Trucks at Work Blog

“Those who know how to win are far more numerous than those who know how to make proper use of their victories.” — Polybius.

Might seem a little strange to quote this famous Greek historian in reference to today’s truck driver recruiting practices, but I’ll boil down the reason why I’m doing it here in two words: Mitch Bookbinder.

Mitch is the head of driver recruiting and retention for L.J. Kennedy Trucking in Kearney, N.J. (he’s got another title, too, that just cracks me up — ‘minister of culture’) and I’ve had the good fortune to talk to him more than a few times about the driver shortage issue. Mitch also gets asked to give a lot of speeches on this topic from time to time, so if you see him the agenda at a trade show or industry conference, make sure you grab a seat and listen to him — you may not agree with everything Mitch says, but I guarantee you, it’ll get you thinking.

His perspective is that most of the industry keeps going about recruiting drivers all wrong — focusing on just keeping the seats filled and the wheels rolling, without regard to the actual people behind the wheel. Not that Mitch is a softie, mind you: he believes in playing it straight up. As L.J. Kennedy is a flatbed carrier that makes a lot of runs into the heart of NYC, he needs drivers that can handle a fair amount of physical strain and traffic stress on an ongoing basis — and he lets all prospective hires know about those demands right up front.

“The driver interview is the key to knowing if the driver you are hiring is going to fit the job you have to fill,” he’s told me more than once. “It’s a two-way street: You have to level with them about what the job will require of them, and they have to be honest with you about their driving and work history, job likes and dislikes, etc.”

Bookbinder said the key is to listen to the applicant for 80% to 90% of the interview time, which allows you to get a much better “feeling” as to how the applicant feels about the job. “For example, at our company, our drivers have to deliver to all five New York City boroughs, are not allowed to have passengers in the cab, and must manage a 130-lb. tarp to cover our flatbed loads,” he said. “That upfront candor is a good thing — it will let them know what the job is really like and whether they can live with that or not.”

This is the mindset of someone who’s definitely out not just to ‘win’ in the driver recruitment game — he wants to make sure his hires stick around for a long, long time, so he doesn’t have to keep constantly filling seats. That’s the mark of a person and a carrier that knows how to make good use of victories.

“If the tough guys think you’re insane, then that’s true toughness.” — Orson Scott Card, The Abyss.

I remember when I first heard the words “Reality TV” I wanted to puke — and for good reason, it seems, after suffering through years of “Survivor” and “American Idol” and all the other self-centered drivel that passes for intelligent thought on such programming. Then something extraordinary happened — and now I’ll gladly bless whomever got “Reality TV” going. Because now, Reality TV is giving real heroes some long overdue attention.

For example, if you watch the Discovery Channel, you’ve probably seen “Deadliest Catch,” a series that chronicles the harsh and oftimes deadly life of King Crab fishermen in the Bering Sea. These guys suffer untold misery, injury, and even death, so the hoity toity set can feast on King Crab legs. Now their story is being told and not just in a one-hour special, mind you, but for entire television seasons — giving them and their families much needed props for what they do.

Mike Rowe and his show “Dirty Jobs” gets another shout-out — he gets down in the muck and filth of all kinds of work that needs to get done so our society can function (sewer cleaning, anyone?) and by doing so shines a light on some really unappreciated folks. Show after show, hard working people are getting their time in the spotlight: not some navel-gazing Hollywood starlet-in-the-making trying to backstab her fellow players on a remote island.

Which brings me to truckers — specifically, the “Ice Road” truckers up in Canada. THESE guys are tough — the baddest of the bad, for you need some SERIOUS nerves to drive a big rig SLOWLY over thousands of miles of ice-covered lakes. They get a 10-part History Channel series showing how they need to move 10,000 loads in just 50 to 60 days — that’s how long the ice is thick enough to support their rigs — driving no more than 48 mph in minus 58 degree temperatures. Can’t drive any faster than that, or the truck’s weight would create a “wave” in the ice, causing it to break, thus turning a big rig into a U-Boat in a hurry.

