Opinion: Trucking Girds for Tougher Security Challenges
b>By Richard Germer
nd Michael Humm
i>National Co-Chairmen
afety & Loss Prevention Management Council
The expectations placed on trucking safety and security professionals grow each year as our nation — and the world — become more reliant on our ability to deliver goods efficiently, safely, securely and on time, despite rising fuel prices, roadway congestion, increased freight volume, driver shortages, ever-changing regulations, and natural and man-made disasters.
Once it was sufficient to have safety policies and security procedures — but not any more. The bar of excellence has been raised to meet marketplace, personnel and regulatory demands.
The Department of Transportation has for the past decade set aggressive goals to lower highway fatalities. Trucking has responded. Over the past 10 years, the large-truck fatal crash rate has decreased by 22%, despite 36% and 26% traffic increases respectively on rural and urban interstates. This does not just happen — it requires a pervasive, industrywide commitment to safety.
American Trucking Associations and its Safety & Loss Prevention Management Council are in a unique position to register this commitment firsthand. In the past year alone, we have seen a spike in the number of companies incorporating and expanding their safety recognition and incentive programs. Related product sales have soared and more companies participated in the ATA Truck and Industrial Safety Award competition this year than ever before.
We saw a dramatic increase in the number of accident-free miles driven by competitors at the 2004 and 2005 National Truck Driving Championships — a respective 10 million and 40 million accident-free miles more than the year before. Nearly 9% more accident-free drivers competed at the State Truck Driving Championships this year.
And those are just the traditional programs. Now, we must add in the realities of 2005. Health and wellness programs are center stage as our driver population ages and as the regulatory focus shifts to medical issues. Safety professionals are challenged to influence potentially unhealthy eating and lifestyle behaviors. Today’s safety professionals must be:
• “Techies” — to help test, evaluate and implement safety technologies of varying complexities.
• Accountants — to perform cost-benefit analyses.
• Legal assistants — to protect the company from lawsuits.
Consider those qualifications in light of cost-benefit analyses; dual-beam, radar-based sensing and system interfacing; and evidence protection.
Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief . . . multitasking is not exclusive to safety directors. Security professionals are also being asked to perform more, with greater results.
Certainly, it is still all about protecting personnel, trucks and cargo — but “against whom” and “how” have expanded. Security and loss prevention professionals now must plan to safeguard against not just “back of the truck” criminals, but also organized crime networks, gangs and, most recently, terrorists, all in a much-expanded logistics — and international — environment.
Security professionals, like their colleagues in safety, are now risk managers, too, constantly appraising the newest innovations in tractor-trailer design, locking and tracking systems to reduce loss and meet the demands of increased volume, cheaper packing materials and variations in schedules and routes.
And let us not forget cyber-threats to security. Unfortunately, even as security professionals become more technologically savvy, so do the criminals. Today’s security professional must find ways to secure databases from infiltration, protect surveillance systems from being disabled, and comply with regulations issued by multiple government agencies — all seeking to fulfill the expectations of the USA Patriot Act and subsequent and related enactments, none of which have been very well coordinated.
Fast forward to today, and safety and security professionals are entering the realm of emergency responders — planning and managing safety and security risks post-disaster.
Anticipating safety and security concerns and knowing what to do quickly to minimize the potential devastation from a hurricane to a terrorist attack before, during and after, have recently become the priority of many in the fields of safety and security. The ultimate scope of trucking safety and security professionals’ responsibilities remains to be seen, but what we do know for sure is that they will be more ready than ever before.
Michael Humm is is managing director, safety, for FedEx Ground, Moon Township, Pa., and Richard Germer is global security manager for UPS Supply Chain Solutions, Alpharetta, Ga.
This opinion piece ran in the Sept. 26 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.
