards under one umbrella around which we can coalesce. Unlike the carriers we work for we don’t have an organization that represents our profession. We are fragmented and spend far too much energy focusing on our differences surrounding lifestyle issues rather than focusing on the skills we ALL share and the social issues we ALL face.

There are some great examples of drivers coming together on social media to address industry wide issues. One of those issues is driver training and mentorship.

Shelley Uvenile-Hesch is long haul driver for Sharp Transportation. Through her persistence and tenacity she has brought to life a non-profit named the Women’s Trucking Federation of Canada. It started a few years ago with a will to expand the employment of women across the Canadian trucking industry. Through Shelley’s membership in Facebook groups and her dogged determination she built a following that led to the incorporation of WTFC in early March of this year. A group of six full time drivers form the WTFC board. With a focus on co-operation, positive attitudes, and a desire to build relationships across all lines – drivers, carriers, government, training organizations, vocational schools, other social media groups, etc. – professional drivers are coming together to share their knowledge with new recruits and renew the camaraderie that so many seasoned drivers have been pining for over the past few decades. This is a great example of how drivers can come together to share our common skills and experiences. This organization is not designed to represent drivers but to empower them. WTFC challenges the authoritarian model that the trucking industry has developed over the years. In essence it presents a new paradigm of problem solving from the bottom up rather than the top down.

WTFC is a great example of how all drivers can come together under the skills umbrella to better their profession, but what about working conditions or as we have come to know it the lifestyle of trucking? Where have we been and where are we going? Alfy Meyer digs in to this topic on his website theintrepidtrucker.com with a post titled “Caught Between a Paradox and a Paradigm, Why the Trucking Industry is Doomed to Collapse in 10 Years”. With almost four decades driving experience Alfy provides us with a wonderful snapshot of where we have come from. You should take a look.

It’s important to realise that the issues we face surrounding driver pay, overtime, waiting time, compliance with regulations, and health issues are not unique to the trucking industry. Movements such as Occupy highlight the difficulties faced by the majority of citizens today. There is constant pressure around the issue of profit for large corporations versus equity for people. It really is the issue of our times. Coming together around this issue is far more difficult because of our individual political, religious, and cultural differences.

So I come back to my opening statement about the so called trucking lifestyle. It’s as if we wear the hardships we face as drivers like a badge of honour. We are pushed to accept the long hours and often poor working conditions as the status quo. How often have your complaints about an ongoing issue like driver waiting time, lack of safe parking, or 60+ hour work weeks without overtime compensation, been addressed with a comment such as, “Well, that’s just trucking”. Many drivers today will simply say if you don’t like it find another line of work. Sub-standard working conditions have become the norm for many drivers in this industry because that is all they have ever known. As a result this poor treatment has become institutionalized. The trucking lifestyle.

So we are seeing drivers becoming energized around skills issues and showing that we are the natural leaders in the training process because of the incredible depth of our experience. That sharing of common knowledge and skills leads to a strengthening of the camaraderie amongst drivers that combats the differences in our cultural, ethnic, and political differences.

We need organizations like WTFC that empower us to come together and push the driver agenda forward. But we also need the veterans like Alfy Meyer to remind us of where we came from and what we need to aspire to.

Being Generous With Your Time Can Pay Off

This post was published in the May 2016 edition of Truck News

“I’m glad it’s you making the delivery today, most drivers don’t offer much assistance” Clare said with a smile

That quote comes from a receiver I’ve come to know very well over the past several years. He owns a small retail furniture business in southern Manitoba. I always call ahead when I deliver to him so he can arrange for help to unload his shipment. On this day he was short on staff leaving the two of us to get the job done. It wasn’t much of an inconvenience on this day because it was a light shipment. Besides, over the years our relationship developed based on generosity & gratitude. I gave generously of my time & labour, he was grateful. In the days prior to the opening of our Winnipeg terminal his shipment was usually the last of the day on my wagon, he would accept delivery late into the evening being very generous with his time. In these instances it was my turn to be grateful. He respected my time and effort.

Over the 17 years I have been driving customer service is rarely, if ever, talked about within the driving ranks. Yet how we relate to shippers & receivers has a direct impact on our time and our trip plan. I don’t  ever recall sitting in a safety meeting and having a discussion about our customers and how the drivers one on one relationship with them impacts the drivers daily life and in turn, the fortunes of the company. I’ve always found this odd. I’m payed by the mile and by the drop. Why aren’t we talking about how to make good use of my time? That time is totally dependent on the relationship I have with shippers & receivers. Shouldn’t we be talking about those relationships and how to leverage them?

I think this topic is the Achilles heel of the trucking industry. Why? Because developing people skills and the productive professional relationships that go along with them is incredibly difficult in an environment where the drivers’ performance cannot be observed and coached. We have to face the fact that in the past people skills were developed organically across the trucking industry by smaller often family run trucking companies. Successful customer service skills were not taught but were demonstrated to new drivers by experienced drivers and the founders of the company. Customer service wasn’t called customer service in this environment but was probably known as showing respect, hard work, commitment, generosity, etc. These positive work ethics are known to most drivers in the industry as old school values. These are the foundational values that build strong interpersonal relationships with shippers & receivers – customers – and lead to higher productivity for the individual driver.

It seems that the expectation of many drivers today is that their responsibility ends when they bump the dock. This attitude is re-enforced by many large companies that recruit drivers with the tag line, ‘no touch freight’. All you have to do is drive, your responsibility ends there. But this re-enforces the short term view of return on investment. Personal relationships and the benefits that come along with them are not short term projects. The payoff is in the long term.

Where I work we deal with floor loads of commercial furniture shipped to dealers across Canada. Often I will have to deliver a load of 300-400 pieces of furniture to a single stop. On occasion there is only one individual receiver plus myself to unload the freight. Usually there is more manpower than that but sometimes not. Do I sit in the cab all day and wait or do I invest some unpaid time and assist? Many drivers will not expend the effort because they are not being financially compensated for the work. I won’t disagree with that position. But what I will say is that because I deal with these individual receivers on an ongoing basis a situation such as this presents a golden opportunity to be generous with my time and effort and earn their gratitude in return. That gratitude and respect we have the opportunity to earn in these situations pays off in spades down the road. When the opportunity arises for that shipper or receiver to repay the gratitude you earned with a generous act of their own, they will, making your life easier by valuing your time as something important. That friends, is money in the bank.

But the real value I find in taking the time to invest and build relationships with people I may only see two or three times a year comes in the greeting I receive when I walk through the door. More often than not I am greeted with a smile by people that are genuinely glad to see me. That is priceless.

Entry Level Training is Just the Start

This  post was published in the April 2016 edition of Truck News

On February 22, 2016 the Ontario Government posted proposal number 16-MT0014 concerning Mandatory Entry Level Training, or MELT, as we have come to know it. The summary of proposal contained the following statement.

