Music We are the voice of trucking. Music Welcome back to Key Up New York, the Trucking Association of New York's official podcast. I'm Kendra Hems, president with the association and joining me is... I'm Zach Miller, the director of Metro Region Operations for the association. All right, and we are here today to talk about safety, specifically as it relates to membership within the Trucking Association.
So we frequently talk about how safe our members are as compared to other trucking companies that are operating out there on the road. And frequently when we're speaking with our partners, with our regulatory agencies and our enforcement partners, and we're talking about different issues and they will make this kind of general comment, well, we know it's not your members, which we love to hear of course, but there's never really been any specific data to back that up until now.
Yeah, very exciting. Very exciting. So we're joined today by Rebecca Brewster. Rebecca is the president and CEO of the American Transportation Research Institute. And they just completed a study to actually back up these general statements that we've been making for years. And before I give any spoiler alerts, I'll let Rebecca dive into those details. So Rebecca, welcome. Thank you, Kendra. I appreciate the opportunity to join you all today and talk about this study.
You're right. It has been a, you know, anecdotally over time, state associations have said our members are among the safest and the American Trucking Association says our members are among the safest. And it's really been a question of is their correlation? Is it just, you know, safer companies joining their state or national associations?
Or can you actually do a data analysis and look at the data and find some line of causation that says it actually is that membership and association that leads to greater safety performance on the behalf of those motor carriers. And so Kendra, you were a member of our research advisory committee in the past and we've always had state trucking association executives on that body, the body that determines what research we should undertake.
And this topic has come up over the years, but it's never been one that's risen to the top. There are always so many pressing other pressing issues we need to research, but it has come up so frequently that we decided it was time to just get the research done. It makes sense to do it. And so we really took a deep dive into the data and came up with some fascinating findings. That's great. And we definitely appreciate that in terms of the work that you've done.
So let's dive into the, I'm going to try to say it right, methodology that you use to come up with the data points. Methodology is the right term, I think. Research points for you, Browning points for you today. So really what we were looking at is we wanted to understand, we were really hoping to find this causal relationship again, not just correlation, but a causal relationship.
And to do that, we wanted to see across a time continuum, is there some relationship between a carrier safety performance and their membership and association. And so we had three cohorts as we like to call them, three groups of carriers that we looked at. And so the first were current members of state trucking associations. So we reached out to eight state trucking associations around the country. Kendra and her peers are actually divided into regions.
So Kendra is in region one, New York is in region one, those are one of these states. We had two from the northeast, two from the southeast, two from the central US and two from the west. And we, in all four of those regions, we went to a larger association with lots of members and a smaller association with fewer members because we really wanted a representative sample. We said, give us your current membership list, people who have been members of your association since at least March of 2023.
And then we said, give us a list of members who dropped out of your association within the past 10 years. So they were a member of the state trucking association, but they have dropped out within the past 10 years. And so the participating state associations gave us that list as well.
And then we wanted to have that third population that we looked at. And those are people who have never been a member of a state trucking association. And so we were able to pull those just a random sample for each state from FMCSA's and then we looked at the MICMAS census data, which is available online. So you can go pull up a list of carriers from that data set. And so we had our three groups, current members, former members, and never members.
And then, again, turning to MICMAS for safety data, we looked at crash involvement of those carriers and we looked at violations received during inspections. And so we looked at all crashes. We looked at tow away crashes, injury crashes and fatal crashes. And among violations, we looked at all violations received during an inspection.
And then we looked at subsets of those vehicle out of service violations and driver out of service violations. So a really robust methodology in terms of what we were looking at to, to again get to the, to the hypothesis, which is members of associations are safer than those who used to be members or have never been members. And I love that you brought in kind of that middle group of individuals that were members at one time, but are not members any longer.
To me, that's the key of this whole thing. And so what you will do at the state association level is you provide the opportunity for your members to network, to benchmark, to exchange best practices to get to know one another to talk about your experiences.
You do so much more to you advocate on behalf of those associations at your respective state capitals, but it's that opportunity for your members to be involved with one another who have access to education and training that we believe really implements itself in those carriers so that their safety performance is improved. And so that's why we ultimately, we believe saw the results we did comparing again current to former to never members.
