Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/821508
6 commercial carrier journal | may 2017 'Compliant' doesn't always equal 'safe' If your only focus is to meet safety regs, you may want to rethink your strategy BY JEFF CRISSEY H ow does your company approach driver safety? If you're simply using their Compliance Safety Accountability performance data and training them to be compliant, that's not enough. This was the message Garth Pitzel, Bison Transport's director of safety and driver development, delivered during a packed educational session on creating safety cultures at the Truckload Carriers Association's 79th An- nual Convention in Nashville, Tenn. Bison (CCJ Top 250, No. 72), a Winnipeg, Manitoba- based truckload carrier with 1,900 drivers and 1,400 power units, has a reputation as one of the safest truck- ing companies in North America. It has earned TCA's National Fleet Safety Award in the over-100-million-mile category 10 consecutive years and has taken home the Grand Prize National Fleet Safety Award nine times. But the company's approach to safety hasn't always been as concrete as it has in the last decade. In the mid- to late 1990s, Bison's safety culture focused solely on compliance. With a "high" driver turnover rate of 35 to 40 percent during a time the company was expanding at a rate of 100 trucks per year, the company's on-road safety perfor- mance fluctuated wildly, Pitzel said. "We'd have a good year when it came to accidents and insurance, then we'd have a bad year, then we'd have a really bad year," he said. By 2001, unpredictable insurance and accident costs year-to-year forced management to take a closer look at its safety efforts. "We knew we had to go from being a compliant company to a safe and compliant company," said Pitzel. "Just because you're compliant doesn't mean you're safe." Working to instill a true safety culture throughout its entire organization, Bison changed its entire driver train- ing and orientation process to drive home the point that safety matters above all else. That new vision spurred a fundamental change in how the company viewed its role in driver performance as it transitioned from driver training to skills development through a new development cycle process in 2002 that includes 12 cycles specific to each type of driver in its operation. "That was probably the best decision we made as a business, because everyone learns at a different pace and has different strengths and weaknesses," said Pitzel. In 2005, Bison also created an internal safety perfor- mance system to rate drivers by accident risk type – low, medium, high and extreme – and target them for inter- vention before an accident occurs. "It was the foundation that now we could actually predict who was going to have an accident and interject with skills development," said Pitzel. It also developed a new "Right to Decide" policy that places the responsibility of individuals to perform a task safely but also gives them the authority to discontinue the task if they can't continue to do it safely. That policy became the foundation for the company's newfound safety culture. "The message to our drivers is, 'It is our responsibil- ity as a business to make sure you have the necessary skills to make it home every day. It is your responsibil- ity to use those skills every day to make it home safe,' " said Pitzel. Driver retention is perhaps as critical as any metric that affects Bison's safety performance. Today, the com- pany's driver turnover rate is only 20 percent. Pitzel sees a clear correlation between driver tenure and ac- cident rates. "If you look at drivers when they have an accident, 10 percent of them [have been with Bison] six months or less but account for 20 percent of accidents," he said. "The sweet spot [for safety performance] is 18 months to six years." In 2016, Bison had 772 drivers win safe driving awards that accounted for 254 million consecutive safe driving miles and 708 years of safe driving for the company's city drivers. "That is what retention does for you," said Pitzel. UPFRONT JEFF CRISSEY is Editor of Commercial Carrier Journal. E-mail jcrissey@ccjmagazine.com.