“The introduction or mandatory training, in addition to the testing requirements, is designed to ensure that commercial truck drivers are properly trained before they are licensed.”

Much will be made of this statement by all involved. It implies that MELT is a solution to the lack of driver training that currently exists across the trucking industry. It is not. It is merely the first step down the road. Why is that so? Because the proposal closes with the following statement.

“This proposal is not designed to impose new training obligations on existing Class A driver’s licence holders.”

Now I’m not saying that MELT is not needed. It definitely is. But existing licence holders don’t receive any training as a result of this proposal and new drivers will face an expectation from employers and the traveling public that they are far more competent than their predecessors. As professional drivers we should not allow the public, or our carriers, to perceive that MELT is the solution to fix everything that is wrong with driver training and truck safety.

I spent 3 years as a mentor to graduates of a few different truck driving academies. Those new drivers received excellent entry level training. But what really mattered to those drivers was to be hired by a reputable employer and put their new found skills into practice under the tutelage of an experienced driver in real world situations. To these drivers entry level training is just that, a foot in the door to a new and exciting chapter in their lives. Why doesn’t the industry exploit this incredible learning opportunity? Probably because it is so labour intensive and difficult to envision beyond the expense line on a company’s operating statement.

The program I was able to put together with the help of my employer was based on the knowledge I had garnered through numerous trainer training courses and experience as a manager and business owner prior to my rebirth as a trucker. I spent a minimum of 3 months with each new driver. The first month was demonstrate and repeat, repeat, repeat, increasing the challenges in the training process day by day and discussing skills in detail. It was a period to develop trust and comfort in the cab. The second month saw drivers taking full responsibility under my supervision asking for support as they needed it. The third month saw the addition of some extreme driving conditions in which we reverted to the demonstrate and repeat, repeat, repeat model of the first month but now the new driver was instilled with a level of confidence and a stronger skill set to cope with the challenges. It was a program that was very well received by the new recruits and my employer.

But at the end of 3 years I was of the mind that no single individual or single carrier can carry on this intense level of training in perpetuity without broad support from across the industry. Ironically this is how the MELT program has been developed.

To act as a mentor is to serve as a trusted counselor or teacher, especially in occupational settings. Safety is embodied by an intense period of mentoring provided by professional driver/trainers that make permanent the skills drivers have learned through introductory training. Practice only makes perfect if a learned skill is repeated under the supervision of a qualified coach and mentor. That process needs to be institutionalized across the trucking industry.

Now is the time for professional drivers to step up and take possession of this critical file. Road safety is a driver issue, drivers own it. Drivers should be involved heavily in every step of the training process and its development. The answer as to how drivers will accomplish this is straightforward. Get involved. But we can’t do it as individuals, we have to take on this challenge as a group. Therein lies the hurdle drivers have been unable to overcome because we not only have to bring our skills together as a group but we then have to interact with carriers, enforcement, training institutions, and legislative bodies. That’s a huge task and is usually met with people throwing up their arms and saying it can’t be done. But it can be done in four distinct stages.

        I.            MELT

      II.            Mentoring for 3-6 months

    III.            Team driving for a period of 1 year

    IV.            Remedial/Ongoing training developed by all partners and made available universally across the industry

This is the path to recognizing our profession for what it is, a skilled trade, and it will only come to fruition is professional drivers take an active role in its development. At the moment there are too few experienced drivers engaged in the training process. We can change that.

Getting Involved in Decision Making

This post was published in the March 2016 edition of Truck News

Drivers make split second decisions all day every day, that’s a fact. A driver is not able to, and definitely does not want to, send their decisions to committee or put off a decision until the next legislative session. But that is the way the world works when it comes to the bureaucracy that governs our industry. To coin a phrase; it drives drivers crazy. This point was made clear to me when I was doing a little review of some of my past columns and came across “Keeping an Open Mind about the Potential of Electronic On board Recorders”, a piece I wrote for the April 2010 issue of Truck News. The theme of this piece was the need for drivers to have flexibility in how they plan their day. That same theme repeated itself in my column last month. That’s six years folks and we’re still waiting on a decision on electronic logging devices here in the great white north.

I’ve been searching for a way to convince my fellow drivers to participate in events that take place outside the wheelhouse of the truck in order to influence the decision makers. I’ve had little success convincing drivers to participate in industry safety meetings and events. I know there is incredible value to be had to the individual driver and to the industry as a whole because drivers are the repository of safety knowledge through lived experience that is largely left untapped. Drivers detest inaction, indecisiveness, and bureaucracy. Combine that with the authoritarian nature of the leadership that has molded this industry over the years and it has left drivers feeling that participation is fruitless.

But we should never lose sight of the fact that as individual drivers we do have influence. The late Stephen Covey wrote about the circles of influence we all have in our lives and how they overlap with others. One of the influences we have as drivers is within the companies we work for or are affiliated with as owner operators. We neglect to take an active role in events and meetings put on by the very companies we depend upon for our livelihood. The owners and executives of those companies (no matter how big or small) have a much larger influence than the individual driver within the transportation hierarchy. We can tap in to that and make our voices heard simply by participating actively in something as simple as the drivers’ safety meeting.

I think that drivers should be using this channel to question decisions and policy. It has been my experience that questioning authority rather than simply accepting decisions that affect your daily life is appreciated by your employer and business associates when it is done in an objectively critical way. It’s not about who can scream the loudest to get their own way. It’s about bringing the wealth of your experience to the table. As a group drivers don’t do that. I’ve sat in many driver meetings over the years with people that have had plenty to gripe about at the truck stop but when it comes to piping up in front of the company executive in a group session they remain silent. Why? This is the perfect setting for discussion and debate about the issues that really matter to drivers.

Drivers should realise that if you can impress your experience and ideas upon the managers and owners then the driver’s circle of influence within the industry is expanded in turn.

But the responsibility for culture change doesn’t fall solely on the shoulders of drivers. Far from it. This was made clear to me in a recent discussion with a colleague about participating in industry events as a driver.

Networking and educational events are sponsored by a wide range of trucking industry players. The top 100 Canadian trucking companies along with carrier organizations play a heavy role in sponsoring these events. As a consequence many of their own employees are participants as speakers, panelists, etc. This is fair in the sense that they are footing the bill but it doesn’t speak to the diversity within our industry. There are thousands upon thousands of individual drivers that don’t have a carrier to pay fees of up to $300 or more for an educational seminar and networking event plus those drivers have to take unpaid time off to participate. This needs to change. These events not only educate put they drive policy and influence trucking culture in a big way.

So let’s try and make our voices heard drivers, however we can. You don’t have to attend a seminar you only have to speak up at your next drivers meeting and ask that your views be shared widely. Then you can share your experience through social media so your fellow drivers can benefit. You do have influence, please use it.