Dawn Fitzgerald, the producer of the series, told the Canadian Press newspaper that a one-hour show they did on the Ice Road truckers last year got such a huge response that the History Channel greenlighted a whole series about them (and can you say OH YEAH!!!)

It’s about time these truckers got some major props for this kind of work … and, frankly, I am hoping this series might convince other Reality TV crews to start looking at other trucking jobs — logging, hazmat, you name it — for a little TV time of their own.

It’s about time these true working class heroes got their due.

“Hope is not a method.” — General Gordon Sullivan (Ret.), U.S. Army

I think Sullivan’s quote is quite applicable to the siutation we face on our highways. According to preliminary numbers published by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), there were 43,330 deaths overall on U.S. highways in 2006, down only slightly from the 43,443 killed in 2005. While there are some positive trends showing up once the statistics get sliced and diced (more on that in a minute) the staggering fact remains that more people are dying EVERY YEAR on our roadways than the population of where I live (Springfield, VA). In a year an half, more Americans die on our roads than in nine years of fighting in Vietnam.

These are frightening numbers — and the worst part is, most are preventable if we just took the whole business of driving far, FAR more seriously.

But first, let’s look at some of the positive signs. Nonfatal crashes are projected to drop below six million for the very first time. Fatalities from large truck crashes dropped by 3.7%, from 5,212 to 5,018, with pedestrian deaths also making a slight decline.

Yet the bad news is BAD. Overall alcohol-related fatalities increased 2.4 percent from 17,525 to 17,941 — this after years and years worth of efforts to reduce drunk driving in schools, the workplace, etc. Motorcycle fatalities also increased for the ninth straight year and show no signs of easing, largely because mandatory helmet laws remain stalled almost everywhere — only 20 states have them and Louisiana is the only one that enacted a new one in the past decade.

Aside from the human toll contained within these horrendous numbers, there’s a big economic one, too. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters highway notes that highway crashes cost our society $230.6 billion a year, or about $820 per person — almost three times the amount of money needed to fund our ongoing military effort in Iraq.

There are several problems here, I think. The first is that we seem to keep “hoping” things will turn around. I’ve been hearing about the evils of drunk driving for 30 years now, yet it is still the leading cause of highway deaths — responsible for more than 30% of them. Another problem, and one harder to deal more directly with, is that we as a nation take driving for granted — it just IS, like walking or breathing. And until we realize that, hey, we’re accelerating tons of steel to high velocities every time we leave the driveway, making a serious dent in highway fatalities will remain impossible.

Here’s what I think we need to do.

Primary seat belt laws. Every state needs them — and, just like when we boosted the drinking age to 21 years of age, if you don’t have them, you lose highway funds. You wear your seat belt every time or your fined $100 or more — period. No ‘I was just going to the store’ excuses anymore. Seat belts are the primary safety device in a car; people must use them.

Lower speeds, stronger enforcement. We go back to 55 mph on the highway and if you speed, you get big fines — $500 or more. Now, truck drivers worry this will cut their pay as slowing down relates to fewer miles traveled and thus less money earned. Fleets must compensate for this. And no, this does NOT mean state troopers get to hand out big tickets for people going 57 mph. Common sense doesn’t get thrown out here — people will need to drive at 60 or 62 mph to pass other vehciles quickly and safely at times. That’s a given.

Declare war on intoxicated drivers You drive drunk or drugged up, you are done driving. First offense $1,000 and 30 day license suspension. Second offense $5,000 and six month suspension. Third time, you go to jail for a year plus a $15,000 fine. And yes, your CDL is suspended or removed if you drive drunk or drugged in your personal vehicle. Repeat offenders don’t get breathalyzers attached to the ignition of their car — they don’t get a car and get to wear prison orange. Drunk driving kills people, it’s a conscious act, and we need to treat it as such.

My feeling is it’s time we stop hoping highway fatalities go away on their own and really do something about it. And really, as trucking is a profession that relies on highway safety to get the job done, we as an industry should be taking the lead to see that all the necessary safety measures get put in place to make that drop happen.

