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Welcome to McNeil Cass McNeil and company's exclusive training podcast. The mission of this podcast is to offer conversation on dynamic training topics that will help you build a stronger, more efficient base in your organization. We hope you enjoy this episode and will join us monthly for new topics. Good afternoon or good morning everyone. Welcome to another McNeil podcast with McNeil and Company. I am Kayla Lyon , and today I am joined again with one of our favorite guests, Stephanie Rothery . We will be discussing some defensive driving techniques and this episode will highlight all of our programs can be listening to this if you're part of our adventure program, our animal keepers program, and you might even get a little bit of help from it. Um, with our EIP ASIP programs, defensive driving is important for everybody, even those of us who are volunteers in on our way to work. So this is a really great episode for us and staff . Thanks for being here today.

Yeah, thank you for having me Kayla .

So I'm gonna kick it off with a few facts and Stephanie gave me these facts, so I have to give her the credit for this. But according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrative in 2020, there were 38,824 people killed in motor vehicle crashes in the us I'm gonna say that number one more time. 38,824. And that's in a single year in only our country. Right? 3,142 of these were from distracted driving alone. This just shows how important it is for all of us to have an awareness on defensive driving. Steph , can you give us a few more key findings from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administrative report from 2019 to 2020?

Yeah, absolutely. It was, it was pretty concerning reading through these statistics just to become familiar with where we're at. And unfortunately, a majority of the percentages increased over the last couple of years. And , uh, fatalities increased specifically and injuries decrease luckily. But that just means maybe we're having more severe accidents, unfortunately, and a lot of them are all going to be speeding related or alcohol or drug impairment, seatbelt , non-use, all those fatalities types increased over the last couple of years, apparently over nighttime, which doesn't surprise me. Fatalities increased by 12%. Um , you know, dark, maybe it's raining. Whoever might not know they're tired from coming home from work, exhaustion, kicks in, you fall asleep. This is everywhere. It's all of our states. It's not just a few states that are troublemakers. We've got across country, we've got increases in the number of fatalities , uh, as a result of a number of issues that have caused those accidents.

Yeah, it is very concerning and you know, you and I, when we were brainstorming this episode and talking about what we wanted it to be, we talked about the fact that it is very easy for us to get comfortable with going from point A to point B, our daily commutes, or you know, we are going to the grocery store and we do this once a week. Right. And we know all of these routes and we know where we're going. And so you get comfortable and it's easy for you to say, well, I'll just pick up my phone really quick and shoot that text over to so and so , or, oh gosh, I'm running late. I really have to let my boss know, or whatever it is. And we don't often think about all it takes is that one time. Yeah. You know, we can do it right a hundred times that one time we do it wrong is what matters. And I think unfortunately, a lot of these situations are because of that kind of feeling of, well, I've done it x, y, z times, so it'll be okay.

Exactly.

So how, how do we prevent these accidents though staff and, and how can we be on the defensive?

Well, I think that's the golden ticket , uh, question there, Kayla, is if we knew, hopefully these statistics wouldn't be increasing, they'd be decreasing. Uh , I , you know, it's tough. We're , we're not always gonna be able to stop other people from being distracted. But if we are doing everything that we can ourselves to pay attention and beyond the defensive, then maybe we might be able to be the difference between a life and death accident. Any company out there that's got employees or volunteers that are driving a company owned vehicle, maybe even their personal owned vehicle and doing business on their time, they should have written policies and procedures that strictly lay out safe driving operations for those individuals to follow. There's , uh, several items that should be included in the policies and procedures. So I can go through some of those just to maybe hopefully point those out, re get those re um , in everybody's brains again. And , and to think about , um, I think we all eventually do get complacent. Like you said, we think we've done it enough times and nothing happened . So what's there to say something's gonna happen this time and pull my phone out. The best way to go about it is to restrict any cell phone use while you're operating your vehicle on behalf of the company. You have a no cell phone use policy. There's even some states out there right now that you , they don't allow it. It's not legal to operate your cell phone and operate the vehicle at the same time. Obviously there's some states out there that do still allow it. So it's something to be familiar with. If you're crossing state lines to know and be aware of. Another area you're gonna wanna consider is , uh, prohibiting alcohol and drug use for your employees having a policy on that. I was looking back at those statistics and there's actually , uh, fatalities is also increased from 14% in 2019 , um, for alcohol related crashes. So we see that on the rise unfortunately still, I think after all these years we've seen all these accidents and statistics consistently increase that something's gotta change. Enforcing these policies and procedures is gonna be what can keep your company protected. When you first bring on a , a driver or an employee, if you know they're gonna be driving for your company, it's best to run motor vehicle record checks as well for them . You may think you know them, you may have been best friends since kindergarten grew up with 'em , but you don't know about the three DWIs that they've got on their driving license. So consider doing that , uh, at higher and then at least annually thereafter for all your employees that are driving. Just because the statistics alone show that if you're gonna hire somebody to drive your vehicle and they've got a poor background, it's likely to continue. It's not gonna get better overnight. Save yourself the headaches and, and run those and hopefully prevent those accidents from even happening. And Kayla , I know there's another statistics out there for use of seat belts. We, you'd think that would be second nature by now. And nowadays you just don't think about it . You just put your seatbelt on. But unfortunately it increased 21% of people being ejected from vehicles in 2019 to 2020. How do you not wear your seatbelt ? Isn't that little dinging bell annoy you enough to not wanna listen to it? It's, I