January 26, 2016

Woke up expecting the worst this morning but my fears were allayed when I drew back the curtains. It was snowy but a full blown storm had not developed overnight. Good deal.

After pretripping the truck and crawling out of the truck stop I found the interstate mostly bare and wet, just a few sections east of Mauston with some remaining snowpack on which the road salt was still doing its work.

Today was one of the better drives around Chicago, no delays, caught it after the morning rush. Quick stop for lunch at the Michigan welcome Centre, across the border in minutes, at the yard by 21:00, home by 23:00. Perfect. Four days, 4,400 km.

Today was one of those trucking days I just get lost in my own thoughts. I have a lot of days like that, lol. Today it was thoughts about conservatism, the old vs the new. Maybe share those thoughts one day, but today's not the day.

January 25, 2016

Just one of those days. Walked over to the Tim Horton's in Morris, MB this morning to grab coffee and make use of their free WiFi, of course I forgot my glasses and couldn't see a thing.

Today I'm dragging an empty down to Perham, MN for a load of snacks.

Caught up to a little snow heading down I29 towards Fargo that turned in to iced over roads on US10 as I headed over to Perham. Plenty of cars in the ditches.

Loaded in Perham then it was sloppy roads down to the twin cities. I caught up to snow again in earnest around Eau Claire, WI. By the time I reached Mauston the roads had pretty much gone to hell. It was bedtime at the Kwik Trip. Friggin' tired.

Mileage last 3 days: Saturday 734 miles, Sunday 693 miles, today 635 miles. I'm fading, lol.

Another day living the dream. :)

Drivers Voices Must be Heard

The post below (black type) is my regular monthly column submitted for publication in the February issue of Truck News. It's a call for drivers to not just speak out but to act out by sharing their experience(s). Stories are powerful tools for affecting change and we - drivers - have thousands of them to share. It's time that we did. More on this in future posts and columns.

It is a privilege to be able to speak out on issues that affect the transportation industry each month from the perspective of a long haul driver.  One of the temptations I must face is whether or not to climb on my soap box and rant about the erosion of the independent trucking lifestyle. With each passing month, “safety”, is used as the overriding issue to push forward a broad agenda by a variety of transportation lobbies that has little to do with the human safety issues we face each day.

This fact hit home with me yet again as I was driving along westbound I294 in Chicago late one evening this past December. I had that “let’s get it done” trucker feeling, that energy that fills you up and has you feeling like you could drive forever. You’re just cruising. The iPod is on shuffle and each successive tune builds on the last. It’s just trucking and it feels great. But you know there is a time each day when that feeling will end. For me it’s 3 or 4 in the morning and 3 or 4 in the afternoon. That’s when I need to be in the bunk and I know it. You, fellow driver, know when your downtime is. The MTO doesn’t know, the DOT doesn’t know, the FMCSA doesn’t know, the CTA doesn’t know, and the ATA doesn’t know. There isn’t a lobby group or safety organization out there that can raise the level of public safety better than a driver with a passion for trucking and the experience that has taught them to recognize when they are in that trucking groove and when they are not.

Yet on that December night when I was in peak performance mode I had to shut it down, thanks to the hours of service regulations. Earlier in the day I had to work through one of the downtimes in my circadian rhythm, thanks to the hours of service regulations. When I found my groove I had to park and sleep. When I would have been better off in the bunk I was on the road. Rules and regulations aimed at building a safety culture often tear it down by ignoring the human condition.

The industry as a whole has to face up to this issue. The reason there continues to be such opposition to electronic logging devices is the fact that they eliminate the flexibility for drivers to operate at the time of day that best suits the drivers’ individual needs. This issue is so obvious when you compare drivers that have a fixed daily routine to drivers operating in the “open board” arena that has many variables throughout the day. Drivers with daily dedicated runs rarely have an issue with ELD’s. The ELD eliminates paperwork and saves time. But for the long haul driver it eliminates much of the flexibility provided by paper logs. Let’s be clear, this isn’t about working more hours but about flexibility within the 24 hour day. We need that flexibility to rest when we need it. Flexibility allows us to find our trucking groove each day and when we are in that groove we are awake, alert, aware, motivated, and happy.

So there you have my rant from my soapbox, yet again. But the question is, what can we do as a group to affect positive change? What actions can we take? How do we come together around this basic issue that effects public safety and our personal health and wellbeing?

The fact is we do not have a voice at the table. When drivers do participate in the management of the industry by participating in safety groups, industry think tanks, or panel discussions it is on terms dictated by the transportation lobbies, regulators, and enforcement agencies. These large lobbies focus on logistics, costs, corporate strategy & positioning, politics and of course the bottom line. Drivers focus on the individual human condition. Directors and managers practice trucking from the boardroom and profit from it. Drivers live trucking from the driver’s seat and suffer from it. The inability of the industry to recruit and retain drivers along with the health issues drivers’ face supports my position.

Drivers will never gain a voice at the table through divisive actions such as rolling blockades or withdrawal of labour. Those actions will not affect long term positive change. We need to start holding the trucking lobbies to account by bringing our individual stories to the attention of our fellow citizens.

Every driver now has the tools to be able to tell their individual story to the world. That is how we can make our voices heard. “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” was Howard Beale’s mantra in the movie Network. In 2016 it’s time individual drivers made that mantra their own.

Watching this 2 minute excerpt from the movie it is hard to believe this was released 4 decades ago. It begs the question, what has changed? It's been about 40 years since this movie was released yet we continue to face the same issues, just replace the "Russians" with "Terrorism" and adjust your view to include the expansion of media through the internet.

What I would like to explore throughout 2016 is what we can do as individuals to change our circumstance, specifically within the trucking industry. I feel the key is for individual drivers to get their story out. By sharing our story's we will find the common threads that bind us together as drivers, then, maybe then, we can come together and influence this industry to take a turn in a more positive direction that benefits the driver as well as the shareholder.

Yes, I may be a bit of a dreamer but what the hell, I don't want to take it anymore either.

A Close Call Prompts a Safety Reflection

This post was published in the January 2016 edition of Truck News

There is an awful lot done in the name of safety within the trucking industry. The word safety is used to justify everything from the hours of service rules to the random drug testing of drivers in the trucking business. The great irony is that truck driving remains one of the most dangerous professions. Based on the number of deaths per thousand, commercial truck drivers usually come in in behind forestry workers, fishers, farmers, construction workers, and airplane pilots on this list.  But safety is not about compliance with a set of rules in my opinion. Rules are simply the checklist of actions that lead to a safe working environment. Safety in our business is about awareness. It’s about focusing on the task at hand. It’s about being mindful of the present moment, always. That focus is incredibly hard to maintain over the course of an 11-13 hour driving shift. We tend to think of safety revolving principally around the task of driving and take for granted the other tasks we perform in the course of a day. One of the dangers of working around heavy equipment by yourself is that experience can breed complacency which can lead to injury.

