Fleet safety managers are always on standby. On Aug. 25, Andrea Adeyanju received an urgent message while she was at an offsite meeting. She had to quickly gather her belongings and leave.
It was bound to happen to someone during the meeting, a “boot camp” hosted by Vertical Alliance. Adeyanju and other safety managers at the meeting had been learning how to better protect their companies and drivers by using a web-based training platform, among other strategies.
Adeyanju is safety administrator and human resource manager of Bulkley Trucking, a refrigerated carrier based in Brashear, Texas. An accident had just occurred in Mexico that involved a Bulkley driver. Adeyanju determined the driver was not at fault by watching a video of the event, but needed to get started on the post-accident work right away.
As this was happening, attendee Deborah Clark, director of compliance at Barnes Transportation Services, was reviewing some critical safety events on her laptop. The events were captured by the fleet’s Samsara camera system.
When accidents and risky driving events happen, safety managers spring into action. Sometimes their actions are as simple as assigning an online training course to a driver, or conducting a coaching session.
During accident litigation, plaintiff attorneys will scrutinize a fleet’s training records and safety technologies — or lack thereof — to convince judges and jurors that the defendant is not doing everything possible to operate safely, said Mark Rhea, a fleet safety consultant who has worked for Lancaster, Texas-based Frozen Food Express (FFE) in various safety and compliance roles for 30 years.