Don't know , it blows my mind too . Even, I know this isn't necessarily on our list 'cause we're not talking about motorcycles, but it even blows my mind, the helmet laws. You know, I was in Florida and I , I don't believe you have to wear a helmet there or maybe it's optional. And that just was like so off-putting to me as a driver in a car, I was so nervous for those motorcyclists. So yeah , seat belts are huge. A lot of people don't believe in them, but I , I still can't believe that either.

I know. Well, you don't think about it even if you're just a passenger, you're like, oh, I don't need to worry about it. I'm just a passenger. Well if you do get in an accident, you're gonna be that projectile that that could potentially kill the driver or another occupant in the vehicle. And how are you gonna live with yourself after that if you're even alive? Another point to consider is obviously keeping an eye on the vehicle and traffic laws for the state you're in. Be aware of the speed limits. We all go to the speed limit. I know that we never go five miles to 10, 20 miles over the speed limit ever. Never

<laugh>.

Yeah. So, and then I think lastly you might wanna consider as a company developing an accident review committee. Uh , might not be on the top of your agenda just because it's not something you think about. But consider reviewing maybe near miss incidents. If you've got an employee that had to step on the brakes pretty hard , um, almost gotten an accident or could have been in a worse accident, review those, discuss it and have an open conversation so that they can identify where did things go wrong so we can hopefully make sure that doesn't happen again. One of the biggest things we're talking about is distracted driving. So we , like we said, we can't prevent others from being distracted, but if you are not eating, drinking, talking to somebody else or listening to a loud radio, your reaction time's gonna be a lot quicker than that other person doing the same exact thing. So maybe somebody else might be trying to do all those things at the same time as driving, but if you're not, you might be able to last minute swerve and avoid that accident. So something to consider is making sure you're avoiding those distractions , um, and having that as a policy for the company.

You're all really great points staff and I think they feel very in a lot of ways, common sense , um, based and they feel like, oh come on, really we have to tell people this. But I think it also comes to the point of maybe you feel like you don't have to tell your employees this, but if you don't have these policies and procedures in place and something happens on your watch on your organization's watch, it becomes your problem very quickly, right? And if we're sending out an employee to do a job for us and they kill someone during doing that job, there's going to be something said about that and it is going to come back to, well, why were they on the road in the first place? 'cause they were doing a job for you. So I think that's a really, really important space to reiterate. So Steph , as far as you know, talking about your employees doing work for you, should we be doing driver training with employees and what difference could this make for a company's safety?

