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Space & Time
Safety's a matter of seconds and inches, this vet says.
By William Childress
If job skills are one measure of a man's respect, you might want to listen to John Larry Stallings. In fact, Knight Trucking of Phoenix, Ariz., already does. Stallings is the fleet's safety supervisor. He reached 4 million accident-free miles in 1991, then retired soon after from daily driving to instruct new drivers in safety techniques that could save their lives.
"At Knight," Stallings says, "every new driver takes a road test." Even if he has 4 million miles? we ask. Stallings grins. "Yes. It's good to know how a man or woman drives, no matter how many miles they have. It caught one fella by surprise, though. When I walked him to a truck, he said, ‘You really gonna gimme a road test?' and when I said yes, he said, ‘The last company I worked for just gimme the keys!' "
"We define safety as hazards peculiar to a particular operation," he says. "Having ID'd them, we take the necessary actions to eliminate or minimize those hazards by protective measures until we have them at acceptable levels."
This is done, he says, by constant repetition of the mission statement — to promote safety as the most important factor in a driver's life. "Probably the Number One dollar loss at most companies is lane-change incidents, which are mainly due to speed. So we hammer space management and the 8-second margin ahead of trucks. Our Big Three are Accident Avoidance, Safety and Compliance, and Logs," Stallings says.
"We emphasize that the most critical space is the one you drive into, not the one behind you. The front space is the point of impact, and here at Knight, we demand an 8-second gap between our trucks and the vehicle ahead of them.
"We teach every new driver how to do this, and tell them they must back off if other drivers invade their space, as they often do.
"If I may boil it down to the very essence, our two critical requirements for safety are space management and repetition. We add to that G.O.A.L., ‘Get Out And Look,' before backing up. If you do those things conscientiously, you can reach 4 million safe miles, too."
Knight insists that its drivers do pre- and-post trip inspections and report anything they think is wrong, so the problems can be fixed immediately, he says. The average vehicle at Knight is less than two years old; many are new, which is an additional safety factor, Stallings says. New vehicles and regular upkeep cost a lot of money, but "we feel it pays off big in the long run," he says. "We also feel that having our own repair facilities is a big safety factor. We don't have to depend on outside expertise — we have our own."
Stallings says the trucking industry is under fire from the media for unsafe practices because of a generally casual attitude toward training and checking out a drivers' abilities. "There's a critical shortage of drivers," he says, "and some companies will skimp on safety training if it means they can keep a driver. It's the unsafe drivers, not the safe ones, who are giving the industry a black eye."
Stallings believes, too, that many schools are not training potential drivers thoroughly or safely enough. "The media seem to be focusing on trucking, when they should take a closer look at truck driving schools.
"Many of them give their students very little hands-on training, and that's the most important training a potential driver can have. Instead, they substitute textbook stuff because letting students put a lot of miles on those big trucks doesn't fatten [the schools'] bottom line."
The pressure to turn out new drivers quickly has been fueled by record prosperity. Some companies turn down freight because they can't build a full contingent of drivers. This has opened the way for "diploma mills" that give superficial training. Training, or lack of it, that could kill them, Stallings says.
"If they don't stop pushing fledgling drivers out of the nest with no experience," he says, "the situation will get worse. Some of these guys don't even know the shift patterns of the trucks they're assigned." The key to safety is "Practice, practice, practice. The more you do something, the better you get at it," he says.
That's the way he learned. Stallings was a farm kid in Illinois when he fell in love with trucking and knew he never wanted to be anything else. After a Navy stint, he made a beeline for P.I.E., then the biggest trucking company in Oakland.
"I walked in bold as brass and asked for a job," he recalls. "Heck, I thought they'd hire me. But things were a lot different then. They basically said, ‘Go get some experience, kid, then come back.' In those days, that meant finding someone willing to teach you driving — and putting in a long apprenticeship."
But that apprenticeship taught him a world of good things about driving big rigs safely, and was likely superior to any three truck school courses today. Stallings paid his dues, became a trucker and in 1969, hauled a load of furniture for a Mr. Firestone.
"It was his daughter's furniture," Stallings says. "So I drove it to the address, and there stood the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. It was love at first sight for me!" It still is, almost three decades later. He eventually taught his wife, Jackie, to drive and they were an over-the-road team for many years.
Stallings admits he doesn't have an easy solution. But he also knows the problem didn't arrive overnight — and that taking a more basic, thorough approach to driver training and company hiring is a good place to start.
"Whatever happened to the old apprenticeship program?" he asks. "Maybe we could somehow bring it back!"
KNIGHT'S 13 NEVER-EVER RULES:
- Drive fatigued or sick
- Drive blind (in storms, etc). Find a safe haven and park.
- Stop or park at roadside unless broken down.
- Move vehicle when kids or bicycles are in the area.
- Depend on other drivers to do what they should.
- Remain in a boxed-in situation.
- Stop on the approach side of an accident.
- Drive on black or complete ice.
- Attempt to unload heavy cargo by muscle alone.
- Enter a trailer when a forklift is in it.
- Approach closer than 25 feet to an unloading trailer.
- Operate commercial equipment without a pre-check.
- Operate equipment that's defective.
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