Smart Driving
26 TrucKers News January 2010 I f you didn't know it already, working in trucking can be risky. Truck drivers had more nonfatal injuries than any other industry's workers as of 2007, according to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Half of the nonfatal injuries were serious sprains and strains. OSHA attributed this to the fact that many drivers are injured loading and unloading. Safety experts say preventing in-juries on the job requires education, demonstration of how to do things right and continuous follow-up to reinforce proper techniques and hab-its. It all begins when a driver is hired and can be reinforced weekly, monthly or when an accident occurs. The key to avoiding injury is to have a good pre-trip and post-trip routine that you follow religiously, says Sam Cross, safety manager at Rocha Transport, a Truckload Carri-ers Association safety award winner in 2008 from Modesto, Calif. You hustle but don't hurry. When you get in a hurry and short-cut things, that's when you get hurt. Safety managers at carriers say injuries show up most often when drivers are simply getting in and out of a truck and walking around the tractor and trailer. Complaints of bad ankles, bad knees and bad backs are most common. Bad knees and ankles are from jumping out of the truck and landing in potholes, Cross says. Or drivers slip off a step or complete-ly miss steps climb-ing in or out of a cab, says Jay Blobner, safe-ty director at Stage-coach Cartage & Dis-tribution in El Paso, Texas, another 2008 TCA safety award winner. Three-poinT sTance Drivers who get injured entering or exiting a truck often are ignoring the widely taught three points of con-tact maneuver. The concept is to have one hand and two feet or two hands and a foot making contact in three places including steps and a handrail when going into and out of a tractor or trailer, says Bob Hutson, safety director at Stone Belt Freight Lines, a 2008 TCA safety award win-ner from Shoals, Ind. What I think happens, being an ex-driver myself, some drivers will exit going forward instead of back-ing out of the truck, Blobner says. I've seen some of the younger guys completely jump out of the truck without getting on the steps, or jumping off the truck catwalk. Stagecoach makes the three-points message hard to miss by af-fixing a sticker near the driver's door on each truck showing the prop-er procedure. Blobner says the pro-cedure also is taught in orientation with all drivers new to the company. James Ransom, director of safe-ty at Clayton, Ala.-based Boyd Bros. Transportation and TCA's safety pro-fessional of the year in 2008, says trucks are outfitted with non-skid steps but diesel, mud, snow and ice can build up while driving. Drivers have to keep the steps clean, especial-ly in winter weather. securing loads Ransom says the most frequent injuries he sees are slips and falls, mostly working around loads. The company is primar-ily a flatbed operation where potential inju-ries lurk when secur-ing loads in a variety of weather conditions. Some of the injuries may result from poor weather conditions, but most often the blame goes to driver inattention or getting in a hurry, Ransom says. In a pre-trip walking around the truck, you could step in a pothole, or the ground might be uneven, he says. You might be checking smarT driviNg max Kvidera Slips and Falls Avoiding injury on the job can be helped by training and training again Boyd Bros. Trucking provides its drivers with a safety kit that includes safety glasses, a camera, a pamphlet covering what to do in case of an accident, paper, pencil and a drug-screening collection kit. The company also helps pay for part of a new driver's hard hat and provides a credit toward the purchase of non-slip, steel-toed shoes, says James Ransom. We're also thinking about adding a safety vest, he says. safeTy KiT c o u r t e s y B o y d B r o s . t r a n s p o r ta t io n Drivers take turns practicing the three-points-of-contact way of climbing into a cab at a Boyd Bros. Transportation orientation.