I received a wakeup call this past November when I came close to trapping myself between the bed of a trailer and the trailer tandems. I was in the process of sliding the tandems on the trailer and was struggling with a locking pin that was sticking in place. This was a task I have performed countless times over the years. The short answer to the question, what were the circumstances leading up to this close call, is that I was not focused and being mindful of the task at hand.

It is very easy to get ahead of yourself in this game of trucking. I had a full agenda on that day. There were four pickups waiting for me to do that were spread across two states with a fairly narrow window of opportunity to get the job done. The American Thanksgiving holiday was looming and thoughts of planning my time to avoid the heavy traffic around Chicago the following day while meeting the delivery requirements were on my mind. I also had to work in a fuel stop and look after the customs paperwork for all four orders. All of this would have meant nothing if I ended up with my arm pinned from shoulder to wrist between 30,000 pounds of trailer and a set of duals. Needless to say, my life moving forward would have changed forever if luck had not intervened.

So I stood there in the parking lot that day gathering my thoughts, giving thanks to the fact that I used a four foot pry bar to knock that pin loose and not opted to grab a hammer and reach under the trailer to knock it loose. I just wasn’t thinking. If I was I would have grabbed the pry bar knowing what the potential dangers were not just because it was the handiest tool. I was lucky and the experience raised a lot of questions. Here are a few of them.

Am I protecting myself in the appropriate manner when I’m performing all of the routine tasks in my day? Am I wearing my safety shoes, work gloves, and safety glasses every time I step into the trailer to load or unload freight? How many times have I dropped a load bar or freight on my feet over the years? How many nails have I pulled out of the floor of trailers? How many times have I cut myself on sharp metal on bars or pulled large splinters out of my hands? How many times have I undecked freight above my head and dropped dust and other crap in my face and eyes? Have I always been fully conscious of how freight shifts when I release straps? How many times have I come close to trapping myself between pieces of freight or the sidewall of a trailer or have to jump out of the way of freight falling from above?

You get the point. Many of you, probably most of you, have suffered at least minor injuries being in one of these situations over the years.

So does you or your company provide out of country medical coverage? Do you have a long term and short term disability insurance plan to look after you if injured? How do these plans work if you are even aware of them? What would be the consequences to you and your loved ones be if you were injured and did not have coverage?

It’s January, a new year is at hand. If you’re looking to make some simple resolutions that can have a lasting impact on your career and personal life, this would be a great place to start. Safety first folks, nobody has our back out there.

The Toll Trucking Takes on Drivers

This post was published in the December 2015 issue of Truck News

Every driver brings a different perspective as to how this trucking life affects them today and how it has affected them in the past. I re-invented myself in mid-life as a trucker. I wasn’t born and raised in this profession. So it was a privilege for me to sit down and shoot the breeze with a couple of drivers that cut their teeth as drivers driving B model Mack’s in the early seventies. Our conversation wasn’t a trip down the memory highway re-living the glory days of the past. It was a conversation about the lifetime effects of trucking on the individual and where it leaves you as you end your career and move into retirement.  So I thought I would share some of the thoughts that came out of that discussion. I’ve known both of these drivers for quite some time, for privacy, I’m just going to call them Joe and Bob.

Bob is now working part time, about 40 hours per week, (which is full time in any other profession) and taking a couple of months each winter to head down south with his spouse. Bob is at the age of retirement and despite planning well financially is concerned about whether his self-administered savings and investments are going to last through retirement. Should he keep working? This is a question faced by many drivers at retirement age. Can we afford to retire? But it is compounded by something else that weighs heavily on Bob’s mind. He talked about a phone conversation he recently had with his wife, he could tell there was something wrong by the tone of her voice.

“What’s wrong sweetie?” he asked.

“I’m just sitting here thinking this is another day that we’re not together and we’ll never get it back” 

she replied.

We don’t often talk about the touchy feely stuff in this macho alpha male dominated industry. It was great to hear Bob express the deep abiding love he has for his wife and how heavily the separation from our loved ones affects drivers on a much deeper level as we age.

Joe added to that. After so many years on the road you find yourself detached from your community. You don’t have close friendships outside the trucking community. It can be difficult to socialize with people that aren’t in your close circle of family. When you live on the road you quickly lose touch with the people you may have grown up with. Life on the road is about trucking and very little else. Where does this leave you when your trucking career ends? It is no wonder that so many drivers find themselves back on the road shortly after they retire. For a lifetime trucker, life is trucking and trucking is life. There is often not enough to fill the emotional void when a trucking career comes to an end.

Joe talked about how nothing is left at the end of a hard career like this. The cupboard is basically bare. There is no pension. There is no support system in place to make that transition from trucking to retirement. After all the years of hard work, commitment, and loyalty, should drivers not have an expectation of support from the industry? The easy answer to this is to say that it is up to the individual to look after themselves. I disagree. The trucking industry has been built on the backs of hard working individuals and flourishes because of that ongoing commitment by those individuals. The trucking industry could easily repay all that sweat equity through ensuring that drivers receive the training they need over the course of their career to plan for a smoother financial and emotional transition into retirement.

When I asked why drivers have not spoken up about these issues over the course of their career the reaction from Joe and Bob was basically the same - we’ve always waited for someone at the top to fix it. The expectation has been that if you work hard you will be looked after. Not so after all.

Both drivers are happy to see more women in the driver’s seat because they’re much more aggressive in taking a grassroots approach to bringing these problems to light.  From poor working conditions to health issues to driver compensation to painting a true picture of what it is like on the road to deal with the stressors drivers face on a daily basis.

The conversation I had with these two drivers was not about trying to run the trucking industry down. Both of these drivers love this business and their jobs. It is their passion.

For the past few months I have been writing about leadership in the trucking industry. It’s a no brainer. If we want to attract, recruit, and retain new blood for the driver’s seat we need to change how we treat people. I believe it is that simple.

Leading From the Drivers Seat

This post was published in the November 2015 edition of Truck News

Last month I coined the phrase, crisis in leadership, to stimulate some conversation about how the continuing trend of mergers & acquisitions by large trucking companies affects the driver on the front line.  The trend of bigger is better in order to compete in the global economy isn’t going away. So this month let’s take leadership out of the boardroom and put it in the driver’s seat.

There is no doubt in my mind that truck drivers are the face of the trucking industry. As such we are leaders of the industry in the eyes of the general public. Our actions as drivers and how we conduct ourselves behind the wheel reflect on the company name plastered across the rigs we drive and on the industry as a whole. The expression ‘Knights of the Road’ sums up perfectly not only the high level of leadership qualities drivers exemplify as they go about their daily tasks but also the pride drivers take in their profession.