Right. So yes, I agree with Zach. Like that's a key component of this whole study. And we always talk about the fact that for the trucking association, you know, we've, we've got a lot of things that we focus on, but safety is a priority. It's been a priority. It will always be a priority. And it ties into so many other things that the organization does.
So for us as a way to talk to companies that have not joined yet, for one reason or another, you know, I think this is this is really important. I'm curious kind of outside looking in so obviously, you know, we're going to go out and talk to prospects and say you should join the association. So they would expect to hear that from us, right? But now with the results of this study, and you're looking at it kind of as a third party.
What would you say for companies that maybe are hesitant to join because of the cost or because they're unsure of what they're going to get from it. So what, what would you say as far as to address those concerns? Well, in first, I'd probably counter their response. Well, of course, you're going to say that you're the association. So yes, we do have this study now, but it's not just the study in and of itself.
It's how thorough the data analysis was. And Kendra, you've heard me say this. I was an English major in college talking about statistics makes my skin and just creep. Relatable. And it's not my comfortable space, but we used a statistical tool that is really appropriate for this type of data set. It's called the Welch's two sample T test. So now I sound really learned in statistics.
But, but, but again, what it did was it showed that if you were a current member, you just were involved in fewer crashes, and you received fewer violations. So this isn't some marketing propaganda that any you or any of your peers have have dreamed up.
This was a solid statistical analysis using publicly available data, carrier safety performance data that you can look online and see to come to these conclusions. And so I would say to anyone considering membership in the association or for that important middle group as former members. Now is the time to get back in. And clearly, the avoidance of a crash or the avoidance of violations at roadside inspections is going to far outweigh the cost of dues to join a trucking association.
And you're going to find so many other benefits. You're going to be part of the solution. So when you're facing issues at the Capitol, those dues that they pay into your association support the work that you all do. And particularly in a state like New York, where you not only have to deal with things at the state Capitol, but you've got to deal with the largest metropolitan area in the country. And all the issues that come up in New York City and I know I'm just helping Zach out here.
But you've got so many issues that you have to represent your members on. So they get the benefit of that and they're helping support that and that's, that's what the good guys do. That's why they join association. But again, it's that access to all the other services you provide and the networking they're going to get with their peers in the industry. That's going to really raise the bar in terms of their safety performance.
You see how quickly your safety culture can slip when you're not doing it day in, day out, year in, year out. I mean, I like how you went back 10 years. I imagine you probably don't even need to go back that far to start to see slippage in in safety performance by these fleets that leave associations.
Right. So you're going to, you're going to still, you know, you're out a year. You're out two years. Maybe you're still going to have some context in the industry from the time when you were a member of the association. And some of that you would have institutionalized into your fleet, you know, certain safety practices, but let's face it. This is a very dynamic industry.
And safety practices are changing and upgrading all the time and learning about the latest safety technologies and what makes sense for your fleet and what your peers in the industry, their experience has been with those safety technologies and what new driver recruiting tools are you undertaking or utilizing that's helping you find the safest drivers.
All of that is not going to be at your fingertips once you drop out of the association of what you've been a member. And so slowly, but surely that safety performance is going to degrade because of that. So it's that consistent membership that is so important and not just the membership, but that consistent involvement in your association.
So that's a critical point is the engagement piece, right, because that is really where even when we pull our own members coming off of any event that we do, and we'll ask them to rank level of importance. So the content is always important, but always at the top is networking. And it's about that engagement that about that ability to be able to speak with their peers and bounce ideas off of each other.
You know, benchmarking what's working what's not working. So that is a big piece and going back also in terms of the value. I think one of the things that this report provides us as an association is a way to answer now and we always get well what's the return what's my return on investment, selling a membership for any trade associations not like selling a widget, right, you can't put an actual cost value on there.
But this provides us the ability now to go back and to your point, it might save you a roadside it might prevent a crash, because of what you're going to gain and learn as part of your participation with with a state trucking association. And for those fleets that have never been a member of your association that third cohort so again our findings were current members are the safest have the fewest crashes and the fewest occurrences and violations detected at roadside.
