Time-Out For Trucking! Is Covid Eating Trucking Safety For Breakfast?

A startling, perhaps even disturbing statistic emerged this week on Monday's DAT TL Market Report (see "Key Points" @3:30) coinciding with the most recent International Roadcheck May 4-6—that nobody is really talking about. DAT is "the largest truckload freight marketplace in North America," according to its home page.

International Roadcheck is a three-day, mid-week, roadside inspection blitz, touted by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), the association of roadside inspectors who conduct the truck inspections as, " the largest targeted enforcement program on commercial motor vehicles in the world, with nearly 15 trucks or buses inspected, on average, every minute across North America during a 72-hour period."

Or at least it would have been, had all the motor carriers and truckers played along. On average, there is a slight decrease every year in trucks on the road during these roadside inspection blitzes. DAT knows week-to-week numbers of available trucks from their hard data, matching available loads with available trucks.

The number of trucks that sat out this year's International Roadcheck, has more than doubled, according to Monday's DAT Market Report. This number is significant for several reasons:

• Freight rates are at all time highs
• There is a truck shortage
• There is a driver shortage

As some economists say, the only reason we ever have true shortages of goods and services is because of government interventions in the marketplace. The shutdowns for Covid quickly resulted in shortages of cleaning supplies and other necessities. The current fuel shortages on the East Coast of the U.S. were also likely caused by a foreign-government sanctioned intervention in our marketplace according to security experts.

It doesn't make sense to park your trucks for a week when freight rates are at an all time high, does it?

What does it mean for safety?

I suspect some of these operations that skipped the Roadcheck party likely didn't want to risk a "failed" inspection, were running hard. and perhaps have deferred maintenance on their vehicles.

But not all. Is there another reason maintenance is not being done? As writer and opinionist Daniel Henninger asks, do we have a work ethic problem in America?

Putting the larger question of a serious work-ethic problem aside, I believe in addition to a driver and truck shortage, there is a serious shortage of willing and able truck techs as well.

Some trucking ops like to do routine maintenance between loads while on the road. A good shop can swap a clutch overnight or do a complete brake job—if they have the people. Other carriers like to run during the week and do their routine maintenance on the weekend—if they can find the people—as fewer and fewer truck techs really enjoy weekend shifts anymore.

We know over 3,000 trucking companies failed in 2020, a record number. Truck repair shops also saw a significant drop in revenue in 2020, according to one survey. Most shops did survive a loss in business, but they can neither survive nor thrive without enough hands on deck.

Good techs get that way by experience and training. Good techs can also have thousands—if not tens of thousands—of dollars in personal hand tools (sometimes over $100,000). It can take a forklift truck to move their toolboxes. Sometimes shops give them a tool allowance, but many times, their tools, like many other things we buy, are on a payment plan. It's a big investment in time and money to become a tech.

Finally, we know alcohol and drug abuse were at all time highs in 2020. Legalization of pot in a number of states wasn't helpful. Some, no doubt, have succumbed. Others perhaps now can't pass a pre-hire drug test or won't bother to even try.

Preventative Maintenance is Preventative Safety

A keystone of successful truck safety programs are good inspection and maintenance programs, done with the goal of preventative maintenance. It can be a very costly service failure if your truck dies a thousand miles from nowhere and has to be towed in (loaded) to a local shop that might lack spare parts or even the skills to replace them.

All those trucks out there that declined the invitation to the Roadcheck party—and their numbers are legion—are, without doubt, back on the road again, racking up the miles.

Unfortunately, some of them are setting themselves up for a day of reckoning.

Safety experts say a bad collision is usually due to a confluence of events. Maybe last week it was a leaky seal on a wheel . . . and next week the wheel flys off and takes out a family. Maybe last week's slight brake fade will result in next week's unbalanced brakes . . . and an uncontrolled jack knife on a wet road, taking out two or three drivers.

We are not talking about a handful of trucks that avoided Roadcheck. The true extent of this will remain unknown because there are always some who make a habit of avoiding the scales and oher locations where they would likely get inspected.

To those who think they are beating the game, that you can run until the wheels literally fall off—potentially, you will put yourself in a bad spot, hurt others, and run up already high insurance rates for everyone else. It that really worth the risk?

If you can take a week off to avoid an inspection, you can take a few days off to get your truck in order. If you cannot, then you are really in the wrong business to begin with.

More Vigilance is Needed

I hope our nation's roadside inspectors continue to vigilantly do their jobs. To those in law enforcement looking for a change from big-city stresses, switching over to roadside inspections could be an excellent career opportunity.

Since the basic concept of the roadside enforcement scale is to provide a safe location for inspectors to do their job, complete their paperwork, or detain an out-of-service vehicle, this can allow rogue operators to slip past scales by changing their routes and avoiding the scales. I've seen this while doing insurance reviews in looking at companies with bad CSA scores that suddenly go to no inspections at all for six months or longer. They are taking back roads or running graveyard shifts when scales are the least likely to be open.

At one time many trucks were paid by the cwt. If you could fit it on the truck, you hauled it. One driver said he could easily put on an extra 20,000 pounds. Another driver hauling steel around Detroit told me he was so overloaded his truck actually collapsed the scale.

More roadside inspections need to be done on these rogue operators. More roadsides perhaps need to be accomplished away from the scales, on their favorite backlanes. We need to know what are they hiding? Is it misloaded freight? No permits? What's the motivation?

"Running around the scales" is not new. Mostly, it is done because the operator knows he is running illegally, could be cited, fined, detained, even arrested.

But it now seems fashionable to do so for a number of these rogue operators. And that number is growing. And that could be a serious problem for all of us. ■