Let’s take a look of a few examples of what goes in to the mix when we are looking for excellence in leadership from the driver’s seat.

• ·         Drivers as leaders choose to be the face of a safety driven culture not the face of recklessness.
• ·         Drivers as leaders choose to be the face of courtesy not the face of road rage.
• ·         Drivers as leaders choose to hold themselves to a higher standard of skill & awareness than the general public they share the road with.
• ·         Drivers as leaders choose to take actions that inspire respect & trust not mistrust & fear.

So those are just a handful of traits that we associate with being a leader, being a professional, being a Knight of the Road. You’ll notice that I framed those traits as conscious choices we make. Those choices inspire or discourage the people around us. As a driver there is no escaping the fact that you will be judged by the public as a whole on the choices you make whether you accept your role as a leader within the driving community or not.

But in this changing world drivers represent themselves and the industry in another way. Across social media. It’s an interesting conundrum. There are a lot of younger drivers that have broken in to the trucking industry with a minimal amount of training and mentoring.  This younger generation of drivers are the heaviest users of new technology. This often results in bad experiences in the field being aired across social media. That’s bad for all of us.

That point brings me to my favourite topic and its powerful role in developing leadership. Training & mentoring. This is at the root of all the major issues within the industry. There is a focus now on mandatory entry level training. (MELT) That’s important but it needs to go so much further than that. In order to refresh that Knights of the Road mentality we need to integrate driver education into the driving position from cradle to grave.

As a driver it is important not to underestimate your value as a leader in this industry but it’s something we do all the time. It’s easy to be reduced by large corporations to just a worker that picks up and delivers freight. This is a problem that leaders in the boardroom recognize that but have difficulty feeding that back to you in the driver’s seat. Most often it is simply a failure of a large bureaucracy to deliver some simple messaging in a meaningful way. That message is that you are important. The success of even the largest transportation company is wholly dependent on the individual leadership of each driver in the field.

So as a driver where do you go from here? Over half of us have a lifetime of experience as drivers leading this industry and are dealing with feelings of being left behind, of low morale, and of shrinking income as we head in to our twilight years. It’s not enough for a guy like me to say hey, it’s all about your attitude and how you lead this industry from the driver’s seat. That is meaningful but it’s not enough. There are certainly no easy answers, if there were I’d share them with you.

There are a lot of opinions out there of what leadership is, what it looks like, and what it’s impact is on you as an individual driver but there is no doubt in my mind that doing this driving job right and to the best of your ability is not only fulfilling on a personal level but is beneficial to all the other drivers in the field. I just keep slugging away.

The Trucking Industry Has a Leadership Crisis

This post was published in the October 2015 edition of Truck News

The accepted wisdom within the driver pool regarding the driver shortage is that there is no driver shortage. Large numbers of people that obtain their CDL discover it’s simply not their cup of tea after spending a few months on the road. But is it trucking or the culture of the trucking industry that is turning people off? I ask this question because it is not only the newly minted driver that is being turned off it is also the seasoned drivers that are experiencing a high level of dissatisfaction at present. That dissatisfaction is expressed across a broad range of issues drivers face every day. We don’t have a driver crisis in the trucking industry, we have a leadership crisis.

I’m defining leadership here as the movers and shakers that steer the top 50 Canadian trucking companies. These are the people that influence and guide policy in our industry. With each passing year these large companies continue to grow primarily through mergers & acquisitions.  The trucking landscape is becoming more homogeneous. These large companies often share resources and follow the same fiscal policies and “best practices”. Return on investment is the driving factor for the majority of these companies. So even if you are not employed by one of these companies as a driver they have an influence over you and that influence continues to grow.

Drivers are dependent on the guidance and the vision of this crop of leaders. There are three broad areas in which driver’s needs are not being met. Trucker lifestyle (culture), Trucker health, and Trucker training.

The trucking lifestyle, the culture of trucking, is a delicate thing. It takes a special type of person to do this job day in and day out over the course of a lifetime. It requires a degree of passion. You don’t do long haul trucking just for the money. That never works out. It’s very difficult to list the qualities that make up a trucker but along with passion goes independence. That independence is key to the trucking lifestyle. That independence is being eroded by the methods our leaders are employing as they adopt new technologies. The preferred method seems to be one of control and restriction which is a method loathed by drivers. Adopting new methods & technologies is a must but they have to complement and strengthen the characteristics of a professional driver not create undue stress and limit the drivers performance.

Trucker health is an issue that is getting much more attention today than it has in the past. But a driver’s health goes far beyond simple physical well-being. A driver’s mental health and emotional health is key to a happy, safe, and highly motivated driver. For far too long leaders of the trucking industry have been dragging their feet on some of the simple issues related to health and safety. Safe havens for truck parking and well equipped rest areas for drivers, especially in remote areas through which we travel frequently. Adequate rest is THE hot button issue for an aging demographic that makes up the majority of the driver pool. We spend very little to no time at all dealing with the effects of aging and how it is affecting the seasoned driver. How drivers are compensated falls into the health category. Income is not keeping pace with the cost of living in fact we are moving backwards. Drivers are “at work” for most of their lives. The ability to step away from work on a regular basis to deal with burn out and fatigue is a must. Drivers cannot do that unless they are compensated adequately.

Driver training is not an entry level issue. It is a cradle to grave issue. The driving culture and a driver’s health are dependent on the quality and consistency of driver education. Ongoing training for drivers does not exist within our industry. This is our leaders’ biggest “fail”. How can you possibly attract new blood to an industry that does not even have a system of recognition for driver qualifications across different platforms? On this file everyone seems to operate on a different page. Stories abound within the driver rank and file of new drivers that are hired on with minimal training at the same rate of pay as seasoned veterans with proven safety records. How can you possibly develop and maintain a culture of workplace safety across the industry without a system of universally accepted workplace training in place? Perform a few queries on the internet and you will find truck driving is consistently in the top ten most dangerous jobs. Thought that was firefighters & police? They don’t even make the top ten list.

The crisis in leadership is the fact that professional drivers, the backbone of the Canadian trucking industry, continue to be reduced to nothing more than numbers on a spreadsheet.

Being at One With Your Vehicle

This post was published in the September edition of Truck News

This past July I was doing my regular gig, a rounder from our terminal in southwestern Ontario up to Winnipeg and back. It was my first week back after 2 weeks of vacation and the first leg went off without a hitch. It was good to be back in the saddle again cruising through northern Ontario on a beautiful weekend. Monday morning I hooked on to my wagon heading down to the twin cities from Winnipeg and my first break was in Fargo to grab a cup of coffee. I got back on the road now heading east into Minnesota on I94 and that’s when the “tinkling” sound started.

