What about the transportation industry? What role, if any, have we had to play in this decline in traffic fatalities?

According to the Fatalities Analysis Reporting System (FARS) Query System, 4,301 fatalities were truck related in 2007, while only 3,787 fatalities were truck related in 2008. This is a 13.5% decrease in truck-related deaths. The transportation industry is getting involved in making our highways safer for not just truck traffic but for all traffic. How can we help make this trend continue?

What are the great concerns we, as the transportation industry must continue to work on to make these statistics drop even further?

There are three major issues on our highways today that need to be addressed:

1. Driver fatigue. Following the existing DOT regulations for legal driving times and getting the required amounts of sleep is the #1, most imperative action that must be eliminated by drivers and those who dispatch them. This includes keeping accurate and legal logs. The days of fudging, carrying two log books, etc are in the past. As an industry, we must lead the way to reduce driver fatigue.
2. Cell phone usage. The fact that cell phones are a distraction is well known. Many states have outlawed the use of cell phones while driving. But that isn't the worst part of cell phones. There is a new menace besides just talking on cell phones – texting while driving.
   Is texting a bad thing? No, texting is a fantastic technological breakthrough for getting information to and from drivers in a timely manner without wasting a lot of time 'talking' on the phone. But when a driver is reading or answering a text he has just received, he is less able to maintain control of his vehicle even more than an alcohol impaired driver.
   CNN.COM reported on Jul 31, 2009 that "A Virginia Tech Transportation Institute study … showed truck drivers are 23 times more likely to be in a crash if they're texting, and several fatal accidents have been blamed on drivers or train operators who were distracted by texting."
3. Alcohol consumption. Alcohol and drug use have been the bane on our highways since the first accident in the days of horse and buggy. For some unknown reason, we as human beings think we are not impaired after we have had "one for the road". The statistics could go on and on about the effects alcohol and drugs have on driver impairment, but we won't go into them here. Suffice it to say, the transportation industry must do all it can to help eradicate drinking and driving.

Are our roads, byways and highways safer than they were 10 years ago? Yes, they are. But are they safe enough? As long as one person is killed on our highways in a preventable accident the answer is no. The transportation industry needs to be applauded for the strides we have made in making our roads better and safer. But now is not the time to sit back on our laurels and relax. We must continue to lead the way in safer and more efficient equipment and in safer and more focused drivers.

Dale Clark
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

Truck driving has typically been a male dominated industry because of physical requirements. For nearly 80 years, women have been present in the trucking industry whether it was inside the cab, under the hood, or in the terminal. Today more and more women are taking on important, leading roles in management, safety, dispatching, sales, and recruiting.

The workplace is changing for women across the country who decides to take on a new challenge and start driving over the road. At first, many women have reservations about driving the big 18 wheelers over the road, but after their initial fears are over; most find much enjoyment and great success. Many companies are surprised to see that the women truck driving students seem to out perform the majority of male students on written and physical truck driving tests! The fact is women make excellent truck drivers and it is arguable that they make better drivers than men.

All truck drivers encounter dangers and hardships associated with truck driving jobs, more so, however, for over the road trucking. Women truckers are more vulnerable to these dangers and need to adhere to far stricter rules of safety. Being street smart is one of the most important things you can learn as a woman in trucking. Knowing how to conduct yourself can protect you not only making terrible mistakes in judgment, but also from others who may view you as prey.

It is a great testimony to the strength and determination of our country's women to take on the demanding career of over the road trucking. It is not the easiest way of life, but it is a good life with many opportunities. Anyone wishing to seek a better livelihood should be encouraged to apply and give it a try. Many companies are missing hiring potentially excellent drivers by not reaching out to the women who have set their sight on a new horizon and started a career in truck driving.

Women view trucking as a well-paying occupation and one in which they take great pride. With that being said, I believe it is high time to rewrite some recruiting pitches to draw more women to where they are sorely needed – in your fleet's driver's seats.

Donna Bratton
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

I will admit that, sometimes, if I didn’t have the correct paperwork, or all of the paperwork for a given load, it would have to wait until the next time I was around to be invoiced. I dread to consider that some of those loads back then were never invoiced. I am sure if that had actually happened all of our customers would have been glad to send us a check to cover their loads even though we hadn’t sent them an invoice.

