Company: G&P Trucking Inc., Gaston, SC
Operation: TL carrier serving the southeastern and southwestern U.S. and Mexico with a fleet of 700 tractors
Problem:
Driver retention continues to be a thorny issue in every segment of the trucking business, and it can positively or negatively affect a carrier’s CSA score.
That’s why retention will continue to be an important topic in trucking, notes John Billingsley, director of safety and training for G&P Trucking.
“Drivers by and large don’t feel good about their jobs. They are not being prepared or trained to deal with this new safety environment, and there is no clear picture of what success means in this industry,” he explains.
“From our perspective, the best thing we can do for them is to take away as much stress from the job as possible. That means giving them better training so they arrive at their destination on time with themselves, their vehicle and their load all in one piece.”
G&P equips its trucks with the latest safety systems, such as collision avoidance technology and electronic logging devices, to provide a better safety net for drivers while on the road and at the same time relieve them of paperwork burdens.
Yet, the company felt that there was still something missing.
Solution:
G&P invested in the in-cab video safety system from SmartDrive over a year ago as a way to not only improve driver skills but aid in “driver exoneration” when accidents occur. The system is now on 185 of the carrier’s 700 trucks.
When G&P decided to install SmartDrive’s in-cab video system, the company took one of its best veteran drivers off the road and made him a “driver improvement coach.” His job was dedicated to taking SmartDrive video clips and help the fleet’s drivers learn from them.
“It’s an improvement tool only and he is not allowed to fire [anyone] based on the video,” Billingsley explains. “He’s one of our best drivers and very well-spoken. What he does is take everyone through the vehicle soup to nuts to explain our safety program and why we have the technology onboard that we do. His sole purpose in life is to teach you how to drive that truck better and safer.”
Billingsley says G&P’s approach with this technology is that the driver is the one who contributes most to both the safety profile and risk profile of a fleet.
So, does it work? Here are just some of the results after deploying the SmartDrive system for about a year:
- Not wearing a seatbelt: down 10.38%
- Too short following distance: declined 21.18%
- Distracted driving: decreased 23%
- Speeding: down 56.91%
- Overall fleet risk profile: lessened 42.8%
G&P now uses truck data combined with video to award performance pay, and the integration of in-cab video has changed G&P’s view of what makes a truck driver truly “great.”
“In the past, our ‘best’ truck drivers used to be the ones who never went home, who were always available, and who drove the most miles,” Billingsley explains. “Now, we look far more closely at fuel economy and safety performance. More importantly, we’re no longer looking at truck drivers like a mass of cattle; this technology has allowed us to zero in on specific individual performance. That’s why we’ve found the acceptance of this [in-cab video] technology among our drivers to be very high.”
