DC Velocity - August 2018

NOW IN ITS 87TH YEAR OF OPERATION, DECKER Truck Line easily qualifies as one of the country’s oldest trucking businesses. Yet when the Fort Dodge, Iowa-based company embarked on a driver safety initiative last year, it went for a distinctly modern solution: a sophisticated video-based program.

Introduced in the late ’90s, video-based fleet safety programs are designed to protect both drivers and company assets by monitoring driver behavior on the road. Fleet managers can review data collected by the system in real time and provide targeted driver coaching to eliminate risky behaviors like speeding, tailgating, and failure to look behind the vehicle before backing up. An equally important benefit is that the video footage can be used to exonerate the company in collisions where its drivers are not at fault.

After researching the available options, Decker Truck
Line went with the SmartDrive program from San Diego-
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48 DC VELOCITY AUGUST 2018 www.dcvelocity.com A bid to protect drivers and exonerate the company in collisions where its drivers are not at fault led Decker Truck Line to adopt the SmartDrive program across its fleet.

Trucker turns to video-based tool to boost safety, cut costs

based SmartDrive Systems Inc., a driver safety and transportation intelligence company. According to the trucking company, what tipped the scales in SmartDrive’s favor were the glowing reviews it received from existing customers. “We really did our homework and contacted numerous SmartDrive customers about their experience, and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive,” said Joey O’Brion, vice president of safety at Decker Truck Line, in a statement.

That feedback was so positive, in fact, that Decker executives decided to dispense with a pilot program and move right into the installation phase, which involved outfitting 800 flatbed and refrigerated trucks with the system. By skipping a trial period, Decker was able to achieve safety improvements and driver exonerations faster, resulting in significant cost savings, the company said.

But customer reviews weren’t the only factor in Decker’s decision. O’Brion reports that another of the SmartDrive solution’s selling points was that unlike some competing offerings, it’s a fully managed service. The SmartDrive expert analysts review and prioritize all recorded events, allowing Decker Truck Line management to concentrate on the most important, highest-risk incidents, while saving time and resources.

GETTING DRIVERS ON BOARD

Once it had chosen a system, Decker’s next challenge was to get its drivers on board, an undertaking that had the potential to be a serious headache. Worker-monitoring systems can be a hard sell to employees—particularly if those employees are truckers who are accustomed to working alone and may see the monitoring as intrusive.

To help allay drivers’ concerns, Decker managers took pains to be open and communicative when introducing the system, clearly laying out how the technology works, its benefits to drivers, and the value of the solution to the company as a whole. Management also enlisted the help of the company’s Driver Council Committee—a group of Decker employees who meet to discuss company policies and procedures—to advocate for the system and serve as a resource for drivers during the program’s rollout.

By all accounts, the trucker’s efforts to get drivers on board paid off. “I think it’s a great idea to have video safety technology in the trucks,” Sheldon McAfee, a Decker employee who has been a commercial driver for 18 years, said in the statement. “Given the road conditions and areas our routes go through, trucks are always a target. This is something on our side, working to protect us.”