¶ Handling Accidents in Freight Transportation
Welcome back , final mile . We got a few questions here today coming from YouTube comments and I think we had one from Facebook as well . But keep sending them our way . We'll keep answering them as they come in and they're relevant , but make sure to check out all of our other content as well .
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Um Blue Book for produce and lumber marketing and lead generation and DAT for all your load posting and analytics and whatnot . So we'll get right into it here today . Our first question was was it a YouTube comment or someone emailed it over ? How's YouTube About accidents ? So how do you handle a situation when there's an accident on one of your loads ?
Accidents , so how do you handle a situation when there's an accident on one of your loads ? This is , like you know , different from a claim where , like something just got damaged in transit , accidents are , depending on the severity , can throw a whole new level to , you know , an oops in the freight world . So I'm curious your take on this .
But the first thing that I'm like always trying to figure out when this happens is like , is the driver OK , you know what's the severity of it ? Because I mean , I've seen everything from like hey driver ran into a concrete pole at the driver's or the customer's location to uh , fatality in a crash , like I've I've seen the whole range of them .
and like dude , the , the , when someone gets seriously hurt or there's a fatality , like it hits you weird , it hits you like real , real bad because it still upsets me , like the one that I ran into this probably like nine years ago now , but even like telling that like makes me like choke up and feel um .
So why don't you kick this one off here with ? You know how do you handle the accident situations .
I mean , my first step is just trying to understand what's happening and I would say what is super important , like imperative , is that you are documenting all of this and it's again all in your TMS . I can't stress this enough , like how many smaller companies people are like well , I got it in an email thread or I got it in a chain over there , right ?
Nobody else in your company can see your inbox . So you need to take whatever correspondence , whatever you have , and upload that into your TMS so that you can break down and write down exactly what has occurred by time , step-by-step .
I think that's your first step is just assessing what the situation is , documenting it , getting a clear understanding from the driver . Usually first , maybe you get the information from the shipper . Same thing . I'm like hey , want as much information as possible . If there are cameras on site , if it happened at the shipper , hey , do you have any footage of this ?
Can you please let me know what time this occurred ? Because , like , I've seen scenarios where , like a shipper's like , oh , this driver did this and we find out when we're like going through asking more questions that like they don't even know who did it , they don't really know when it happened , they can't verify that it was this driver versus another one .
So , again , just really , step one is finding out what does everybody know and like meticulously writing this down for yourself , like this time we know this , at this time we know this .
And you're going to get two sides of the story right Either the shipper and the receiver and the driver and then first just trying to understand and I think to your point , the first move in this is empathy , right , trying to understand it from their point of view , not arguing whether it's the shipper or the driver like , hey , just genuinely caring enough to go .
Hey , just walk me through what's happening so I can help try to resolve this for everyone , right ? If you start that conversation with , oh my God , what did you do ? I can't believe this . My customer's yelling at me like one . It makes all of it harder . You're going to get less accurate information and you're going to create more work for yourself , right ?
So , taking a deep breath , bringing yourself down even though your customer might be screaming or yelling and it could be a very stressful scenario the more you can take a beat get up , walk away from your desk , walk outside , take a deep breath for a minute , come back in and then make the conversations or make the phone calls .
Yeah , so I want to . Now I want to talk through , like the the tactical side of this . Um , outside of , you know , is everyone okay and whatnot , because now you have to figure out , well , what happens now .
So we definitely want to make sure your communication with all the parties is is very good , right , Get your customer updated and whatnot , because now you have to find out is there damage to the product or you know , is it just hey , they gotten a little fender bender and they can send another truck in .
Yeah , yeah , you got . You got like three or four things right . Is there damage to property ? Is there damage to the vehicle ? Is there damage to the cargo ? Was anybody injured ? Not in that order like you would go injured driver obviously first . Yeah , yeah , cargo , probably . How's the truck ? And is there any damage at the site ?
So , because you're , and we can't give every possible scenario here , but you can look at possible solutions here . So let's say you've got like totaled product , right ? Well , that's going to be part of your claim there . Do you have partially damaged product because it shifted or whatnot ? Again , that's part of your claim there .
Do you have partially damaged product because it shifted or whatnot ? Um , again , that's part of a claim . Now , how does this product going to get to where it's going ?
well , there's the third one too , which is , even if you have , like , all of it being damaged , then you've got to see is there salvage value , right , like , are you still able to take this somewhere to get some value , even if all of it has been ?
damaged . So so really , what you have to do here is you have to figure out what are we doing with the freight now and , depending on what that is , it's going to determine how you're going to handle the next steps .
