Tag Archive for: online safety training

Safety Record vs. Record Nuclear Verdict

Even if you have a stellar safety record, letting one bad driver in can destroy your company. It’s essential that you check the records of new hires and ensure you take action to correct bad behaviors on the road, or you could see yourself facing a nuclear verdict.

Safety Record vs. Record Nuclear Verdict

Four years ago, a teenager in Jacksonville, FL was killed in an accident involving two commercial vehicles. One truck was overturned, causing a traffic backup. Another driver crashed into the line of traffic, resulting in the death.

Just recently, a jury brought back a verdict on this accident, requiring $1 billion from the companies with drivers involved. This verdict takes over as the new record for a nuclear verdict against a trucking company. The previous record was $411 million.

Distracted Driving, Hours-of-Service, and Other Issues

From beginning to end, this wreck seems to have been caused by bad driving practices. The original driver who overturned his truck was distracted by his cellphone at the time. The other driver was also distracted and didn’t try to brake until right before the crash occurred.

Distracted driving wasn’t the only issues though. Both drivers were over their hours-of-service limits. The second driver was on his 25th hour of a trip from Quebec.

The second driver also couldn’t read English well, meaning he couldn’t read the signs warning about the crash ahead. Plus, the first driver was driving without a valid CDL.

This was clearly an accident that could have been avoided if these drivers had been clear on CSA BASICS. It also could have been avoided if the first driver had received a background check before being hired. These bad behaviors destroyed the safety record of one company, ending with them closing their doors.

What Does the New Record Verdict Mean to You?

This sounds like a worst-case scenario, and many look at this and swear it wouldn’t happen to them. With nuclear verdicts on the rise and jurors wanting to hold trucking companies more responsible for safety on the roads, it’s important for trucking companies to protect themselves.

Large verdicts like this can easily put a trucking company out of business. It’s up to you to address situations before they lead to something like this. Make sure you are following all necessary procedures to protect your company.

  • Run background checks on drivers
  • Verify CDL status of all new hires
  • Make sure drivers can follow directions wherever they are travelling

Take the time to determine your company’s vulnerabilities within your safety record. Where you find recurring issues, take the time to re-train drivers in these areas. Maintain an ongoing training program to keep safety top of mind for everyone.

Make sure new drivers are clear on safety standards for your company before they ever hit the road for you. Make sure drivers understand safety measures that will reduce the potential for accidents.

Does Your Safety Record Stand Up to a Nuclear Verdict?

Bad actors within the trucking industry hurt everyone. There is a pre-conceived idea that trucking companies don’t care about safety. Each time accidents like this happen, it reinforces that idea.

This makes it important for you to evaluate, identify, and correct those areas that put your company at risk for the next nuclear verdict. Regular safety training is one of your strongest protections against this.

With Infinit-I Workforce Solutions, you can provide online safety training so drivers can access the training they need no matter where they are. Contact us today to request a demo and learn how we can help you protect against bad behaviors on the road.

HOW AUTOMATIC REPORTING CAN REDUCE THE RISK OF POOR CSA SCORES
THREE TIPS TO BETTER MANAGE ACCIDENT RISK FOR YOUR TRANSPORTATION FIRM

In May 2019, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) published its 2017 Large Truck and Bus Crash Facts. And let’s just say: sometimes facts are scarier than fiction. So, how can you manage accident risk for your transportation firm?

According to FMCSA, there was a 9-percent increase in fatal accidents involving trucks or buses between 2016 and 2017, and there was a 4-percent increase in crashes resulting in injury. Total, that’s over 120,000 crashes involving trucks or buses in one year. And with over 1,500 clients with 300,000 drivers collectively, we aim to help you manage your firm’s accident risk and protect your human resources. 

After the Accident

Those 120,000 crashes resulted in even more people and families whose lives were affected, and many resulted in lawsuits. Additionally, valuable time was lost, and delivery schedules were delayed, costing shipping, receiving, and trucking companies hundreds of thousands of dollars. And ultimately, many trucking companies were assigned a DOT Compliance Review.

What is a DOT Compliance Review?

Similar to a safety audit, a DOT Compliance Review is an onsite examination by the FMCSA.  Major accidents, poor CSA scores, complaints, and violations can trigger a DOT Compliance Review. 

DOT Compliance Reviews will examine records closely, so it is imperative to have reliable, date-stamped, cloud-based storage for all your driver training records.

Before the Accident

What if those accidents could have been avoided? How many lives could we save, and how many hours could we get back if we could prevent accidents instead of solving “after?” As the old saying goes, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

What would it take to prevent accidents? We’ve compiled a list of our top three tips for managing your transportation company’s accident risks.

  1. Maintain and deploy your company’s policies and procedures on a regular basis. The best policies and procedures don’t mean anything if not used effectively. In a DOT Compliance Review, your policies and procedures will be requested, and you open your company up to serious compliance risk if they aren’t followed. How do you effectively deploy policies and procedures to your workforce? There’s an app for that.
  2. Hire and retain the best drivers. The trucking industry has a high turnover rate, and transportation companies need to stay competitive in today’s market to retain great drivers. Recognition, engagement and ongoing, user-friendly training help keep your drivers on the road and delivering their best results.
  3. Use Infinit-I Workforce Solutions’ online safety training. Most of your drivers have base-level safety knowledge. Still, Infinit-I Workforce Solutions goes above and beyond with great safety training modules that are quick, easily digestible, and mobile-friendly, to ensure that every driver in your fleet has high-quality training they can easily access and use.

In today’s high-risk, high-turnover environment, you must provide safety training. We can help customize your training plans to avoid the dreaded DOT Compliance Review and other associated risks of the road. Contact one of our experts today, and together we can build the plan that’s right for your business needs.

Key Takeaways for managing accident risk:

  •  Accidents are more frequent than ever before, and trucking companies must mitigate their accident risk to keep their companies profitable and keep drivers safe.
  •  Hiring and retaining the best drivers make a huge difference to a company’s risk profile.
  •  High-quality training and updates on policies and procedures are a must in today’s high-risk environment. Infinit-I Workforce Solutions can work with you to customize your driver training tools—keeping safety standards high and costs low. 
FSMA sanitary transportation training from the FDA added to the Infinit-I workforce system

Vertical Alliance Group, Inc. is committed to ensuring you have access to new training videos on a monthly basis. This month we added four training videos for use on the Infinit-I Workforce System. The videos are a compilation of the FDA’s recently released approved training for transportation companies on the Food Safety Modernization Act’s (FSMA) Sanitary Transportation Rule.

Online Safety Training for Truck Drivers CatalogCross-Contamination
Length: 9:20
This video defines cross-contamination, discusses some of the ways it can happen, and instructs on ways to prevent it.
Section: Trucking Industry
Module: FSMA

Types of Contamination
Length: 8:38
This video discusses some types and sources of contamination.
Section: Trucking Industry
Module: FSMA

Temperature Control
Length: 9:51
This video discusses the types of food requiring temperature control and how to prevent temperature abuse.
Section: Trucking Industry
Module: FSMA

Sanitary Transportation Rule
Length: 11:37
This video discusses the Sanitary Transportation Rule, who it applies to, and many of its critical elements.
Section: Trucking Industry
Module: FSMA

Please contact your Client Services Representative at 877-792-3866, ext. 300, if you have any questions.