Your new hires are helping you expand, but some are bringing lousy driving habits you don't want along with them, and given your busy schedule, you won't have time to train them. Or do you?

It's no rumor that the insurance industry is starting to require dash cams in commercial vehicles. This is partly due to the fact that commercial underwriters haven't turned a profit in seven years. A perfect storm between increasing rate of distracted driving accidents and larger and larger settlements awarded by juries.

You have been managing your team the say way for years, now you have just installed a GPS fleet management solution in all of your trucks. How are you going to explain this to your drivers? Will they feel like they are being spied on? How do other companies handle it?

One of the most misunderstood and misused features of ELDs is the allowance of Personal Conveyance, often noticed as PC.

Before we dive into the meaning and common questions about PC, there are two questions you should ask yourself to help determine if you are following part 395 of the regulations :

You are rolling down the road, a green light ahead with a clear intersection. In an instant, you pick up a vehicle out of the corner of your eye. It fails to stop for the red light and slams into the side of your truck. Your truck begins to spin sideways, but you recover and manage to pull off to the shoulder to check on the other driver.

It's early in the morning, you are about to start your shift driving and want to get started on the deliveries for the day. An hour into your drive your ELD stops working, you've tried turning it off and back on but no luck what do you do?

The Need for Trucking

It's a common sight on roads today, a driver is stopped at a light that has just turned green, heads down, eyes glued to their phone. People just can't seem to be able to disconnect from their electronic distractions.

Blocking texting or other features on your driver's phone might not be the best solution. Taking a systematic approach to reduce distractions in the vehicle and train your driver on what is expected of them when they are driving your vehicle.

While you didn't get into your business to operate a small fleet of vehicles, your employees rely on them to get to the job site and do what they do best. Owners and managers who take safety seriously, comply with OSHA and other regulations, teach best practices and impart their safety culture oftentimes do not extend that out to one of the more dangerous aspects of the job: getting there.

No one wants to think about having an accident with one of their commercial drivers, but do they know what the plan is in case it happens? Having solid procedures in place will help you and your driver keep your cool and navigate the post-accident issues.