Because the carrier if it's an owner-operator and it's just them and they can't drive their truck well , now we've got to look at finding another carrier to either haul that trailer if the trailer is still good , you might have a larger carrier that maybe this , this happened right in their domicile town Like , yeah , you know , we'll just send another , we'll send
another truck out there , we'll swap the trailers , all good . Or maybe it's so minor that the driver is like I just got to go get you know , I don't know , pop in my tire , I just got to get some maintenance done at the truck stop and we'll be rolling down the road . It just really all depends .
Like we had had one yesterday where a driver's tire blew out and it was as simple as he just had to go to a loves truck stop and get it , get it fixed , and you know , they're rolling down the road . So but yeah , this is . You know . This stuff all goes into the claims process .
This is why you have cargo insurance , that that covers the actual goods , a commodity , on the truck , and then you've got your liability insurance that they , the carrier , has for , uh , auto liability if they caused , you know , damage to , to someone else and whatnot . Um , but yeah , it all depends .
I mean , I've seen everything from a truck that blew up into flames and like burn everything to the ground and then it's a huge mess like you're not salvaging any of that . It's more of a cleanup at that point .
So and then again to just take that all the way . No , I think just to take that all the way to the end . For anyone is that , like again , if there's damage like Nate said to the cargo , it's going to go on the cargo policy of the carrier . If there was damage to property , it's going to go in their auto policy .
Right , your insurance as a freight broker typically doesn't come into play and , the thing to remember , or , as you're going through the processes , this is also why it's super important to let the carrier know you're trying to also resolve it for their benefit , not just your customer , because you need the carrier involved in the process .
If the carrier is not responding to their insurance company , you can't get updates on the insurance the way the carrier can , because you aren't that insurance company's client . You do not have any policy with them .
The carrier does , so the carrier is going to have to participate and send these things to their insurance company to move the claim forward in any instance . So working together is absolutely one of the most important things .
If you start with conflict and they just start dragging their feet , these things can take months before the carrier is even responding to their insurance company .
Yeah , I want to add one last thing in . So we talked about if you have to have another trailer or another company come haul the trailer , if you're in a situation with trailer interchange where you know one and trailer interchange insurance , where one company's insurance policy covers equipment from another , another motor carrier .
So we had one where and this was a tire blowout as well we had one carrier hauling another carrier's trailer and the tire on the trailer blew out , right . So the driver's like , hey , broker , can you like I gotta get , I need four hundred dollars to get this tire replaced . Yeah , and we're like , well , why are we paying it ?
And the driver's like , well , it's not my trailer and the you , the tire blew out . Well , did you run over something ? No , it just went out . So it goes to the shop and the shop report is like the tread was at zero , like it was a poorly maintained trailer .
So we go to the carrier that owns the trailer and they're like , yeah , our agreement doesn't cover any maintenance , that's on whoever's hauling it . And so we got everyone like pointing fingers like the spider or the spider-man , uh , meme , yeah , trying to figure out like , well , who's ultimately responsible here and what ended up ?
Um , I believe happening was the carrier was responsible because part of the contract is for them to have their equipment supposed to be in and you know you know , being used by somebody . So , but , yeah , that's important if you're dealing with trailer and change . But anyway , not to go down a rabbit hole , we'll move on to our next question here .
Um , hey guys , I'm about to launch my own brokerage in a couple months . What are some softwares that you that are worth the money , and what type of software can I cheap out or get away with ? For example , um , an rmi , rms , carrier 411 , tms says I won't have income coming in for a few months .
All right , we got a whole episode on our favorite technology and a lot of content on technology , so we'll try to keep this one brief . My rule of thumb is Don't buy something until you need it and try to bootstrap your way .
So , for example , like a TMS , there are cheap or free versions that you can utilize until you're ready to upgrade or pay for a more expensive one . All right , I think things that you cannot cheap out on if you don't have a carrier network .
¶ Essential Tools for New Freight Brokers
You need a load board , right , like you . We see people trying to cover freight in our Facebook group and I get it . Excuse me , um , but uh , we , hey , we got a link in the show notes DAT . You get 10% off your first year . Right , there's like , and there's like three different levels , um , different tiers of it and whatnot .
Um , you need to have a load board . You're not going to have any access to the market or any insights on the market conditions or lane rates and whatnot , if you don't have a load board . So you don't need to have every load board out there . But if you just get DAT to start off , that's one that I think you need Carrier vetting .
You need some way that you're vetting carriers . I've seen people that are like yeah , we're just going to use the FMCSA's data . Well it is very like . So like they're going to rely on FMCSA data and , you know , work directly with an insurance company to pull insurance data .
But there are super affordable carrier vetting options out there that will handle insurance carrier vetting all that stuff for you , like Highway , for example .