So … in the space of a week, I get a press release from the American Trucking Association warning car drivers not to ‘draft’ behind tractor-trailers, followed by a ‘Mythbusters’ episode on the Discovery Channel delving into the practicality of drafting behind a big rig to improve a car’s fuel economy.

After wading through all of of this, my initial thought on the whole topic remains unchanged: are you KIDDING me? Are we, the motoring public, REALLY this dumb to engage in something this dangerous to save gasoline?

Federal safety regulations say a car traveling 60 mph needs at least 216 feet for the braking system to achieve a complete stop — which ain’t possible when you are 10 feet off the rear bumper of a big rig. But WHY is this even happening? What happened to driving 55 mph, changing your oil every 3,000 miles, keeping your tires properly inflated, etc., to get the best fuel economy possible? I mean, basic maintenance and upkeep gives you more fuel economy savings at MUCH less risk to life and limb for crying out loud! This isn’t rocket science, people.

Yet this kind of thing happens a lot, among motorists as well as truckers, when the price of fuel spikes. You start reading all kinds of hogwash on the Internet about special fuel or oil additives and driving practices that supposedly give you these huge fuel economy improvements — and people swallow these whoppers without a second thought!

It’s like the Nigerian banking scam that’s been bilking folks for years: a poorly written letter or email promising millions of dollars in fast cash if you JUST give them your social security number, bank account numbers, passwords, etc. You don’t believe a word of it if someone tells you this face to face — so why does reading it on the Internet suddenly make it true?

Now back to drafting: yes, you can improve fuel economy doing it, but not a lot — in fact, nowhere NEAR worth the risks you run to achieve it. And those fuel economy beneifts aren’t consistent, either — nothing like what you’d get from driving 60 mph with the cruise control on and just making sure your car is maintained properly. If you want to drive fast and crazy, go to a race track and do it — not on the highway, where you are putting people’s lives at risk with such foolishness.

Maintaining trucks today is a complicated business at best, a confusing nightmare at worst. Part of the probelm is while commerical trucks todat are packed with more electronics than ever before, it’s easy to forget that they still require basic no-nonsense maintenance to keep on humming — regular oil changes, tire pressure checks, etc.

That’s why it’s important to keep Darry Stuart’s name handy in your rolodex, and not just because — after a long and distinguished career — he became the Technology & Maintenance Council’s chairman this year. No, Darry earned his chops the hard way, working on everything from refuse packers to highway trucks for nearly four decades before opening his own firm — Boston, MA-based DWS Fleet Management, which specializes in helping fleets solve maintenance issues.

Darry is a guy who walks and talks like a fleet manager, with a great craggy voice that gives even curse words some class. Best of all, Darry gets right to point — and let’s you know in plain, unvarnished English what you have to do to keep your trucks on the road, as what you better NOT be doing to them.

“You will spend money on maintenance - that‘s a given,” Darry stresses to me every time we talk. “The focus for the fleet manager is where — and where not — to spend that maintenance money. Because you can go broke by over-maintaining your equipment, you have to determine the key areas on the vehicle you need to maintain.”

He adds that key maintenance details remain pretty much the same for almost all commercial vehicles [Something he goes into a lot more deeply on his web site, www.darrystuart.com].

“You use the same basic maintenance management philosophy, altering it slightly depending on the needs of a particular application,” he explains. “Using a truck to haul trash is really no different than using a truck to haul freight or whatever. All trucks have batteries, tires, engines, and other components that need to be maintained. The use-pattern of a truck‘s particular application just dictates what components you look at first and how often.”

Darry maintains some simple rules of thumb for fleets, rules I’ve noted before in stories written for FleetOwner as well as our sister publication Waste Age . They are simple and, I think, effective ground rules for any fleet to follow, so I think they are more than worth repeating in this space:

Batteries: If the battery charge is low, the truck may not start and so doesn‘t even get out of the gate, he says. Stuart stresses that battery cables have to be disconnected and cleaned and load tested at each PM interval and to make sure a full charge is getting through. Of particular concern: low voltage batteries. Though they may get a truck started, low vlotage puts a lot more pressure on the truck‘s alternator and starter, leading to a shorter life cycle for those components.