Oh absolutely. It's, I think driver training is, should be conducted on a regular basis regardless of how large your company is, how many vehicles you have in your fleet, how many drivers you have. That training is what's going to hopefully prevent these accidents from happening in the first place. The more and more we train, we're training our brains to react a certain way. When something happens, it's tough. You may have maybe a designated person on your, in your company or your organization that is maybe more experienced or has specific training on driving. Having that designated person or even a vendor coming in, paying a vendor to come in and do it for you really should be done on an annual basis. Hands-on doing a cone course, maybe even driving through the local neighborhood, being familiar with the roads that you're gonna be driving on. It doesn't matter how long you've been in the company or how many years you have in it's, you're gonna become complacent at some point. And as much as we don't want to, we wanna avoid that. So doing that annual training or even a reauthorization to drive each year for an employee, maybe just the company director or that training person signing off saying, this person's still capable of driving our vehicles, we don't have any immediate concerns. Or it might even go the other way. You might identify some concerns and say, Hey, let's still take another couple weeks of training before we put you back out on the road and make sure we're, we're comfortable with you . I know some states out there do offer like defensive driving courses with um , insurance discounts or point reduction opportunities for personal auto lines. Um , you'd have to check with the state you're in. There are some of those, those available out there. And then consider remedial training too. If you have an incident, if you've got an employee that's involved in an accident, grab that accident committee, put them together, come up with a list of maybe some training initiatives for that individual if it's deemed to be needed and put some more training in front of 'em that way. If , like you said Kayla , if it comes back to them and they're sitting in a court court asks , well what training did you provide for this employee? And you say nothing, you're not in a good spot and you, you can't rely on that employee to back you up. They're gonna protect themselves and say the company didn't provide me any training or they didn't have any policies and procedures, so not a good place to be in. So that's why we wanna stress that driver training piece of it here today.

And you know, one thing that you mentioned that I think is important to note is not only is there distracted driving but there's also a level of what emotional state or what physical state is that person in. Have they been sick? Have they had something happen at home? You know, and they're coming to work because they know they have to come to work 'cause they have to make, you know, pay the bills but they might have some sort of emotional thing going on or some sort of stressor going on. Those can all impact how they're driving and someone who's a great driver may have a day where something bad happens because they just aren't in the right frame of mind to be focused on the road or whatever it may be or it's a long trip. I think those are all things also to think about and that's why defensive driving is so important because it helps people really understand how to navigate those spaces but also maybe help them be honest with their employer if there is a day where they really don't feel safe driving. I think these are all things that could just add to the safety of your organization and also to the morale of your employees.

Yeah , you make a great point there, Kayla. You think about it, defensive driving's, not just for the driver, it could be your passengers if you're going out with a coworker to deliver something or pick up supplies that passenger's just as responsible as you are as a driver to be monitoring for these situations. Looking both ways, looking for things in the road or other things like that. It's not just the driver . So that coworker , that supervisor absolutely has additional responsibilities to be checking on their employees, making sure they're fit for the task. And so

Steph , and with that in mind, I think that kind of moves right into our next topic. How can we operate our vehicles safer? How can we be better equipped when we're in the vehicle or when we're preparing for a trip, what can we do? What are some tips?

