Opinion: Interface With Disaster

This Opinon Piece appears in the May 7 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

By Tim Barton
Over-the-Road Driver

The place where technology, safety and operational necessity meet is where the truck driver lives, using these elements to do the job and stay alive.

Consider the following: The cellphone is perhaps the  most common communication tool used in truck cabs today. Its capabilities have enormously improved the earning power, efficiency and overall quality of life the driver can expect on the road. Drivers can speak to family, friends, fleet managers or customers — all the while “keeping it between the ditches.”

But as with most progress, there is a downside: The increased ability to communicate offered by cellphones has led to a decrease in driving awareness that studies indicate can be akin to high levels of intoxication. Enhanced by modern communications, convenience and productivity now drown out the safety message.

Talking on the phone while driving is more than common among drivers. It is the norm. A driver I met in Wisconsin recently told me he spent 8,000 to 9,000 minutes a month on the phone. I told him I hoped he was getting paid for that many miles. At a mile a minute, this driver is spending nearly all his drive-time talking and driving simultaneously, assuming that most of those minutes are spent behind the wheel.

Nearly as common now as cellphones is the use of in-cab devices that use satellite hookups for a wireless connection with the world outside the cab.

Used safely and correctly, these wireless setups supersede the cellphone in their ability to maximize driver productivity by allowing data to flow freely into and out of the truck cab.

Most fleets discourage the use of cellphones while driving; many forbid outright the use of satellite-connected fleet communications when the truck is moving. But when a keyboard with a message center is installed within reach of a trucker who is behind the wheel and on the road, the temptation to pick it up and use it is great.

The incessant beep of incoming messages is enough in itself to cause a driver to find the keyboard and hit the “view next” button to silence the machine, followed by the temptation to read the message without first finding a wide spot to pull over.

Fleet managers usually communicate by text-messaging through the satellite hookup, rather than using a cellphone, but it seems a simple safety solution to install that tempting keyboard in a spot where it cannot be reached from the driver’s seat. One fleet I have driven for puts the keyboard on the passenger side, under the dash.

The image of a driver with a steering wheel in one hand, a cellphone in the other and a keyboard in his lap will strike fear into the hearts of safety directors everywhere. But in an environment created by the unending quest for productivity, the disconnect between safety and operations is hidden in plain view.

Cellphones are a more difficult fix, not only because they are now seen as indispensable business tools but because very little can be done to police their use unless fleet managers refuse to accept calls from drivers they know are behind the wheel of a moving vehicle.

This refusal would slow down the flow of freight considerably, and while it is not uncommon to call Safety and be told to call back when the truck is not moving, no such niceties have invaded the war rooms of some fleets. When information must be conveyed to get loads delivered, the cellphone saves time and increases productivity.

A hands-free cellphone headset is a partial fix, as is the far more advanced technology known as Bluetooth, which uses short-range radio to exchange information with cellphones, laptops, PCs and other communication devices. You will see drivers in truck stops across the land with Bluetooth-enabled devices that seem permanently affixed to the side of the head. The more expensive models even have a noise-canceling feature that allows a driver to call Safety or other company units without being given away by the sound of a moving truck.

Onboard tools that increase productivity, such as cellphones, satellite hookups and Bluetooth devices, are not going away anytime soon. Their value increases, even as the safety negative remains to increase driver complacency and inattention to the primary task of driving.
Unfortunately, in the new world of trucking, where hours-of-service compliance is maximized by every conceivable strategy and device, safety takes its usual place in the back seat.

That is reality on the road.

The writer drives for a major Midwestern fleet.