Cooling systems: Truck engines today generate a lot of heat, due to the new emission rules which went into effect this year. So your cooling systems mustbe in top shape - not only can corrosion over time lead to internal engine issues, leaks in the cooling hoses, the high temperatures generated by the engine and other systems can evaporate any traces of coolant leaks, making a repetitive problem that much harder to find. So at every PM, regular pressure testing of the cooling system is a must.

Tires: This is probably one of the most expensive areas for truck maintenance. Darry says the key is to keep tires properly inflated and make sure the front axle is aligned properly to minimize abnormal tire wear. “I stress that you check the front axle ‘toe‘ at every PM, because it takes just 5 minutes to check,” he says. “If the toe is out of alignment, you have to adjust it, because that is what accelerates and wears tires out the most.”

U-bolts/fasteners: Darry is a fanatic about tightening chassis and axles u-bolts and wheel/rim fasteners at every PM because. “Trucks endure a lot of vibration from all the maneuvering, turning, heavy loading and unloading they do every day. Those bolts are holding your truck together so you have to watch them,” he says.

Oil and grease: Darry is a big believer in buying the best engine oil and component grease available, simply because they can help add life to your equipment. “Front ends, clutch linkages, and especially u-joints need the best grease you can buy; know what you are buying, buy quality not price,” he says. “If you don‘t grease a u-joint regularly, it‘s going to blow out on you, and when that happens you have to tow the vehicle in - that‘s expensive. That‘s why paying attention the small details helps you avoid the big problems in the long run.”

And avoiding problems is really what good fleet management is all about.

It’s been a hard week here at FleetOwner. We lost our web editor and (more importantly) our friend, Terry Nguyen, to a swimming accident — drowning while on vacation in Florida after being caught in a rip tide.

It’s a tragedy on all kinds of levels: not only had he done one helluva job covering trucking on a daily basis for our electronic media products, he did it with aplomb and class. Best thing about Terry, though, was his sense of humor — I used to kid him mercilessly about his ballroom dancing hobby (and let me be the first to tell you he was GOOD at it), while he took me to task for my horrible taste in music (Metallica, Motorhead, Iron Maiden … need I go on?) Let me tell you, it’s great when you share this kind of friendship with co-workers.

We share a lot of laughs as we go about our daily business here at FleetOwner — and that’s why Terry fit in so well, right from the get go. He also displayed a true willingness to learn everything he could about this industry so he could constantly improve his work — that’s a rare quality these days and it’s but one reason I could tell he’d be going places. I just wish the hell you were still here with us. So goodbye, my friend; I leave you with a traditional Irish blessing –

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind always be at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face,

and rains fall soft upon your fields.

And until we meet again,

May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

Hats off to David Miller, president of Con-way Freight-Central: he got up before the U.S. Commission on the National Guard and Reserves in Alexandria, Va., and said not only do business employers need to stay strong in their support of employees serving in the National Guard, but that they should INCREASE that support BEYOND what’s required by law.

“It is not just a responsibility, it is a duty that as business leaders we continue to support these brave men and women and their families while they are called to serve, and to help them return successfully to the workforce when their duties end,” he said in his testimony.

Miller said Con-way — which employs 28 soldiers on active duty and more than 90 members of the Guard or reserves — continues full health benefits for their families, plus pays them the differential between what the employee would have earned working at Con-way and the amount of military pay received.

Here’s what these actions cost his company: More than $1,100 (in 2006) in monthly premiums for each family‘s health insurance coverage; More than $4,100 in military differential pay, on average, per employee in 2006; Approximately $4,000 to train each replacement driver sales representative and mechanic ; some

$54,000-$100,000 to relocate each replacement employee required in an alternate location; and finally significant overtime pay when required due to vacancies outstripping available personnel.

“These employees and their families are making a tremendous sacrifice,” said Miller. “We are committed to supporting our deployed employees, their families and the nation, and we encourage other employers to learn from our experience and to adopt similar value systems.”