I did hear from customers that had complained they had paid invoices and were not happy that they were re-invoiced for the same charges; only to find that my bookkeeper (who was doing the money collection and recording payments) had forgotten to mark on the paper ledger we used that moneys had been received. I know of a number of loads that we "took" that were never picked up because information was lost. I know that at least one customer refused to do business with us because his freight was not picked up in a timely manner – again because information was lost either by the office or the driver or both.

I look back at those times and wonder how we accomplished half of what we did without any computer software. With the correct trucking software, such as TruckMaster 2000 from TruckMaster Logistics Systems, Inc., we would have been much more efficient, taken better care of our customers and drivers and been able to expand our fleet many times over. With TM2000, freight is never lost or misplaced. Every load is accounted for, from creation through dispatching, billing, and receipt of payment. Every step is logged and histories are created. When a load is changed, or an invoice is adjusted, TM2000 logs those changes with a date/time stamp and records who made the changes.

Paying drivers in the 1980s was more than a headache. Just trying to find all of the paperwork associated with a pay period was a time consuming job. With TM2000 payroll is simple and easy. Most TM2000 customers agree that payroll can be done in 30 minutes or less. With only a few keystrokes reports showing driver performance, customer performance and/or truck and trailer performance are easily created. Armed with this kind of valuable information a trucking company using TM2000 has a great advantage over the competition.

If you are a trucking company that is still lost in the 1980s, i.e. doing everything on paper and trying to get by, give us a call at 888-891-9550, or check us out on the web. We would be happy to show you how you too can move to the 21st Century.

Dale Clark
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

Shop managers however, have different priorities and use different measurements to track productivity. One manager may compare the mechanics actual time working on equipment to their time cards. Another may be more concerned with the cost per mile figures for his equipment. And a third may look at how much work needs to be performed between regularly scheduled PM services performed by each mechanic. These issues, plus many others, affect your overall shop productivity.

Regardless of how you measure productivity, you need a method for collecting this data. Having the correct data available at the correct time is essential. However, collecting data, which will never be accessed, may actually lower your productivity. The mechanics are generally the ones that enter the initial data, so if they have too much paperwork, their productivity suffers. Your responsibility as a manager is to find efficient ways to collect the "needed" data without lowering overall productivity.

A good shop software package that is incorporated directly into your TMS software system, so that your dispatchers can be notified of scheduled PM services, can save you money and provide the necessary data to measure productivity. It must be quick and easy for your mechanics to enter data and give you the correct information to monitor your productivity. You should be able to see any work done for any equipment, by any mechanic, and show the costs associated with the work. Plus you need management reports to see the "birds-eye" view of your shop activity.

If you need software or your current truck shop software does not give you sufficient functionality, contact TruckMaster today for a free demo.

Craig Sorensen
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

From my early days in the trucking industry, I have always said, "Driver turnover is as common as changing one’s socks. It seems it's the very nature of the beast. Drivers are so used to moving from one location to another in their daily activities – pickups, deliveries, etc. – that moving from one company to another seems to be an acceptable behavior." How do we change that?

What is the key or keys that will keep a good driver happy enough to stay with your company for 20 or 30 years? Here are a few suggestions that I have found successful and might help you as well.

1) Remember your drivers are people! They have feelings, desires, expectations, and goals. If you and your dispatchers show genuine interest in these feelings, desires, expectations, and goals, your drivers will understand that you care about them. When employees feel the company cares about them, they are less likely to look for other employment.

2) Be realistic in your expectations. Remember your drivers are not you! They are trying to do the best they can amidst all of the government regulations that are directed specifically at them.

3) Keep your equipment in good working order. No one likes to drive a piece of junk that has to be herded down the road. If you have ever driven long haul and had to fight or repair the equipment every step of the way you know what I mean. If you haven’t had this unpleasant opportunity, consider the last time your automobile broke down…was that a pleasant experience?

4) Ask your drivers for input. I am not suggesting that you let your drivers run your company. On the contrary, I strongly state that drivers should not be allowed to run your company, but they have ideas that can help. They are the ones talking to your shippers, receivers and brokers; they are the ones that portray your company image, regardless of what you think your company image may be. And finally;

5) Be competitive in your pay scale and the benefits you offer. Remember points 1) thru 4) will help keep the drivers, but you have to be competitive enough for any driver to want to look at you in the first place.

Good drivers are worth their weight in gold. If you will treat them as if they are gold, your drivers will be content, happy, eager to help grow your business, and less likely to "look for something better."