Had I picked up some debris off the highway and it might be stuck to my grill or front axle? I played with the throttle a little, definitely not engine related. No vibration through the steering wheel, no play in the steers, no pulling to the left or right. Tapped the brakes, nope, the sound remained constant. Adjusted my mirrors to check all my drives, nope, besides I’d just done a walk around a few minutes before & all was good. Opened my windows all the way & couldn’t hear anything unusual over the howl of the wind but as soon as I closed the windows there it was again. Dam, it sounded like it was coming from behind the dash. So I started banging on the dashboard as if I could beat the sound out of it. Nothing. That tinkling, whistling, rattling sound was still there and it was driving me nuts.

Enough was enough, next exit I was ready to hit the shoulder of the off ramp and pop the hood to see what was up. That’s when I felt the breeze on my arm and it hit me. I’d left the top bunk windows in the sleeper open. I started laughing at myself. Coming south on I29 into Fargo I had had a tailwind all the way so there was no whistle from the windows but as soon as I started heading east on I94 after grabbing my coffee that tailwind was now a crosswind so the tinkling, rattling, whistling began. And I was hearing it through the dash because the Cascadia I drive has vents for the upper bunk right in front of the bunk window. It was like listening to Mom & Dad’s conversation in the kitchen through the heating duct in your bedroom when you were a kid.

If truck drivers share anything in common it is the fact that we are all in tune with our ride in a way that normal people think is somewhere between eccentric and downright weird. As soon as we hear something out of the ordinary, smell something out of the ordinary, feel something out of the ordinary, or see something out of the ordinary it sets us on high alert and we HAVE to have an answer to put our minds at rest.

It’s this attention to detail that separates us from other drivers on the road. It’s a quality that extends outside of the cab. It’s that whisper of wet salted pavement at night that suddenly goes quiet and you know you’re now on black ice even though the appearance of the pavement hasn’t changed. It’s driving on that winding mountain road on a foggy late winter morning and noticing that the snow on your shoulder is freshly plowed but the other shoulder isn’t so you know that grader or plow is just ahead of you working the shoulder even before you see it. It’s seeing the crosswind at the tree break before it hits you, or preparing for the ice on that shaded corner before you reach it. It’s knowing there are 2 more deer about to follow that first one out of the bush. That’s trucking isn’t it? To be always prepared for the unexpected and play it out in your mind ahead of time even though you may have been down that road a thousand times.

Finally, a shout out to the officers working out of the OPP detachment in Wawa, Ontario. I go through there every week and on the Saturday prior to Christmas last year I was stopped at their RIDE check where I was recognized from my picture that appears next to this column. As we chatted the officer asked me to remind everyone to turn on your headlights day or night. Well, wouldn’t you know I pulled up to another RIDE check in Wawa this past July and that same officer said with a smile, “There are still a lot of drivers running around up here with no lights on”.

One of the tenets of defensive driving is: ‘Make Sure They See You’. So let’s all show our emergency responders some respect and turn on those headlights.

Canada's HoS Rules are Just Plain Better

This post was published in the August 2015 edition of Truck News

Most of us that drive long haul have to deal with two competing hours of service rules. For the past several years I have split my time fairly evenly between the Canadian and American jurisdictions. My opinion on the two different sets of rules based on my experience is that Canadian rules are pretty good but American rules are pretty awful.

For those of us that spend 60-70 hours in the driver’s seat every week dealing with fatigue is not rocket science. The ability to be able to plan your time forward over a period of 3-5 days, the flexibility to deal with unplanned delay, the ability to start & finish your day at about the same time each day, and the ability to rest each day in a safe haven are the key ingredients to successfully coping with fatigue. The focus of dealing with fatigue is on the driver most of the time but the driver is completely dependent on the actions of shippers, receivers, dispatch, and enforcement in order to get the rest he or she needs to remain productive & healthy.

The general consensus amongst sleep researchers is that most adults require 7-8 hours of sleep per day. But it is not uncommon to find people that require only 5-6 hours of sleep and others that require 8-9. Sleep research has shown that one of the key elements to preventing fatigue is to have a structured 24 hour cycle that allows you the ability to sleep at the same time each day to obtain that sleep.

The Canadian rules accomplish this by allowing the driver to stick to a 24 hour clock with fewer obstacles & greater flexibility. By providing a 16 hour window each day in which you can take 2 hours of off duty time in periods of 30 minutes or more you are provided with a good deal of flexibility. Allowing up to 13 hours of driving time gives a driver some flexibility over the course of a 3-5 day planning period to meet tight deadlines that are often imposed upon the driver by forces beyond his control. All in all I have found this to be a good system of time management for myself. If I stay in Canada I don’t incur sleep debt on a daily basis and I’m able to eat regularly and get some daily exercise. When you add electronic logging to this mix many drivers that drive exclusively in Canada are finding that they are provided with a system that is protecting their right to regular rest while protecting their ability to earn a decent living.

In comparison the US system is horrendous. It gives you a 14 hour working window with a forced 10 hour rest period. For me, a driver that has consistently slept for about 6 hours per day for most of my adult life that 10 hour rest period is incredibly burdensome. It forces me to cram all my personal off duty time into one period and all my work time into another. By allowing 2 hours less per day of driving time it encourages clock watching & racing in order to meet your delivery obligations each day. This is a stress and fatigue inducer. If you do want to take advantage of the 8 and 2 split to make maximum use of your time you will find yourself driving for extended periods so as not to waste your driving time. If you use this split method for more than 2 days it disturbs your 24 hour shift cycle and upsets your circadian rhythm thereby inciting more fatigue.

US legislators should be looking to the rules north of the border for solutions. Unfortunately the drivers’ needs are lost in all the noise created by lobby groups for every special interest that can’t see past their own needs.

For the past few months I have been sharing my thoughts on how technology is effecting a driver’s performance. Our passion and experience that has served this industry so well over the years now often plays second fiddle to software solutions that reduce performance to a set of numbers that do not reflect the negative impact on a driver’s quality of life in the seat.

I think the Canadian hours of service rules combined with e-logs are an example of how technology can provide a measure of improved safety while protecting a driver’s quality of life. It’s a combination that provides a level of accountability to all parties based on sleep science research. Drivers can continue to earn a decent living employing the current pay per mile model and carriers continue to benefit from the productivity this model provides them.

We don’t have a perfect system, there is room for improvement, but it’s working well because the drivers’ needs are front and center. That’s what we need from technology.

Automation has It's Limits

This post was published in the July 2015 edition of Truck News

Is automation leveling the playing field between drivers when it comes to performance? The notion that advanced engines & automated drive trains can nullify a drivers lack of experience or poor driving habits seems to be gaining some traction in safety & operations departments. My experience shows that this simply is not true. Sure, you will bump up the average mileage when switching from a stick to an automated transmission, but when you compare a drivers performance to the fleet average on equipment with identical specifications you will still have drivers performing well above or below that average and at every point in between. This speaks directly to the level of skill and experience within the driver pool as well as the amount of time and money that is being invested in educating and training drivers.