Then you that number goes higher for former members but it's the highest for never members and so I would say to those folks, your risk is very low for one year to try membership in your association and just learn all that there is to take advantage of as being a member of your state trucking
association, understand what Tanny does for you and provides to you in terms of education training and network, because you only have one way to go in your safety performance and that's to get better and the data shows it so you know low risk to pay your dues for one year and get into the association take it for a test drive. And honestly, I think the data will speak for itself.
What a great transition though to, you know, here we are. It's December we're looking at 2024. Some of the great initiatives that Tanny has planned exactly to Rebecca's point for our safety programs. Yeah, absolutely. So we have the Tanny Safety Council as part of the organization and they've got a full slate lined up for 2024 in terms of like monthly lunch and learn webinars we're getting back out into the region.
And then finally, it's taken a while to transition back into full in person training. So we'll continue the webinar series but we're starting quarterly trainings across the state to try and make it accessible. New York is unique. The shape of our state there's no true central location. So really the best way that we can meet our members needs and those that maybe are interested in membership is to go to them.
We're planning on a series of quarterly trainings throughout the course of 2024 as well. In addition to all the things that we already do, our informational services that we put out our annual conference, our safety conference, which I think lends itself to a little bit of more discussion because one of the great things about the safety conference is we have DOT, state police, federal motor carrier, DMV. They all not only participate in the conference but they have boosts at the conference.
Which again gets to that idea that the enforcement and our regulatory partners have that your members are safe. And this is one of the reasons why is because our members have access to ask questions and get clarification in a non enforcement environment. And that has been incredibly helpful and really one of the biggest positives that we hear from attendees at that safety conference.
I mean the room is packed. The first day, first session, that room is packed. I mean I think we actually continue to outgrow our space for the conference because it's so popular as it should be. Right. It is I think the only true truck safety conference that's held in New York State where it's really a classic example of a public-private partnership.
We plan it in cooperation with our state agencies so it's been great over the years but again it gets to exactly why we're seeing the results in the study that you put forth. So it's great. We really appreciate the work and the effort that you and your team put into this one. Well thank you and you know you make a good point about access to enforcement personnel and yes we have heard over the years the enforcement personnel always say well we know it's the state association members
or the national association members who are generally the safer carriers. Now they've got the data and quite frankly wherever you fall on the CSA continuum it seems to me here is a clear statistically valid analysis that says this is what separates safer carriers from less safer carriers. There certainly is a justification here for rolling this into the algorithm that goes into figuring out who gets inspected, who gets an enforcement visit.
Same thing for insurance. You know they will typically because I know you have insurance providers who are members of your association and they will typically say you know we understand your members are safer. But again here is another criteria that can be used when premiums are being identified that says you know what you're a member of the association.
The data shows you're going to be safer because of that membership in that association. So there's some sort of premium discount we can build into our calculations because of that. So I think there are farther reaching implications of this study than just what it's going to help you all do at the state association level to really make your case for why membership is so important.
So I do want to again thank you so much for the work that you did on this study but I would be remiss if we didn't take an opportunity to promote what the American Transportation Research Institute does for the industry at large. We often put the surveys out so Atree conducts a host of variety of surveys throughout the year. All of which are incredibly beneficial to the industry.
We always promote the surveys to our membership. We encourage when those surveys go out to please participate in them because the information that comes out of them is important.
Most recently one of the ones that we've been using and I know my peers have been using is the one on electric vehicles and the challenges in terms of building out charging for medium and heavy duty that has it's been priceless in terms of the value that it's provided us as an organization as we're working on those issues. So really a shout out Rebecca to you and your team and the work that you guys do and you know we're a proud supporter of Atree.
We'll continue to be a supportive atree and I really just encourage if you don't support atree please do so. But certainly participate in the surveys when when those opportunities come out. Well thank you and we do realize I always like to say in the research world more is better and so anytime we can increase involvement in our studies by more fleets providing data to us by more drivers answering surveys by by folks spreading the word.
Spreading the word about our studies when we release a study like the infrastructure charging the electric vehicle infrastructure charging study and as a reminder to your viewers. All of Atree's research is available free of charge on our website. Reckling research dot org it's really easy to remember it's what we do everything that we do we put out there for folks to avail themselves of because that's our mission it's to help improve the industry safety and productivity.
