YOU NEED TO SLOW DOWN!

Every trucking company has a policy and procedure manual. Every company must have written policies to cover all the possible situations that govern a truck driver operating on public highways.

I recently had a fantastic question asked of me. In trucking company policy manuals, all of them say to you, the driver, don’t speed! Obey the speed limit! Don’t go faster than the road conditions will allow! Slow down in bad weather! All speed policies include most of the above.

The question I was asked was, how does a company enforce their speed policy but have a little bit of tolerance built in? In other words, what if a company only wanted to discipline their drivers when the driver exceeded 10 km over the posted speed limit? How could they possibly put something like that in writing and only enforce a law when the driver was being excessive?

I can hear many drivers laughing now! You were thinking that only breaking the law by a little bit such as 10 km above the post speed limit is not breaking the law? You know that you will not get a traffic ticket for going just 10 km an hour above the limit. However, you also know you might get a speed camera ticket and in Ontario that puts points on the CVOR.

Why the question? This company is afraid that if they have a crash and prosecution lawyers start to dig, they will see that the company only enforced their speed policy when the driver was above 10 km/h over the posted limit. This will show the lawyer that the company tolerates speeders. And a smart lawyer might just say that the company encourages speeding by not enforcing the law as it’s written. Can you see where I’m going with this? It is opening a huge avenue for prosecuting lawyers to attack the company and their safety culture! This is how nuclear verdicts are won. If the safety culture allows drivers to knowingly break the law and only discipline their drivers for excessive breaking of the law, then what other laws don’t apply? I know many of you drivers are now saying that I’m being ridiculous. Perhaps I am, but I believe I know the mind of prosecuting lawyers. They look for any opportunity to attack the company and their insurers to make them look evil so that they can get more money from a jury in a verdict.

I know that nuclear verdicts are only happening in the USA, but lawsuits happen in all countries. I have seen some frivolous lawsuits against law-abiding trucking companies. And sometimes the law-abiding trucking company loses the lawsuit, and their insurers must pay out millions.

So, what’s the point of this article? I’m hoping to make you, the truck driver, think, and for safety managers to react.

How do we control speeding in our companies? How do we ask our drivers to obey the posted speed limit and adjust when road conditions are not suitable? It is a tough job and a tough ask.

It is difficult for the safety department to enforce a zero-tolerance, no-speed policy. It is very difficult for truck drivers never to speed. It is hard to never go above the posted speed limit on good roads. Traffic surrounding the truck is almost always going above the posted speed limit. It is hard for the truck driver to hold their ground and only do the speed limit or less. But here is the thing, when a truck driver operates the truck at the posted speed limit or less, they are being professional, and they are doing their job. That is my belief.

Let the comments rain down!
Be safe.

Chris Harris
CEO & Top Dawg
Safety Dawg Inc.
905-973-7056
chris@safetydawg.com
@safety_dawg (twitter)