In the third installation of this series, we’re going to talk about bad habits.
Whether we want to admit it or not, most of us have picked up some bad driving habits between the age of 16 and whatever age we are now. (No, I’m not going to say how many years that is for me, and I won’t ask you to tell me either.)
Maybe you have a quick bite or drink while you’re driving, or you send a quick text. Maybe you start programming in the route to your destination after you’ve already taken off — or maybe you reach for something in the back seat to hand to your kid. Maybe you speed up as the light turns yellow, or you drive just 4-9 miles an hour over the speed limit everywhere you go. Or, perhaps you’re a perfect driver who makes no mistakes, and you just throw rude gestures to the needlessly careless drivers around you.
Now … imagine engaging in all these seemingly minor distractions and habits while behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound truck, which requires 50% or more stopping distance than an ordinary passenger vehicle.
Consider this: Most Class A truck drivers have five years or to develop personal driving habits, both good and bad, before they ever start CDL training and testing. We’d like to think the people who decide to be truck drivers quickly gave up those pesky, reckless habits — and maybe they did.
But let me ask you this: How many of your New Year’s resolutions have been successful simply because you knew they were better for you? Again, I won’t tell or make you tell, but I’m guessing most of us are not feeling a rousing sense of achievement at the thought.
So how do we re-train safe driving habits in orientation?
In recruiting, you assess a candidate’s attitude around safety, their accountability for their mistakes and their ability to learn from those mistakes.
IIn orientation, you assess those same items, plus the person’s ability to learn or retrain themselves based on your guidance. If you assigned videos and quizzed them ahead of orientation, now you are seeing if they can apply the information in the real world.
Orientation should consist of hands-on driving and training that cannot be completed online. Some things to cover with drivers during orientation include:
- Share examples of common scenarios that have led up to a violation or accident at your company. Ask the recruits what risks they would face in that situation and how they would mitigate them.
- Provide recruits with examples of publicized lawsuits in the industry over the last several years and how they have played out for the driver.
- Introduce them new drivers your safety team and offer a Q&A session to build trust.
Orientation is your chance to more deeply connect new hires with your value for safety and teach them how to think about and to take safety personally. If new drivers simply sit silently through dull lectures and take quizzes, you’re teaching them to memorize, regurgitate and discard information.
Changing habits necessitates creating new neural pathways through action, interaction and problem-solving.
What about road training?
Road training is equally, if not more crucial than orientation in re-training habits. Road training allows the new employee to cement their new safe habits with the oversight of a respected, mindful advisor.
Your company’s road trainers should be some of the most deeply scrutinized, well-paid and highly engaged employees in your company.
When considering the length of your orientation versus your road training process, I tend to believe investment in road training pays more dividends because it gives a more realistic opportunity to retrain habits.
What’s next?
I’ll bet you wouldn’t have guessed we’d be three parts into a series about a “comprehensive safety plan” before addressing your company’s safety program as it relates to candidates. But each step in the recruiting, hiring and training process is vital to overall safety.
Recruiting, orientation and road training are the gatekeepers of your organization’s value for safety. If your organization’s culture is built on people, these teams are pouring the foundation for your company growth.
You cannot build a strong safety culture on top of a weak safety foundation. Don’t take that statement lightly.
So, what’s next? It’s time to talk about the work your company’s safety team does to build your safety culture.
However, we’ve run out of the 2024 attention span length. I will close this column before I start sounding like Charlie Brown’s teacher. Tune in next month!
If you missed the first installments in this series, you can catch up through these links:
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are intended to convey general information only and not to provide legal advice or opinions. The contents of this article should not be construed as, and should not be relied upon for, legal or tax advice in any particular circumstance or fact situation. The information presented here may not reflect the most current legal developments. No action should be taken in reliance on the information contained in this article, and we disclaim all liability in respect to actions taken or not taken based on any or all of the contents of this site to the fullest extent permitted by law. An attorney should be contacted for advice on specific legal issues.
Brad Klepper is a regular contributor to The Trucker, providing valuable information for drivers and motor carriers. He is also president of Interstate Trucker Ltd., a law firm entirely dedicated to legal defense of the nation’s commercial drivers. Brad is also president of Driver’s Legal Plan, which allows member drivers access to his firm’s services at discounted rates. For more information, contact him at (800) 333-DRIVE (3748) or interstatetrucker.com and driverslegalplan.com.