I want to take a minute to just to kind of speak to you individually because for those that don't know Rebecca you should know Rebecca she is in my opinion one of the most most respected women I know in the trucking industry for the knowledge and the benefit that she brings to all of us. So I think we'd all love this is going to leave to a little bit of what would normally be an icebreaker question but we're going to wrap up with it. We'd all love an autobiography from Rebecca Brewster.
So if you were to write one. What would you title your autobiography. From a former English major I didn't even know that till today so it's just out. I mean well it's funny because I was going to somehow think how could I wrap up an English major in English degree into the title but but you know I really think.
Novel lover makes good big time because really when when people think about English majors they think well you want to be a journalist or you want to be a teacher and I don't think myself included ever thought I wanted to be a trucking industry researcher. In fact when I was a young girl my goal was to be the editor of the New York Times and I really just wanted to fast track my way to that well when I graduated from college with my degree in English.
It was a recession and there weren't tons of jobs for English majors there weren't tons of jobs for anybody but particularly for young English majors and so I found my way into the trucking industry and I started auditing driver logs. I started we just had the fleet I worked for just installed new software to measure hard breaks miles per gallon and speed and so I started doing my very first trucking industry data analysis back in the early 80s.
But it really got in my blood and I really learned to appreciate and really value how critical the trucking industry is fast forward some a decade later after a couple other careers. I found myself back in the trucking industry with Atree predecessor and I've now been here over 30 years and I absolutely love it it is just that what we get to do at Atree is. It's just very cool I mean the depth and breadth of our research portfolio means we never have a boring day at Atree.
That is incredible and it ties into segments we've talked about previously with workforce development like you meet so many people in this industry that never had any intention of getting into trucking and they land there by some way or another and then they don't leave. They love it because it does it gets into your blood it's a family it's such a critically important industry to everything that we all do and I think it just pulls people in and and you don't leave this is where we are.
For sure. Although I do wish the New York Times Metro section had more editors who understood trucking a little bit more than they do but that's it that's a podcast for a different. Yeah, there you go. All right well I think that wraps up for today Rebecca thank you so much for joining us it's always great talking to you and again really really appreciate the work that you and your team did on this particular study. Thanks so much for having me on today.
I hope you enjoyed our first segment of this month's podcast which featured Rebecca Brewster with the American Transportation Research Institute speaking about the importance of membership within the trucking association and its impact on safety.
In our second segment Kate, Kenneth our vice president who handles all of our compliance and safety programs will be joined by Larry Johnson, who is the intermodal transportation specialist one with the Department of Transportation, as well as Danielle Adair who is a motor vehicle inspector with DOT. Larry and Danielle will be speaking about what to expect during a roadside inspection. We hope you enjoy it. Welcome to key up New York the official podcast or the trucking association of New York.
I'm Kate Kenneth vice president here at teeny. I'm excited today to be joined by Larry Johnson and Danielle Adair with New York State DOT. We're going to talk about roadside inspections. But before we get into that, I'd like to do a little icebreaker something we do here at key up New York just to get to know our guests a little bit better. So the question I'd like to ask you.
I'll start with Danielle is if you could play any Olympic sport what would it be the Olympic sport I would play would be softball. And that's because I like play softball and I'm a catcher in softball. Do you actively play now? Yes. Fantastic. Wonderful. And Larry you're not off the hook. Yeah, I see that. Um, I would probably go with hockey, you know, just from the fast pace and the, you know, physical contact aspect of it. Okay. And you enjoy not having all your teeth. That's good to know.
They have safety gear. That's true. That's true. I've seen some hockey player dental stuff and you know, I've seen some hockey players. Dental stuff. Yeah. Anyway, that's good to know. Um, so let's get into why you're here today. But before we start with the questions, I want to get to know a little bit about your positions at DOT. So Larry, why don't you tell me what you do over there? Okay. Um, currently I'm a intermodal transportation specialist one.
I'm in charge and supervise the truck inspectors in region one in New York. Wonderful. And you, Danielle. I am a, with DOT and a motor vehicle inspector, um, for region one and I did the truck inspections on the side of the road. How long have you been with DOT? I've been with DOT for just over four years. Wonderful. Larry and. Yeah, I've been around for a while. I've been doing truck inspections for 18 plus years and about three years now in a supervisory mode role. Great.
