A frank discussion with those that keep America’s products moving and how they do so safely.
Al Walker -
CleanMPG - Sept. 2, 2008
Wal-Mart Tractor Trailer rig moving your products down the road.
Today I had an interesting discussion with one of the safety department managers for Wal-mart. Not over any particular incident or observation, quite the contrary ... as much as I dislike Wallyworld for various other things, their truckers are some of *the* most well-behaved and cautious drivers on the road. I consistently observed this across all the states traversed in my roadtrip, too. So after I got back home I decided to try and hunt down whoever in their logistics or safety or whatever department could answer my question: "What are you guys doing RIGHT?"
It took a while, but I finally got switched to the right person. From him I learned quite a few things.
All their trucker training is designed in-house, and uses Wal-mart gear and the surrounding environment in the material (including videos). They've certainly got the volume and financial resources to create their own training materials internally, so they do it. They used to use commercial canned stuff but evidently, repeats of that become "stale" and doesn't make students take as much notice. When it's all put into the context of driving for who they're driving for and why, a bit more enthusiasm is the result. They get a broader picture of how they're supporting and interacting with the stores, and that evidently makes it all worthwhile.
He said that the
Smith System is indeed one of the best commercial offerings, but they disagree on some minor points particularly in the definition of "leave yourself an out".
WM's philosophy is that a driver should build himself that "out" in advance and stay there, i.e. a nice long following distance that goes farthest toward avoiding a problem in the first place. They recommend 7 seconds minimum following distance, knowing full well that anyone worried about other traffic diving into the gap and cutting off a vehicle behind simply needs to make the gap bigger, to avoid the whole problem and help surrounding traffic. I more or less saw this advice in action during my travels -- maybe a couple of seconds less here and there, but I think you'd be hard put to find one of their drivers persistently tailgating.
They instruct on best ways to back out of tight situations rather than try to bomb past them, especially in urban environments. Dropping 2 or 3 MPH and letting aggressive traffic flow around the truck is much better than trying to stay exactly with it, and [as he put it] avoids the driver getting that "bunched-up between the shoulders" feeling at the end of the run. Most of us here know how that works.
Their trucks are currently limited to 65 MPH max, and that's made a harder limit by having the Jake kick in rather than just limiting engine power. So they can't "cheat" down hills.
They only hire drivers with proven, safe records spanning 250,000 or more miles prior. A quarter-million, preferably incident-free.
The drivers are still paid by the mile, but they are also made to understand the bigger, long-term picture and not let that lull them into speeding. Substantial incentives and bonuses come each year to drivers who perform safely, enough to more than make up for miles they might conceivably gain by aggression (which they know full well isn't that much and not worth the risk).
They do hire external trucking companies to pull some of their trailers, like Swift and England and Hunt. The contracts with these companies strictly specify a standard of driver behavior, so it's up to the company to do a bit of filtering to meet that requirement. Outside drivers who screw up are pulled off the Wal-mart contract, whether they're reassigned or grounded or whatever.
They routinely take first or second place in the ATA safe driving contests, which is a nice way to tell the industry that they've got a firm handle on the issue. Would that more of the industry would plow this clear lesson back into their own operations!
Slower trucks saves them thousands of dollars a year in fuel.
Each accident claim they DON'T have to deal with saves them over a million dollars in legal and equipment costs, aggravation, and public goodwill.
The drivers seem to take all this pretty seriously -- he's had times when a *driver* called in to report something like "I screwed up and made some guy stand on his brakes because *I* wasn't paying attention right then -- you're probably gonna get a call."
That tells his department right up front that at least the driver is *aware* of a lapse and feels bad about it.
They're testing various hybrid and alternative truck prototypes at a big facility in Texas someplace, and are probably on the leading edge of using updated technology to burn less fuel in general. Even down to using trailer-top solar panels to keep the trailer tracking units alive, so they can always find where trailers are. He said that the hybrid prototype is so expensive and heavy it's not really well-suited for actually hauling freight yet, however, but they're still pursuing how it might improve.
It was a good conversation and he really appreciated the positive report from the road and talking to someone who understands many of the safety basics as applied to trucks and cars alike.
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