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What's New at West Michigan CDL Truck Driving School?
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Letter from a recent graduate of West Michigan CDL
Carrie,
I really wanted to get back with everyone at West Michigan CDL and say
thanks again for being so helpful. I start today with a Flatbed company
out of Ravenna, MI called xxxxx xxxxxxxx. They never take anyone with less
than two years OTR experience and I was able to get hired. Part because of
10 years in the military, part because of your great training and part
because my brother already works there and the owner does not want a
driver that is used to No Touch freight drop and hooks. My road test is a
trip out to Arizona and the entire week of hauling. Please convey my
appreciation to Rob for all the great lessons. My training truck will be a
brand new ProStar. I will probably get the old ProStar 2005 model for my
first truck in two weeks. I will wear my West Michigan CDL hat with pride
this week. Thanks again for getting me on the road and all of the lessons
and training.
When the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s Comprehensive
Safety Analysis 2010 program goes live in July, it will increase the
agency’s attention to driver safety. The new regime changes safety
monitoring and enforcement in ways that will reach deep into drivers and
owner-operators’ carrier and/or shipper relationships, not to mention
their potential to affect hours of service compliance practices and your
view of roadside inspections.
Leased and company drivers in the CSA 2010 pilot states and elsewhere have
already seen new penalties coming from their carriers for violations as
minor as a speeding warning.
Furthermore, the program is expected to bring independent owner-operators
and other small carriers under a level of scrutiny similar to what large
fleets have always experienced with compliance reviews, says Prime Inc.
Director of Safety Don Lacy. “They didn’t pick on the little guys,” Lacy
says. “They recognized the need to look at new entrants but had limited
manpower, so they devised this system.” For a look at the system’s full
architecture, see the flow chart at right.
CSA 2010 is now operational in some form in nine states. Carriers and
drivers in the pilot states report mixed results. For Georgia-based
Kennesaw Transportation, the CSA 2010 journey began in 2008. “What put me
on their radar was my driver number,” says Mike Clay, safety director.
Though the driver Safety Evaluation Area (SEA) score was about average
under SafeStat, FMCSA had found a pattern of speeding violations and gave
Clay a few days to come up with a plan for action.
Violations of this type under CSA 2010 will contribute to a carrier’s
rating in Unsafe Driving — one of seven BASICs (Behavioral Analysis and
Safety Improvement Categories). Deficient scores in these categories can
trigger an intervention by FMCSA.
Thomas Lansing, safety vice president at Hogan Transports in St. Louis,
Mo., found out about two of the BASICs — Unsafe Driving and Crash
Indicator — when his carrier came under the CSA 2010 test. “When you look
at our SEA score, we’re well below the deficient mark” in both areas, says
Lansing. “It’s hard to grasp how you can be a great company in the eyes of
FMCSA and then automatically be deficient viewed another way.”
After receiving warning letters around December 2008, Hogan was assigned
an on-site focused investigation, one of the new intervention options in
what FMCSA calls its “toolkit.” By the time of the investigation in June,
the carrier had already begun addressing the problems.
Lansing says its Unsafe Driving numbers were being impacted by a number of
warnings, not just speeding convictions. Company policy was changed to
include repercussions for warnings. “Our policy is no more than two
warnings or tickets in a 12-month period, or three in a 36-month period,”
Lansing says. “Basically, we give [drivers] a warning letter for the
first, a suspension on the second, and we terminate them on the third.”
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