Truck Safety and Compliance - Principles of Loss Prevention Across the Carrier
 

Welcome to this blog post on principles of loss prevention across the carrier under truck safety and compliance. It is written with a focus on trucking company safety systems and shares more information about the matter with you.  
 
 Let’s get into it then.

The Objective

The primary goal of this blog post is to explain how loss prevention principles can be applied to various aspects of a carrier outside of roles directly related to safety and compliance. Once the advantages of adopting a loss-prevention mindset can be seen in all parts of the company, you will notice how health, truck safety and compliance can be fully integrated into a carrier’s daily operations.

Explaining loss prevention

When discussing loss prevention, you can consider it a practice of using systems and measuring vices to reduce and prevent employees' loss of life and health and avoid accidents within a property. Let's expand on this definition by including a loss of reputation; even if there are incidents that do not cause any loss of health, life or property, they can still cause damage to a business through negative impacts on its reputation. Imagine a social media video depicting a commercial truck with a visible company logo (your company logo) driving improperly in a public place without any incident. In this case, your company's or the carrier's reputation takes the hit, not the bumper.

A lesson in history for loss prevention

When it comes to modern occupational health and safety and loss prevention, Frank E. Bird is considered one of the pioneers who have contributed immensely to the profession. Many safety professionals today are familiar with his works on this subject. The textbook, Practical Loss Control Leadership, serves as the first place many people learn about incident investigation methodology, risk matrices and other health and safety principles. The text takes safety as an organizational objective, and the textbook is written in a simple way for company leaders from any niche can understand. There are also other texts that provide carriers with specific guidance for safety-related tasks like collision investigation.

An important distinction between Bird’s text and the other ones is that nowadays, the safety program in most companies is often under the leadership of a safety professional and may be somewhat siloed from the rest of the organization. It’s recommended for an employee in a position of leadership to read Practical Loss Control Leadership as it frames safety and loss prevention principles as areas of knowledge that can benefit all leaders. It is not specialized knowledge just for the safety director.

Deep diving in loss prevention- an iterative approach

In loss prevention, an iterative approach is better suited where the content of the discussion, stimulus, or sometimes even the methodology is adapted throughout the research programme.  In this approach, the process may change throughout its operations based upon feedback from earlier experiences.

Safety systems should operate in this manner because the purpose, content and objectives of a system may change and adapt as it goes about its everyday functions depending on the learnings from past incidents.  As any trucking company can experience loss in the form of 

• Tickets
• Collisions
• Breakdowns
• Inspection violations

these experiences can be used by the system to adapt and improve it for future operations.

Operations

Loss in the context of operations can include anything that prevents the carrier from meeting customer commitments and anything that hurts customer relationships. Implementing an iterative approach to operating systems can be challenging as the operations need to establish a mechanism to learn from past failures. A simple way is to use truck diagnostics tracker Mississauga or conduct basic investigations of past incidents that result in an operational loss.

For example, if a customer calls the carrier to report the behaviour of one of the carrier’s drivers, the carrier should consider this matter to be an operational incident and further investigate the matter. Even though, as the saying “the customer is always right,” the carrier (your company) should not jump to conclusions and should give the driver the benefit of the doubt. If you directly blame the driver, it can lead to the driver seeking work elsewhere. It can result in potential operational loss as your carrier will have less to meet customer demands.

Take a calm and rational approach to evaluate all sides of the story, and you may gain insight into this particular customer and driver. Not only can that resolve the issue quickly, but it can help in improving future operations as well.

Summary

An iterative approach to systems and principles of loss prevention and adopted by both large and small organizations. These ideas can be built into the systems of a large carrier or can become the professional practices of a manager at a a leading safety and compliance management company who is involved in all aspects of the carrier's operations and administration.

How we can help

Trux Solutions is a premier supplier of telematics and fleet management software. If you are looking for the right solution for your fleet, contact us today.