Has the adoption of automated transmissions, and other in cab technologies, affected how drivers are valued? I think that it has, and not for the better. There is no doubt that technology is shifting standards and expectations within the trucking industry but my fear is that we are moving towards an increasing dependence on monitoring a drivers performance rather than enhancing it. The latest technology should not cage a driver’s ambition and cap her performance, it should help her tap into her full potential and enhance her productivity.

Let’s take the truck with an automated transmission, limit its speed via the onboard software, and then add two cameras, one facing forward and one facing the driver. Let’s not forget the truck is equipped with satellite tracking and an electronic log. At this point, if you are an experienced driver, ask yourself a few questions: How many hours of training time have I received on this piece of equipment? Have I received training instilling me with confidence that my performance & safety will be enhanced? All of my actions are now being monitored, when and how is that information to be used? Do I trust my employer? Have any concerns over privacy been addressed? What is my employer’s goal(s) in adopting this technology?

I’ve been an advocate of adopting new technology but not at any cost. There are some real advantages and disadvantages to the truck I’ve described above.

Automated transmissions are a real boon to the driver. They’re far more fuel efficient (in the summer months I consistently post between 8 & 9.5 mpg US) and as far as improving driver safety goes they are simply excellent. The ability to avoid hazards is greatly advanced when all you have to do is steer and brake while the transmission rapidly downshifts for you while applying the engine brake at the same time. Add disc brakes along with stability control and the reduction in stopping distance combined with rollover prevention is impressive.

Speed limiters have resulted in a lack of training when it comes to defensive driving and improving fuel efficiency. This is ironic since most companies instituted the use of speed limiters to save money. The attitude seems to be that since we have speed limiters installed the fuel efficiency factor is being fulfilled. But what’s happening is that inexperienced and poorly trained drivers are simply running at the governed speed in every imaginable situation. The result is packs of trucks running down the road at the same speed jockeying for position. So I’m not at all surprised at the number of multi vehicle truck accidents that have occurred the past couple of winters throughout North America as a result.

I can understand in today’s litigious society the need for trucks to be equipped with forward facing cameras but that’s where I draw the line. Driver facing cameras don’t do anything to prevent fatigue. Driver fatigue stems from many factors is a topic that deserves its own column. I’ve been privy to discussions between people that feel driver facing cameras are the only way to clamp down on cell phone use and distracted driving. I disagree with this position and feel it is a copout on taking the time to build strong trust based relationships between drivers and management.

That brings me back to my opening statement about how drivers are valued and the relationship between the safety / human resource / training department. Drivers on a whole are feeling as though they are operating under a microscope these days. This may not be the intention of a company’s management team but it is often the perception that drivers operate under. This needs to change. We need more bottom up involvement across our industry. There needs to be a far greater focus on how the latest technological tools at a driver’s disposal can enhance the driving experience rather than be seen as a burden. This is the challenge safety and HR departments face in the immediate future if they hope to resolve issues of recruitment, retention, and productivity. Most drivers I have talked to are all in. All we need is an invitation.

We Need Training not Speed Limiters

This post was published in the June 2015 edition of Truck News

There are many very good reasons to limit truck speeds to 65 miles per hour. In fact there are many very good reasons to limit all vehicle speeds to 65 miles per hour. This is the position of the American Trucking Association (ATA). They want federal regulators in the USA to pass legislation requiring all heavy trucks to be equipped with electronic speed limiters and see a uniform 65 mile per hour speed limit for all vehicles passed into law. Safety is the primary reason cited by the ATA in their decision to take this path. The problem is that you can teach and embrace safe practices and develop a culture of safety but you can’t legislate that attitude. Consequently the whole issue of using technology to impose safety has become highly politicized and the benefits of effective safety practices such as managing vehicle speed are lost in all the noise.

So how has a speed limiter rule on big trucks affected safety in the province of Ontario? It’s hard to know. But wait, let’s remember the speed limiter legislation was passed in Ontario in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improved safety was to be positive fallout as a result.  Let’s also remember that a large percentage of carriers had already embraced limiting their speeds on purely economic grounds prior to the passage of speed limiter legislation in Ontario. It’s pretty hard to make an argument that safety will be improved by limiting heavy trucks to 105 kph in a jurisdiction that has a maximum speed of 100 kph for all vehicles.

Perhaps the better question to ask is has the speed limiter law affected the attitudes of drivers and motor carriers in the province of Ontario (and Quebec which also has the same law in place). It has affected attitudes, but not in a positive way.

If you travel in Ontario you know that speeds on the 400 series highways don’t flow at 100 kph which is the posted speed limit. It is common knowledge that if you don’t exceed 115 kph you’re not going to catch any grief from enforcement officials. In fact you will probably be travelling with the flow of traffic at that speed, if you’re in a car that is. In fact a December 2013 article posted on trucknews.com regarding MTO enforcement officers being equipped with radar in their vehicles stated “… they’ll be able to clock commercial vehicles and fine any driver travelling over 115 km/h for violating the province’s speed limiter law.” So for heavy trucks we have an imposed 105 kph limit on the equipment in a jurisdiction that has a 100 kph speed limit and those laws are enforced when the vehicle exceeds 115 kph.

What we have created in Ontario is an environment where it has become an accepted practice to run at governed speed no matter what. Drivers are increasingly abandoning their responsibility of governing their own speed based on the equipment they are driving and the environmental conditions they are driving in and carriers are abandoning their responsibility to provide adequate ongoing driver training that improves both safety and profitability. Let’s face it, the best piece of safety equipment in any vehicle is a professionally trained and engaged driver behind the wheel. Using technology to limit a vehicles speed then passing that into law removes a degree of responsibility from all the players in the game. Some say this is leveling the playing field. I say it is more like passing the buck.

Many drivers will put forward the argument that limiting truck speed causes “elephant races” and causes hazards on the road since trucks become rolling road blocks to other vehicles. My own experience is that this is not the case. As a driver you can manage your own speed to prevent these situations from developing. Since the speed limiter legislation was passed I started travelling at 60 mph (97 kph) as my cruise speed. This provides me with 8 kph to pass any slower moving vehicle that I approach and those packs of trucks that are engaged in their ongoing elephant race simply pass me by. I would say that over 80% of my travel time is spent within a huge stress free space cushion even in relatively heavy traffic. When I find myself in very heavy traffic, well, the flow of traffic is then considerably less than the posted limit. Does this limit my earning potential? No. Does it create a time burden for me? No. Do other vehicles run in to me because of the speed I’m travelling? No. Am I profitable? Definitely.