Dale Clark
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

FMCSA will be gathering much more information for the CSA program than they are currently gathering for the SAFESTAT program. All inspections (roadside, offsite, and onsite), all violations, and all crashes will be included in the new CSA information gathering process. SAFESTAT currently has four main categories that it monitors. The new CSA is monitoring seven categories that they called BASIC (Behavioral Analysis and Safety Improvement Category). These seven BASIC categories are:

• Unsafe driving
• Fatigue (hours-of-service)
• Driver fitness
• Controlled substances and alcohol
• Vehicle maintenance
• Improper loading and cargo securement
• Crash history

Reference

Any incidents, within these seven BASIC categories that you had in the last 24 months, will be included in your CSA rating. The most current incidents are weighted and affect the rating more than older incidents. Therefore, if you take steps now to clean up any safety issues, your safety rating will be much lower when CSA takes effect next year.

Not only is FMCSA including more information in the ratings, they have also proposed more comprehensive punitive actions if a carriers CSA rating is too high, up to and including revocation of their authority. Don’t wait until CSA takes effect to make any needed safety changes. It will be too late if your score is too high. Learn the new rules now, make any needed changes, and when CSA takes effect, you will be sitting pretty, ready to "keep on truckin'".

Craig Sorensen
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

The attitude we read from the industry until very recently was not optimistic. TruckMaster lost some valued clients to the crisis, a few of which had been with us for many years. When discussing our software products with new potential clients, more often than not we’d be told that they needed and wanted our trucking software solution as it would increase their productivity drastically, but the very future of their businesses were in doubt. "Call us in 6 months, if we're still around, we will purchase your trucking software".

It seems to me that it's turning around now. We're starting to hear the optimism again. The constant rumble of bad economic news has slowed. The freight is starting to flow, the trucks are starting to move again. There's a sense felt by most that I talk to that better times are immediately ahead.

I’m not trying to imply that the crisis is over, we've got a ways to go, but my feeling is that we're on the downhill side.

My question for you is, do you see things getting better? Has your trucking business been improving over the last few weeks? Have you felt more optimism from those that you do business with?

Greg Dodson
President
TruckMaster Logistics Systems, Inc.
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™

I'm old enough to remember the days before desktop computers were the norm, (early 80s) and the many people who claimed we would soon no longer need paper. Our data would be managed with and by the computers. Of course, we all know what happened, paper sales went through the roof, as we developed new ways of analyzing data and all of the reports that came with that. The term 'paperless office' became a well-worn joke as the 90s ended.

However, in the last few years there have been some significant changes in technology that while may not create “paperless offices” will certainly create 'less papered offices.' First, computer manufacturers continue to create larger faster machines with cheaper and cheaper storage. Second, any good trucking software system now allows you to “print” to a file or PDF format instead of paper. Last, scanning technology has continued to get faster, and provide higher quality images. The result is that we no longer worry about running out of hard drive space, most documents we used to print on paper we are viewing on screen and/or transmitting electronically and may never actually print to paper, and if we do receive a paper document we can easily and quickly scan it.

While this 'technology' has been around for years, it has never been easier or cheaper to implement, nor as easy to actually use then it is now. The good news is that it's only going to get easier, and cheaper. Remember when Gigabyte was the new measurement of “big” with regards to hard drives. Now of course it's Terabyte, and we're looking forward to Petabyte (1024 terabytes). In addition to the these improvements we can not ignore the advancements mobile communication devices and the networks upon which they work have made in the last few years. Blackberrys and iPhones for instance have document management capabilities, and almost all of even the cheapest mobile phones have cameras. With these devices we can send and receive email or text messages, with some we can view and edit documents, and record digital images.

Each image takes just a few hundred kilobytes, and can be cheaply, quickly, and easily duplicated and or stored. With TruckMaster's trucking software you can use any of these images by attaching them to any record in the system for later retrieval. TruckMaster's unique design and system integration doesn't require you to spend thousands of dollars on additional hardware or software licensing. Document imaging is just one more valuable tool in the TruckMaster tool belt that comes as a standard part of every TruckMaster solution.

As you work through the next week, each time you search for an invoice, bill of lading, proof of delivery, driver log, maintenance receipt, claim picture, or just a freight confirmation, please remember they could all be just a click away in your TruckMaster system.

TruckMaster can bring you as close to paperless as you wish to be. To 'see' what we mean, contact TruckMaster today for a free on line demonstration.

Kurtis Brown
TruckMaster Solution Provider
TruckMaster Your Trucking Company™