And some of you watching may recognize Larry because he does often do the level one inspection demonstration at our safety symposium. So welcome back. Yeah. All right. So let's get into why we're here. Roadside inspections. Um, I'd like to hear a little bit about from, uh, either one or both of you about the inspection process. What do you look for when you're doing a roadside inspection?
What we look for mainly is anything safety wise, anything, most things that, um, the drivers would look for on their pre-treatment. So we're checking that, uh, mainly that they have a valid license. They can drive in the state or whatever vehicle they're driving. All the lights are working properly. Um, they have all their safety equipment. Um, tires are inflated properly. Uh, there's no debris or their loads are secure. Um, their wipers are working.
Their windshields aren't, um, have any debris or damage on them. And then we'll also, we'll also check the brakes and make sure the brakes are good or in specs. So obviously looking for safety defects and things like that. Are there anything, or is there anything that a driver can do to make that inspection go maybe more smoothly than others that don't go so smoothly?
The biggest thing is just make sure that the drivers know where everything is and they have their paperwork in, in the proper order. Actually accessible so that then we can go a little faster with the inspection. Does the condition of the cab ever come into play with how you may interact with a driver? Um, a messy, disheveled cab, uh, crumpled papers and garbage everywhere.
Like, does that, is that any indication of their paperwork maybe not being in order or does that have any indication of their paperwork maybe not being in order? Or does it play a role in any, in any way? And how the, you know, how that driver is presenting themselves perhaps? Yeah, I'll take that one, Kate. Um, generally we look at the cab and make sure everything's good. Um, that's one of the requirements like the fire extinguisher needs to be secured. So it's not rolling around the cab.
It can't get underneath the brake pedal or it can't be on the gas pedal and impede the driver's movement. Um, normally again, when we ask for paperwork, um, they have it, but again, if it's disheveled and it's not organized, then, then it's going to take longer for the inspection and we all know time is money.
Wow. So tips for drivers on a smooth inspection is make sure you have your paperwork handy and ready and an organized cab is, uh, one less thing you have to worry about things rolling under the brake pedal and becoming a safety issue. Correct. Okay. Great. Um, so recommendations for a smoother inspection, any other tips on that respect? Um, one that comes to mind that's been brought up in other, um, trainings or conversations is the attitude of a driver. Tell me how that plays a role.
I see smiles. There's something there. So just like pretty much most of us are going to give you, give the attitude back that you give to your driver. The attitude back that you give to us. So if you're nice to us, we're going to be nice to you. Um, and a lot of times more or less, the attitude is just how fast it's going to be better attitude you have.
Usually we can get through the inspection faster because we don't have to constantly explain stuff to you and, um, pretty much make you just do what you have to do to get through the inspection. Yeah, I agree. Okay. So what are some of the violations that you find the most often? I would go with, um, we still see in a lot of flat tires, even though they have some new systems out there that are checking stuff, the automatic airs and stuff. Um, we're still getting a lot of flat tires.
Um, brakes out of adjustment and lights are some of the bigger ones. Um, and then on the driver side, the actual, um, ELD is, is still, you know, the new electronic logging helps a lot, but a lot of the drivers, um, don't know how to transfer. And that is a violation. Um, they don't have directions. That's a violation. It's just little things like that that would make it go smoother and faster. So it's driver training.
Okay. Some brakes, tires, lights for vehicle and driver training on ELD process. Correct. All right. That's great to know. Good areas to focus on for everyone. Um, so, and this can be each of you in your, in your different roles. What do you find the most challenging part of your job? And I'm going to go to you first, Danielle.
The most challenging for the most part is just trying to like communicate with the driver sometimes, whether it's sometimes language barrier or just the driver doesn't know what to expect or how to do certain things. We do have a lot of drivers that you tell them to, um, either pull the emergency brake if they have it or do certain things and they don't know. We even have some drivers that don't even know how to open their own hoods.