Now, of course, Miller and Con-way would like to see some changes, too — but they are not unreasonable, I think. Granting a longer window of time between notification and reporting for active duty, to help minimize disruptions to a business’ workforce, is a smart one for starters. “A wider reporting window will help businesses manage the replacement of key employees with less impact on operations and customers,” he said.

Miller also called on the Commission to consider recommendations to Congress that would provide for tax or other incentives to companies that provide full financial support to its employees while on reserve duty. “There are costs involved when reservists are deployed, both in hiring, training and paying replacement staff, and the continuing support of that employee and the family while that employee is on active duty,” Miller noted. “It would be appropriate for Congress to consider some form of relief for those companies that demonstrate this level of commitment.”

These are some pretty good points and, if adopted, would only serve to help bolster the ranks of National Guard and build more support for that vital organization among the ranks of businesses larger and small. And thanks to Mr. Miller, trucking is leading the charge, to boot.

I had the good fortune to interview Chuck Racine a while back — he’s a veteran owner-operator with close to 35 years worth of trucking under his belt, and we’re not just talking about hauling freight here. He’s a long-haul driver for The Paxton Companies, a moving firm in Springfield, VA, so his job involves not just wheel time on the highway, but loading and unloading a 53-foot trailer worth of heavy furniture, hiring local workers to help him with that loading/unloading process, all while being the point of contact with the customer — literally eyeball to eyeball, at their home.

It’s far from an easy job, but Racine told me he’s done very well at it — and stayed at it for nearly four decades now — for two simple reasons. The first is he believes himself to be a professional; not just a truck driver, but a businessman who is out to provide the best service for the money. And it’s not a surprise to learn that many customers, when they call Paxton for a move, request him by name.

But even more importantly is the second reason: he shares a close working relationship with his company. Paxton trained him and bailed him out of some tough spots, while he in turn delivered high qaulity service to Paxton’s customers day in and day out. It’s that working bond, he believes, that’s brought both him and the company success, Racine told me, and he gave me a story to back it up.

“I had my tractor stolen in 1988 in San Diego, CA - that‘s about as scary a moment as you can have out here,” he said. So he called up Paxton’s founder and then-CEO Albert Lee Paxton and told him he’d have to buy a new truck then and there. “He asked how I was set for money and I told him I‘d have to really dip into my savings to get one — it would be a bit of a burden. So he told me, no, just go pick the truck I wanted and he‘d send a check for it. After three or four months, I got my insurance check for my stolen truck and I tried to pay him back with interest. He only took back the money he fronted me. You want to talk about why I stayed with one company and built a career here, there‘s no better example than that.”

That’s but one of the ways Paxton has forged a long-term driver corps willing to go the extra mile for the company and its customers. Racine noted that he started as a mover’s helper at Paxton while going to college in 1974, but quickly moved up to driving straight trucks by 1975 along with fellow rookie drivers John Gauthier and Paul Poucher. Their dispatcher at Paxton, Mack MacReath, put all three through their paces while carefully gauging their capabilities and interests.

“Mack was a great guy, someone who defines the word ‘mentor‘,” Racine told me. “He would pay you a day‘s wages to come in on a Saturday and practice backing up a trailer around the company‘s warehouse building all day long so you could get really good at it. If your truck broke down, no matter where, you‘d call him from a pay phone and he‘d get you to a local shop somewhere to get it fixed.”

All three drivers ended up in different careers - Gauthier went on to be head of operations at Paxton, with Poucher becoming the company‘s long distance dispatcher. Racine stayed in trucking, becoming an owner-operator. Basically, Paxton gave each of them choices in how they wanted to pursue their careers, and that flexibility kept their skill and experience at the company for the long-term

Most of all, though, Racine appreciates how his career has influenced his personal life. “I’m proudest that my work and success at Paxton have enabled my wife Cyndi and I to raise two wonderful daughters, one of which has recently returned from Oxford University in England, studying in Politics and Philosophy. My youngest is just beginning her high school at a local parochial school,” he said. “Of all my actions in life, it is of making these things a reality for my kids that I’m proudest of. It makes the pain of carrying all of those pianos go away.”