The speed limiter law in Ontario is a foolish law. We could attain even better results with improved driver training and a paradigm shift on how traffic laws are enforced for all vehicles.

Using Social Media to Teach not Shame

This post was published in the May 2015 edition of Truck News

Using social media to humiliate others seems to be all the rage these days. I heard an interview on the radio with author/reporter Jon Ronson about his recently published book: So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. It really got me thinking about how we treat our fellow drivers.

A few days before I heard the interview I had watched a video of a trucker damage his truck in a manner that was painful to watch. The comment thread attached to the video was nothing short of derisive. There was no shortage of commentary mocking the driver but only a few comments that tried to get at the root cause of the driver’s actions. Let me give you a brief outline of the video.

A driver approaches a bridge with a ten foot clearance on a narrow two lane road so he stops. On his right is a four foot high retaining wall and on his left is a steep embankment. The distance between the two is maybe forty feet. The video starts with the truck jackknifed across the road. The cab is up the embankment on the left and the rear passenger side of the trailer is jammed against the retaining wall on the right. Despite the fact there is no physical possibility of turning a fifty three foot trailer around in a forty foot space the driver gives it his all. He tears of the front bumper, rips the faring off the cab on the driver’s side, damages the nose of the trailer and also the rear passenger side of the trailer on the wall. There is debris strewn all over the road. The driver exits the cab and his body language says it all. He holds his head in both hands and bows up and down as he surveys the damage. You’ve heard the expression, if you want to get out of a hole then stop digging? This driver finally put down the shovel. I don’t know his story but it seems pretty obvious that he was in over his head and simply panicked in a tough situation.

Even the best truck driver training schools have to graduate students with about 200 hours of training time. The worst schools will graduate students in a fraction of that time. Think about that in comparison to the past. Our old school drivers will tell us about the countless hours they spent shunting trailers in a yard and working on the dock before they even had an opportunity to do a local delivery under supervision. In the past most drivers accumulated thousands of hours learning the ins and outs of handling a rig in tight quarters before they took to the open highway. This is why I feel we need a minimum two year apprenticeship program that gives new drivers the confidence they need to succeed. Obtaining a licence from a high quality truck driver training academy should be the first step in a driver’s training not the only step.

Here is the predicament we face today. On one hand we all recognize that the training methods of the past lead to a successful career and we bemoan the fact that many drivers lack the necessary training to do the job safely. But then we turn around and shame new drivers across social media when they are most in need of a mentor. A mentor is by definition a wise and trusted counsellor or teacher. Is mentoring becoming a thing of the past in our industry when we need it the most?

When videos and pictures are put up online they are put up with a certain intent. We need to move away from shaming drivers for the mistakes they make as our default position and start using social media to share these mistakes as teaching moments. Although I feel that an apprenticeship program is the best solution I am not so foolish as to think this will happen overnight if it even happens at all. But as experienced drivers we can share our wisdom and experience with new and novice drivers through social media.

There are some Facebook groups that are doing a great job with this approach. When a group is set up with the intent to bring back the camaraderie and welcome new recruits by encouraging them to participate and ask dumb questions (there is no such thing as a dumb question when it comes to learning new skills) friendships build quickly and the knowledge spreads around the group like wildfire. It’s a joy to witness.

So the next time you witness one of those “Gotcha!” videos take the time to try and understand the root cause of the drivers’ failure rather than just holding him in contempt. Maybe we can build a better workplace one social media post at a time.

Attracting More Women to Trucking

This post was published in the April 2015 edition of Truck News

Women with Drive

Towards the end of February I picked up a copy of Today’s Trucking magazine and read Rolf Lockwood’s editorial titled ‘Potential Ignored’. He outlined the barriers women were facing breaking into this industry as drivers. He described our trucking culture as being based on a Marlboro Man image of toughness and independence, a culture not inviting to women. It was a good introspective read.

It’s funny how all the stars line up at times. Within a few days of reading Rolf’s editorial I started exchanging emails with a driver that is in the process of establishing a non-profit organization targeting women entering our industry as drivers. She is an experienced long haul driver and spoke of her love and passion for the industry. She wants to promote accomplishments and minimize obstacles faced by women working in the industry. She feels that if she stays silent on the issues women are facing then there is no room for her to complain. The first question I asked myself was how will this organization stand out from others with similar goals and objectives? So I started doing a little research and just chatting online in a couple of different forums.

I was surprised when I learned that only 3% of commercial driving jobs are held by women. I thought that number was significantly higher. I did not contact our human resources department to gather any firm numbers but I am quite certain that here at J&R Hall Transport you would find a higher percentage of women behind the wheel than 3%. I have run down the road with many women drivers over the years and never had reason to question their skills or ability. In fact I have observed that women perform at a higher level than their male counterparts in general. Women seem to have a much calmer ‘steady as she goes’ approach to the workload that we face along with a stronger sensibility when it comes to planning and organizing. That has been my experience. I am discovering that my employer appears to be considerably more progressive on women’s issues than many in our industry.

I won’t pretend that I have conducted some sort of scientific study but from the few women drivers I have been able to talk to the general feeling is that breaking into the trucking industry as a driver is difficult and it takes some time to earn the respect of fellow drivers. Let’s be clear, we’re talking about fellow male drivers. But here is my take on the age old “respect is earned not given” credo.

When I obtained my commercial driver’s license I was accepted into the industry with open arms. I still had to earn the respect of my peers but I was given that opportunity to prove myself. But it seems to me that for women that scenario is turned on its head. When a woman obtains her commercial driver’s licence she has to prove herself simply to gain the opportunity for employment. Only then can she start to work at gaining the respect of her peers. The bar seems to be set so much higher.

Then I read about a survey conducted by Trucking HR Canada’s Women with Drive initiative that found male managers cited physical limitations as a barrier to entry into the industry for women. I was taken aback by this paternalistic attitude from our leadership. The majority of women that responded to the survey did not find this to be an issue. These findings were presented at the inaugural Women with Drive Leadership Summit held on March 5, 2015.

I believe men and women are different but equal in their potential to perform in any field. We are different biologically, physically, and yes, emotionally. We tackle problems and challenges in different ways. The trucking industry is lacking the perspective that women bring to the table. We are in a time of great change on many fronts and we are lacking the diversity to face those challenges. Men and women possess an incredible synergy when they work together. That’s exactly what is needed right now, an effect that is greater than the sum of the individual parts. It’s time that men started opening doors for women in this industry, listen to what they have to say, and accept what they have offer.

So what of the driver that is starting the NPO for women drivers? She asked me to think about joining her as a board member to work with our fellow drivers. At first I resisted citing availability of time. But that’s an excuse. Many of the obstacles women are facing as drivers today are not solely women’s issues they are also driver issues. Especially when we are talking about training & mentorship. I think I can help so I will. More to follow.