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On Feb. 29, Transflo attended the Florida Trucking Association’s annual Safety Summit in Tampa at the Renaissance International Plaza Hotel. The single-afternoon conference showcased a variety of transportation experts, including fleet managers, industry consultants, and safety pros over seven, half-hour sessions.
Here are five key takeaways from the summit that industry professionals should be apprised of.
The parking shortage in the U.S. and Florida is a long-standing issue that continues to slash fleet and owner-operator productivity because of time lost finding parking. The shortage leads to significant safety concerns when drivers are forced to use highway exit ramp shoulders and side streets.
Marie Tucker, the Commercial Vehicle Operations Manager for the Florida Department of Transportation, spoke about the issue during the summit with some hope, as the state and U.S. DOTs recently announced a $180 million infrastructure investment that will help build over 900 parking spots for trucks on Interstate 4 in Central Florida. Additionally, data indicate that the situation has improved since late 2021.
Baby boomers are retiring by the millions each year this decade. In trucking, the boomer retirement trend truly kicked off during the pandemic, when many drivers decided to walk away from the wheel. Throughout the industry, companies will need to take generational differences in mind when considering how to attract and retain drivers, brokers, and fleet managers.
Generation Z and Millennials typically place a greater emphasis on separating their work and home lives. In industry positions where work-from-home is an option, professionals in these generations are more likely to be comfortable with or pursue fully remote or hybrid positions. Their counterparts in the Gen X and boomer generations have more of an in-office mindset.
Additionally, Millennials are greater in number than both Generations X or Z, making those born between 1981 and 1996 the most dominant generation in the workforce for years to come.
A conditional safety rating by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration – much less an unsatisfactory rating – can be a catastrophic result for a carrier. Insurance rates will skyrocket, and brokers will be apprehensive about working with a company that’s been shown to have inadequate safety controls by the feds.
But carriers can prevent the setback of an adverse rating by knowing when an FMCSA review may be coming, what the compliance investigators are looking for, and the sample sizes of fleets the investigators must look at to issue a conditional rating.
John Seidl, an experienced safety consultant and owner of Trucking Wins, comprehensively reviewed what carriers need to know. The key components of a fleet’s safety scores are:
Dashcams have been seen by some in the industry as unnecessary at best and an invasion of privacy at worst. Fleets may also be hesitant to implement them due to costs. However, the evidence is clear that dashcams benefit the bottom line and road safety conditions.
In an accident, dashcam footage can help clear drivers who might otherwise be blamed for accidents, therefore preventing low safety scores and insurance increases. Additionally, modern dashcams combined with telematics and AI capabilities help coach drivers out of unsafe habits, leading to future accident prevention.
Forward-thinking carriers can make dashcam adoption easier by thoroughly evaluating return on investment and clearly communicating benefits to drivers.
Finally, the FTA wants member companies to know that the Florida Truck Driving Championships are taking place June 13-15 at the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach. This competition features a written test and a skills course in multiple classes. Class winners earn the right to move onto the American Trucking Associations’ National Truck Driving Championships from August 21-24 in Indianapolis.
Carriers can register their drivers and book one of two oceanfront hotels at https://www.floridatrucking.org/tdc.