You don't have to have the whole kit and caboodle with onboarding and everything , but if you just have their lowest level you can see all right , I've got all their inspection history , I've got all their insights , I've got all of their authority information and reports about them and all this stuff . Like you don't have to go to the top tier level .
But I think it's really important to have access to the market with load boards and I think the carrier vetting is really important . I think where you can get away is like your cheaper or free version of a TMS at first , a free version of a CRM like a HubSpot or something like that , manual accounting or the cheaper accounting stuff .
I'm trying to think what else am I missing here , technology wise , that you can point ?
out . I think you pretty much hit them right . Like if I had to bare bones a brokerage right , Like , I would probably go with a free version of like a send it first . It's good enough that you should be able to do that for just about anything .
I would definitely have Like just to add in here . You don't know if you're going to succeed or stick with it Correct , right .
So and again , like we've done this a lot with a lot of clients and I'm like that's what I suggest . I'm like , hey , take a look at a send . And I think Rose Rocket had a to point about those two I'm like you definitely need and here's even cheaper , right Is one .
You're going to need a CRM because your first few months you're prospecting more than you're quoting . So like to me , get a free CRM or a free version of HubSpot or 20 bucks version so you can organize your leads and follow up with them . That's where you're going to spend your first few months .
Once you've got some prospects that are asking you to quote loads , then pull the trigger on that Now all of a sudden , because you need to quote . You need that because you need rates and you need to access the market . Now I'm going to pay for DAT .
Now , if I'm going to start covering loads , I'm immediately going to probably pick up carrier 411 because it is a little cheaper than highway . But if you've got any budget , I would as soon as possible get the low level of highway because you are going to be a target as a new broker for fraud . They're going to see your credit history on the load board .
When you post loads up , every fraudulent double broker is going to be reaching out to you and trying to steal your freight . So having K0411 at a minimum when you're covering loads if at all possible highway , I think is the second thing . And the factoring thing you're not really going to get charged Like .
Again , we usually send people to Hall Pay because , again , depending on where your credit is and things , you're going to need that lined up pretty quickly but that's not really a cost .
Yep , good , good answers there . That was a good question . Last one here is is as a broker , there's a customer request that you make your own bill of lading or BOL . It depends . So I have always seen this as a value add . Is that if you know if the customer is like , hey , can you make a BOL , it's like , yeah , I'll get it all prepared for you .
You don't have to worry about filling everything out , we'll get it all taken care of . You can usually generate one right out of your TMS . If not , there's billofladingorg . I believe we have a template on our website , freight360.net as well , under the resources downloadable section . That follows the shipment from origin to destination right .
A lot of times the shipper will produce it . Sometimes the broker will prepare it and send it to the shipper , but it starts there . Once it gets loaded , the shipper is signing off . You know , here's what we had loaded . The driver signs they're accepting here . Here's what's on my truck . And then the receiver signs here's what I'm accepting as delivered .
Right , and if there's a damage , you're gonna annotate that . Or if something's missing , you annotate that . But yeah , you can create a bill and there's no law that says you can't . There's no law that says you have to .
If a customer asks if you can do it , by all means , yes , I would just make sure that if you're filling it out since it is the legal paperwork that follows that shipment make sure you understand exactly what the commodity is , what the quantity is , because a lot of times if you let's say something is like palletized , and you have the wrong number of pallets
on there , Well , when it gets to the receiver and they're counting and they're like well , this , this says they were supposed to be , you know , 18 , and there's only 17 on it , or whatever the case might be Right .
The other thing , too is like , when it gets , when it gets signed , like , even if you create it for your customer , they should still be reviewing it and annotating anything additional on there . Like , was it , you know , was it shipper , load and count , so the shippers verifying it and the customer or the driver's not seeing it . You know any details like that .
You still need to go through the process , but who generates it doesn't really make a difference . You got anything to add on that ?
Yeah , blind BOLs and double blind BOLs . It's not uncommon for a shipper or your customer to not be . The place is actually where you're loading the product and they have . You create a BOL where they don't want the place you're picking up from or delivering to to know who sent that order . So a blind BOL is usually where it's going to .
They don't know where it came from , and a double blind is neither side knows where the product is coming from or going to .
Yeah . And why does that happen is typically they don't want to lose business . So if I'm a let's say I'm a distribution company and I'm going to drop ship a product from one of my suppliers right to one of my customers , I don't want them to see where it's coming from because they might just cut me out of the . You know why am I going to go to you ?
I'll just go right to them right ?
Yep , that's why you put it in the place they're getting the product . Yeah Well , if you're charging me a margin and you just shipped it from Acme supply , I'm going to call Acme supply and see what they'll charge me to send this order next week .
Yep , exactly Good questions , though Keep them coming our way .
Final thoughts whether you believe you can or believe you can't , you're right .
And until next time go bills .