Baylor Trucking President Cari Baylor said she is “more than happy with her company’s decision to add 70 new Kenworth tractors – all equipped with Bendix driver assistance and side object detection safety technologies – to its fleet.” She’s also not planning to stop there.
“We will not buy a truck – whether it’s for the company or our lease purchase plan – that doesn’t have Bendix’s collision mitigation and other safety technologies, because we believe so strongly in them,” Baylor said. “We hire the safest drivers we can hire and support them with the safest professional team we can develop, so it only makes sense to put them in the safest trucks that we can buy.”
The Milan, Indiana-based carrier was founded in 1946 by Cari Baylor’s grandfather, Chester. Baylor Trucking’s fleet of 200 power units and 715 trailers serves the eastern United States from its terminal located in Portland, Tennessee. Over seven decades and countless miles, safety has always been at the company’s core.
“We have three principles: Be safe, be legal, and be on time – and safety comes first,” Baylor said. “We were founded by a driver, and my dad was a driver – so more than anything, we want our drivers to return home safely, and we want to make sure that all the families traveling out there are driving next to the safest trucks on the road.”
To that end, Baylor ordered 35 Kenworths equipped with Bendix BlindSpotter Side Object Detection System and Bendix Wingman Advanced – A Collision Mitigation Technology in 2015. This year, the company ordered another 35, also with BlindSpotter, but adding Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems’ flagship collision mitigation system, Bendix Wingman Fusion. Baylor also recently added 50 new Utility Trailer Manufacturing Company trailers to its fleet, all equipped with Bendix ADB22X air disc brakes and Bendix’s antilock braking system.
“Our partnership with Baylor represents a quarter-century relationship with this multigenerational family-operated fleet, and it’s something special,” said Scott Burkhart, Bendix vice president – sales, marketing, and business development. “The strides in safety technology Bendix and Baylor have seen over the years have been phenomenal – from antilock brakes to full-stability technology to the rise of today’s powerful driver assistance systems – and we are proud to have shared every step with such a safety-focused team. Highways are safer thanks to the efforts and forward thinking of companies like Baylor, and we will continue to support them as far as the road takes us.”
Bendix said its safety technologies are intended to complement safe driving practices and are not meant to enable or encourage aggressive driving. Responsibility for the safe operation of any commercial vehicle remains with the driver at all times, according to the company.
