Use your Motor Carrier Agency in Safety Meetings

In my former career as a motor carrier enforcement officer, I frequently spoke to trucking company drivers, safety officials, industry trade associations, and community groups. Outreach was one of the important parts of the job. A roadside inspection usually only reached one driver and maybe a few people in the company. But speaking to groups of people put our mission out to far more people in less time than it took for a Level 1 roadside inspection.

This week is National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, and next week is the annual Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance-sponsored Brake Safety Week. We used this opportunity to not only thank our drivers with a cookout, but also to reinforce the basics: Pre-trip inspections, what to expect on a roadside inspection, and simple HazMat compliance. In a four-hour span, the officers engaged over 30 drivers and company officials, as the morning shifts started.

The atmosphere was less tense than a roadside stop, and it let drivers be more relaxed and ask questions that they might not have thought of if they were by themselves. It also let me use the officers to reinforce the messages we try to deliver on a consistent basis about simple compliance with the regulations every day.

We also got to hear about the technology Georgia is deploying to enhance their safety program: Speed laser, with built-in video cameras - used to verify that the target speed belongs to the vehicle tracked (and show if the driver is wearing a seat belt or using a hand-held cell phone). Hand-held thermal images to detect hot (or cold) brakes, tires and wheel hubs. Mainline weigh-in-motion (WIM) that also reads the license plates and DOT numbers. And coming to the mainline WIM, a system that reads the tire pressures.

These meetings give both the company and the law enforcement agency a way to understand and support each other's job.