Recenty, many conversations and discussions have centralized around the area of improving safety in the truck driving industry. With the recent adoptation of CSA 2010 (Compliance, Safety and Administration) and the coming additions to HOS (hours of service) rules, we will see several changes in the industry soon.Do you think that by making these changes, this is the way to fix and improve overall safety in our chosen career path (trucking)? Recently, some different evidence has arisen to show that safety performance might be enhanced with different enforcement systems.
A recent published paper by the American Trucking Associations (ATA) brings up some issues asking whether safety tools that are currently widely used across the industry truely and accurately match or reflect the risk that a trucking company will have an employee or vehicle involved in a crash.
Some areas that are suggested might provide a larger or more significant reduction in crash risk include:
Tire pressure monitorers, roll stability control, larger implementation industry-wide of speed governors or limiters, lane departure and early collision warning systems, more training thru time spent in simulators, enhanced alcohol and drug testing with hair samples and electronic onboard recorders (EOBRs).
Currently the compliance system that is in place has had the largest impact on reducing crashed for small to medium companies or carriers. As the size of the company grows, the impact of reducing incidents gets proportionately smaller. Realizing that, it can be said that larger companies might need to come up with a alternate way to decreases crashes and improve safety.
A pilot study that will measure and asses the differences between crash rates by the size of the company and any impact of using alternate tools and measuring devices is being supported by the American Trucking Associations (ATA).
