Welcome back and thanks for reading The Bottom Line! Today I want to talk about the way the public perceives your CSA scores and how you can protect yourself.
Recently I saw a news story that really got me fuming. I may be an insurance agent but I consider myself a member of the transportation industry and I was pretty upset with the way that trucking companies were being covered…the company in the story could have been one of my clients or my friends…and the suggestion that they’re patently unsafe isn’t accurate, isn’t fair, and isn’t right.
The story goes like this: a trucking company in Minnesota had an accident and it turned out to be fatal to both the driver of the truck and a driver of a private passenger vehicle passing by. The truck driver wasn’t necessarily doing anything wrong, his rig simply slipped on some black ice on a country road and he jack-knifed without warning causing a pretty bad scene.
The reporter jumps onto the screen holding a “24 page list of terrible and dangerous violations” attributed to the trucking company over the last 2 years. “How is it possible this company is still in operation?” the reporter wants to know, “how can it be that a company with 102 equipment violations isn’t shut down?”, and “what about 2 pages of fatigued driving violations, maybe the driver fell asleep at the wheel? We’ll never know, what a tragedy…”. And you can imagine what’s going to happen in the court room…
Well I happened to look into that company’s scores…
They have 27 Tractors and went approximately 2,470,000 miles in 2010.
154 Total Inspections, 21% OOS rate
Unsafe Driving————–31.8%
Fatigued Driving———–66.4%
Driver Fitness————— Inconclusive
Controlled Substance—–No Violations
Vehicle Maintenance——71.4%
Cargo Related—————–Not Public
Crash Indicator————–Not Public* (4 Total Cashes,
2 Tow-Aways, 2 Injury/Fatal)
And NO ALERTS
That being said, the uneducated public might view your SMS scores or your BAISC metrics differently than you and me. If you’re ever in a situation when you have to defend yourself in court like the folks in Minnesota, you’d better believe that “Fatigued Driving” or “Unsafe Driving”, etc are going to be admissible and will paint your company in a bad light.
Even if you’re in the top 10% of operators your size, a “violation” sounds bad and looks worse.
Here’s an example:
I have a client with 29 power units whose satisfactory rating is not in any jeopardy. They’ve had 164 inspections and have a 28% OOS rate – Pretty normal stuff for a company of this size.
The company’s “Unsafe Driving” metric is at 52.9%, “Vehicle Maintenance” is at 72.9%, and “Fatigued Driving” is at 82.5%. Only one of these is in alert status, “Fatigued Driving”.
Here’s a list of the 5 most recent “Unsafe Driving” violations:
- Speeding
- Failure to obey traffic control device
- Lane Restriction Violation
- State/Local – Speeding
- Failure to yield Right of Way
These violations span from 8/14/11 to 11/17/11, only 3 months. Imagine you’re a member of the non-transportation-industry public…if you had these violations on your record in the last 3 years you’d have had your license suspended or worse, let alone 3 months!
Now add these to the rest of the 10 “Unsafe Driving” violations, the 50 “Fatigued Driving” violations and the 156 “Vehicle Maintenance” violations over just 2 short years and you’re starting to get the picture of an unbelievably negligent motor carrier!
What’s lost on the public (and most juries) is that these violations account for roughly 5.5m miles of driving (it would take the average American 408 years to accumulate this many miles driven). The general public is also unaware that truckers have their own branches of the federal and state governments devoted to pulling truckers over and inspecting them, and that truckers are checked for everything from paperwork to marker lights and everything in between…and that each minor error in paperwork, etc constitutes a “violation”.
Another interesting fact is that Americans get a speeding ticket once every 62,655 miles driven. Truckers; once every 329,333 miles. That’s right…truckers are more than 5 times less likely to speed than regular drivers. I bet you won’t hear that on the news…
In any case, what can you do to limit your exposure to this kind of situation?
Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to limit your chances of having a problem. Work constantly to reduce your overall BASIC Scores and make sure you don’t have any Alert status issues. Convey the importance of this to your drivers ALL THE TIME.
Also, hoping you have a good attorney and the right insurance agency and policy after an accident is the wrong time! Make sure you’re protected before you have a claim. The most important thing, though, is to document, all of your procedures and due diligence. This includes your drivers. Drill into them the fact that they’ll be named and targeted too if there’s a bad accident. The number one saving grace in court: documenting that you did everything legally required and logically expected of you to ensure proper maintenance, training, and due diligence. The better you document, the better your position argument you’ll have when it’s you on the news…
The Bottom Line: The world is full of information. Some of it is good, some of it not so good. The public information about your company will be used against you if you have a claim. Whether the system is accurate, or fair, or right is certainly debatable; but you’ve been warned. Make sure you take the necessary steps to ensure that you’re in a good position to defend yourself if you have an accident or issue that lands you in court. If you’re not sure if you’re doing enough, call me. I can help.
Hopefully you’ll check back soon to see our weekly updates. And always, if you have any questions for the Truck Insurance Pro…please just let us know and we’ll get back to you ASAP!
Keep on Rollin’!
Jason Stevenson, MBA, CPIA
Truck Insurance Pro
The Hoffman Group–Transportation Services
800.826.4006
jstevenson@thehoffmangrp.com
