Congratulations National TDC Competitors!
The National Truck Driving Championship was held last week in Indianapolis. Montana had four drivers place in the top 20!
In memoriam
It is with a heavy heart that we announce the passing of Chris Hanson of Hanson Trucking. Chris lost his fight to cancer on Thursday August 15th. As a long-standing and dedicated member of the MTA Safety Committee, Chris worked closely with Spook and others at MTA, leaving a lasting impact on the community.
A recording of the memorial service and pictures of Chris can be found Here. see below for obituary.
Chris was born October 11th,1963 in Whitefish, Montana to Skip and Marie Hanson.
Because his dad was involved in the timber industry, Chris and his three brothers spent most of their summers in the South Fork or the Bob Marshall Wilderness. The rest of the year in Coram and later Columbia Falls. Chris graduated from CFHS in 1982 and continued his education at Northern Montana College in Havre where he graduated in 1985 with an associate degree in Diesel Mechanics. He has used that education in every job he was involved in and loved them all.
In 1991 the Hanson family started their own trucking company, Hanson Trucking Inc. Chris was the first employee serving as Maintenance Supervisor and driving and filling in as a driver when necessary. His last time in a truck was just a short time before his death.
Chris met the love of his life Liz Golliday and they were married in 2003. When Chris wasn’t working he and Liz loved camping, snowcatting, their side by side and biking. They knew every back road in the area and in their motor home traveled to many parts of the United States.
Chris is survived by his wife Liz, his brothers Hal(April), Steve(Kim), and Neil and Sandra. Daughter Christine, and sons, Steven and Jacob. Stepdaughters Christi Golliday, Jessica MacGregor (Ben) and Susan Wells (David) as well as ten grandchildren.
The family has suggested memorials be given to the charity of their choice.
Services will be held at Darlington Funeral Home with burial to follow at Woodlawn Cemetery in Columbia Falls.
Scam Alert! Impersonating Government Officials
The FMCSA has been made aware of a scam being sent out through emails requesting that the attached forms be filled out. Visit the FMCSA Website for more information and to see screen shots of what the fictitious documents look like.
Trucking Industry Asked to Rank Top Concerns
The American Transportation Research Institute, the trucking industry’s not-for-profit research organization, today launched the 2024 Top Industry Issues Survey. The annual survey asks trucking industry stakeholders to rank the top issues of concern for the industry along with potential strategies for addressing each issue.
Now in its 20th year, ATRI’s annual analysis not only ranks the issues overall but also provides insights into how critical topics are ranked differently by motor carriers and professional drivers. The report also allows trucking stakeholders to monitor issues over time to better understand which issues are rising, or falling, in criticality.
“For the past two decades, the industry has relied on the annual Top Industry Issues Survey to highlight the challenges facing our nation’s supply chain. ATRI’s research provides an opportunity for thousands of trucking industry professionals, from drivers to executives, to weigh in on the most critical topics that affect our day-to-day operations and collectively decide on the best strategies for addressing each," said ATA Chair Andrew Boyle, Boyle Transportation Co-President.
“Every year ATRI’s annual survey gives drivers an opportunity to make our collective concerns known. Whether your top challenge is truck parking, driver compensation, detention, traffic congestion or something else, this is your chance to bring those issues to light. Please take a few minutes to complete the online survey and encourage your peers to do so also,” said Chevelle Walker, an America’s Road Team Captain and professional truck driver for Werner Enterprises.
The results of the 2024 survey will be released October 12, 2024 as part of the American Trucking Associations Management Conference & Exhibition to be held in Nashville, Tennessee.
Industry stakeholders are encouraged to complete the 2024 survey available by clicking here. The survey will remain open through September 27, 2024.
Truck Driver Appreciation
Truck Driver Appreciation week is September 15-21 and we will be honoring the drivers Wednesday September 18th at the Billings, Conrad and Haugen scales! Below is the volunteer and sponsorship form for anyone who wants to celebrate everything professional drivers do for us!
Will's Safety Message
One of the toughest things to do is getting your employees to “buy-in” to the safety program, but even harder? Asking them to actually care about safety. Please read on for some great pointers on this subject. We will talk about this again next week, so stay tuned.
CARING MORE DEEPLY ABOUT SAFETY
Contributed by Terry L. Mathis
Leaders want to know: Is there a key to getting workers to care more deeply about safety? Or are we asking the wrong question?
Leaders of organizations constantly are reminded that safety must start at the top. They also have learned that it can’t stop there – it must permeate all levels of the organization.
More and more leaders want to know how to do that – how to turn a workforce on to its safety potential. As one executive put it: “What is the key to getting workers to care more deeply about safety?”
This question illustrates the root of the problem: We’re asking the wrong question! Why have we assumed that workers don’t care enough about safety, and that making them care more is the solution? Of course workers care about safety. They are the ones who get injured when it doesn’t work. Their families are the ones who have to learn to live on reduced pay and juggle medical bills while nursing a breadwinner back to health.
The right question is, “How do we truly help our workers be safer?” The right answer is, “By focusing them on their best opportunities for improvement, challenging them to excel and measuring their progress toward excellence.”
When leaders simply admonish workers to care more about safety, how do workers respond? The ones who haven’t been injured tend to carry on as usual and the ones who have been injured try not to repeat their accidents. In short, performance is not significantly changed. Similar performance will most often produce similar results. Workers must perform better in order to produce better results. The assumption that simply caring more will accomplish that goal has proven to be erroneous. It is like a general saying, “He lost the war because his soldiers didn’t care deeply enough about victory.”
Do Better, Not More
What is the proper focus for workers to achieve safety excellence? When safety results are unacceptable, many organizations respond by adding programs or activities. The assumption that an organization is not doing enough may totally ignore the fact that what they are doing is not effective.
Many organizations need to do better, not more. Admonishing people to do better will not work. Leaders must define exactly how to be better. This decision must come from a strategy for safety, not just throwing effort at the problem. Safety strategy is a battle plan that will help each worker know the goal, how to accomplish it and what their individual role is in creating a victory.
Just as military victories are won one battle at a time, safety excellence must be developed in sequential steps. Trying to do too much at once is the cause of many safety failures. Telling workers to care more, do more or do better is not only too vague, it also is too much. Targeting specific safety issues and addressing them in order, one at a time, is the way to focus worker attention. This approach not only creates success, but makes the workers feel more directly involved in the success. When workers engage in addressing safety issues and realize they can gain control of outcomes, the core competency of safety begins to grow in the culture.
Stay Safe!
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