Yeah, absolutely. So it's like you're, the morning of that you're leaving for your vacation, right? You're going down to South Carolina, the beach and you're packing all your stuff in the car, playing Tetris, trying to get all your packages in there. You gotta be familiar with the vehicle you're driving. Gotta know the dynamics of it. Is it it a car, is it an SS u v pickup truck, a van? They're all gonna operate in their own ways and they're gonna have different dynamics that you need to be aware of and being more familiar with those ahead of time is going to prepare you to react with the vehicle. So for example, like with a truck you may, it may be a heavier vehicle weight so it might take a little longer for it to stop versus a car you might have a shorter distance that you can stop. So it's, there's a lot of differences to be aware of there, but in important to pre-plan that trip. So know where you're going, know what to expect . Are you gonna be going through some roundabouts? Am I gonna go over some railroad tracks? Is there low bridges or vehicle height restrictions that I need to be aware of? Checking all your fluids in the car , uh, the vehicle's, tires, making sure they're inflated appropriately so you can hopefully avoid any flat tires or overheating of your engine. All of those things are gonna put you in a bad situation where you might be the reason an accident occurs. 'cause you're on the side of the road and somebody else is distracted and hits you. Um , so prepare yourselves ahead of time and avoid those. Uh , putting yourself in that position, taking a long trip. You could bring a coworker or a a co-driver so you can take some breaks. Uh , I know I , not too long ago I drove down , um, upstate New York here. I drove down to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. It's about a four hour drive. I was whooped by the time I got down there and then I had to turn around and drive four hours back. So it, it depends on the person. It might , you know , hour and a half, you might be exhausted or four hours you might be exhausted, but know your limits. Take that break, take 10, 15 minutes, get up, walk around the car. Hey, while you're doing that, you're checking the vehicle. Make sure there aren't any issues that are gonna cause you some problems down the road. Right? You can also, you wanna make sure you're following the speed limits. We talked about that before. Another good thing that I'm just thinking of is , uh, video event recorders. So companies have those out there nowadays where they actually have a video camera right in the dashboard of their company vehicles. So it's recording any kind of G-force events. It will , um, capture any incidents for you and have that video footage available. If your company doesn't have that, it's a consideration to make. Um , not only does it help to reinforce safe driving practices with your employees, but it could potentially help you in the result of a claim. So maybe somebody else ran a red light and you were not at fault. That camera could prove that for you. Um, a lot of purposes behind it. So some just something to consider as an additional safety measure. <laugh> , I was actually thinking about this podcast this morning on my way in too. 'cause I, I drive down 81 and I'm passing tractor trailers all day. Yeah. While my husband drives pack tractor trailers on from time to time. And I, whenever I come up to 'em, I give 'em all the room they need, you know, I stay right away from 'em . I know they need the room. Not everybody does that. Not everybody considers that. So make sure you're giving safe, falling distances to everybody on the road. Spatial relations, another key one, you don't need to be riding everybody's bumper. If I can see what your eye color is from your rear view mirror, you're probably too close. And then backing , uh, backing's a a huge one nowadays for a number of incidents that we see. You'd think you wouldn't because you have that little camera now most days on the back of your vehicle that you wouldn't back into something. But I think we rely on those a little bit too much nowadays. So that's another concern to , to be aware of is just double check your mirrors. Don't always rely on the camera. Make sure you're , you've got a clear space behind you . Yeah,

I think there's something to be said. You know, my my cousin has a car that I was baffled when I saw this. Not only does it show you backing up, shows you a whole 360 of the car and I'm like, I can't even, I couldn't even look at it as a passenger. It would distract me too much. Like I, we should be looking around when we're driving, right? You know, we should be moving our eyes back and forth and using our peripherals for, you know, if a deer is in, you know, a field next to us and we're in upstate New York, so we see that all the time. I could knock it over it. I was like, this would distract me so much. And I'm so glad that my car does not have all this fancy gadgets because well

It's only an extra $10,000 on top of that car bill . It's okay.

It is crazy. So, great point . Staff . Um, what are some other, what are some final like, wrap up thoughts that you have for our, for our listeners today?

Yeah, absolutely. I just wanna say as a company, if you have company vehicles that have your logos on 'em, your company name, your phone numbers, you're a moving billboard when you're out there driving these vehicles. So keep that in mind. If you're driving around like 20 miles over the speed limit, swerving, stepping on the brakes, people are gonna notice you and you know what? They're gonna remember the name on the side of that vehicle and they're gonna go home and they're gonna Google it. They're gonna find that phone number and then they're gonna call and complain as they should. And that's not something that you as a, a business owner or supervisor or anybody that's listening in that position wants to hear. So just keep that in mind and it's your company's reputation on the line, whether you're that company, owner, supervisor, employee, volunteer, you are putting the company's reputation on the line by how you drive your vehicles. And if you're at fault or hurt and kill someone, not only could that be the end of your career, but it could be in the end of that company if it's that bad. And all of that can be reduced by policies and procedures, training and follow through by the company to make sure you got safe vehicle operations.

Well Steph , I think that's all we have for today. I think that was a really great wealth of knowledge and just a short time. So hopefully everyone found us very useful. If you do have additional questions or you're wondering how do we get a defensive driving course, who can we call, give us a ring, shoot us an email risk management@mcneandcompany.com. We will point you in the right direction even if we don't necessarily have something for you , uh, we will make sure that we get you a good reputable company.

Awesome. Thanks for having Mikayla .

Yeah, thanks so much for being here. We'll talk to you again soon. This concludes another episode of McNeil Cass . Be sure to subscribe, write in with topics and give us a review. McNeil and Company would like to thank you for joining us and we look forward to chatting with you soon.