Truckers On The Offensive #016 - No Load Is So Hot It Has To Cool Off In The Ditch

5 most dangerous phrases a dispatcher can use:

• “See what you can do”

• “Just get the load there”

• “Why aren’t you there yet?”

• “Are you telling me you can’t drive X amount of miles in Y time?”

The pilot of the plane.

Drivers are the pilots of the plane. The captions of the boat. They are responsible and should be able to make their best judgment calls to keep themselves and the public safe. The best drivers also want to protect the liability of your company.

How Plaintiff attorneys will nail your company.

Even if your dispatch team is perfect, if a driver causes an accident due to fatigue or sickness, they will paint the picture that your company has a culture of encouraging drivers to drive when they are in an unsafe condition.

How to be a plaintiff’s attorney deterrent.

Schedule an email every quarter that goes out to your drivers reminding them that if they are sick, fatigued, or in an unsafe condition to drive to not drive and give additional resources your company offers to support them.

The goal is if a plaintiff’s attorney promotes this theory in deposition, your defense attorney can pull out 24 emails over the prior 6 years proving your company has a culture where drivers are promoted to NOT drive when unsafe. The documented proof is critical to shutting down the plaintiff’s theory and coming out ahead in the case.

Please share this with another company. We can’t just wait around for tort reform. As an industry, we have to become deterrents and not targets.