So it takes a lot sometimes just dealing with that where they haven't been trained properly to even do their job. Okay. And Larry. Um, it would be partly industry. Um, we get a lot of phone calls. I get a lot of phone calls in the office and, um, it's just some of the stuff that's out there that it's rumor that, okay, you need to do this. You need to do this. And then we get phone calls in the office and it's like, absolutely not. You know, um, we get phone calls all the time.
It's like, Oh yeah, well, this person said I need drug and alcohol testing. Well, you don't have any CDL vehicles. So you're not required to do drug and alcohol testing. You know, and, and, and unfortunately there is aggressive marketing out there. So they, they, they do do a purpose. So it's not fraudulent because you are paying and they're doing something, but a lot of aggressive marketing. And we even have that on our webpage.
That's like one of our first little bullet points to just be aware that soon as you get the OT numbers that it's public knowledge. Um, one of the questions that we get, and I think you also get that question. You talk about aggressive marketing and they use those scare tactics. Um, it's surrounding the DOT number and the biennial update. And it's time for you to, you know, did you know it's $10,000 a day?
Uh, for every day that you don't update and it gets people in a panic and they will either call you or they will call me. Um, and there's little tips and tricks because knowledge is power. So when you, um, have to update your DOT number, it's based on the number itself when you need to do it. So if the number ends in whatever number, that's the month that you have to do your biennial update. So if the zero, it's October, if it's a one, it's January.
The second to last number, whether it's even or not odd is your even or odd year that you have to do your update. So if you're not sure when you need to update your MCS 150, it's all based on your DOT number. So if you can log in and see if you've done it, um, it's something you can do for yourself. You don't have to pay someone else to do it. Um, it's just as scare tactic to get you to react to whatever marketing materials.
Um, and I've, I've gotten quite a few over the years, you know, you know, when they're coming. Um, so that's something I think that we share and something that has a benefit to being a member of Tainee, Shaneless Plug right here. Um, a recent atry study, which is the American Transportation Research Institute, um, recently set up, put out a study that said that being a an active member of a safety association is, is a benefit. They are safer motor carriers and we love that.
Like we always kind of assume that, but now we have statistics improved to, to, uh, show that. So you can reach out to your agency, you can reach out to your state association. We're going to help you with those kinds of, um, scare tactics and, and any kind of information and knowledge that you might have. And if we don't know, we reach out to DOT or any of our state agency partners. Correct.
Um, anything that you would like to add about roadside inspections or your job in general, anything you want the viewers to know? Um, lately we've been getting a lot of phone calls on the average of one or two a day. Um, the brokers, um, are telling these newer companies normally that they need a DOT inspection. And, and then of course they think that they can call us up and schedule a DOT inspection, which again, it's, it's not possible.
We, we do our DOT roadside in New York and it's totally random. Um, so these brokers are, you know, it's their policy, which is fine. But again, we cannot just administer a DOT inspection. It's totally random. Right. So in order for these motor carriers to be, uh, to work for a broker, the broker wants some sort of history of inspections and depending on where they've been running or how large they are, they may have never gone through a random roadside inspection because it's random.
And that's, that's a challenge for carriers. Yep. Also, and, and in regards to your, um, you know, being part of an association with some of that stuff there, um, the UCR fees. Um, one of the guys in our office approached me the other day and gave me a little bit of information. And he's like, um, on a UCR desk. And he was like, do you know that people that don't pay their UCR that are required to, um, have more violations roadside.
So I don't know if that comes with having your paperwork in order. I'm not going to get less violations, but, um, that's just one of the little steps that he told me the other day. So I'm going to connect those dots. I feel like, no, it's a good thing. It's another shameless plug for being a member of a safety association. So you're saying that those that aren't, um, up to date on the UCR have more violations. Correct.
We like to think that we keep our members informed and let them know about UCR. So more than likely our members are more safe because they're completing their UCR. Absolutely. And keeping up to date on regulations and safety and attending trainings that like the safety symposium where you do your level one inspection. Correct. And others that are yet to come. Um, Danielle, do you have anything else to add? Anything we haven't covered? All right.
Thanks again to Larry and Danielle for joining us today. And we ask everyone to please subscribe, share, like the podcast. Um, and thank you for listening to KeyUp New York. We'll see you next episode.