Trucking Accident Procedures
As the backbone of the American economy, trucking is an essential industry that keeps goods moving across the country. However, with this critical role comes to an unfortunate reality – accidents on the road are a common occurrence. In a recent episode of the Driven Too Far: The Truth About Trucking podcast, host Andrew Winkler sits down with Brent Falgione, the President of Greater Omaha Express, to discuss the importance of accident procedures for truckers.
This insightful conversation sheds light on the challenges and best practices for navigating the aftermath of a trucking accident and provides valuable insight for anyone involved in the industry.
Accidents are an unfortunate reality, so it’s important to be ready for them. This includes understanding how they occur, what actions to take during and after an accident, what to avoid, and how to prevent any legal issues. Instead of wondering if an accident may happen, it’s best to prepare for the possibility, as being prepared can make the situation less difficult to handle.
Let’s dive in and learn more about trucking accident procedures.
Trucking Podcast Transcripts
Brent Falgione:
Good morning. Welcome. I shouldn’t have said, “Good morning.” Thank you for having me.
Andrew Winkler:
You bet. It’s a pleasure to have you here. So to jump right into the topic, we’re talking about accidents. One of the premises of this podcast was being able to pull back the curtain a little bit so drivers get an inside view of what happens in the office and behind the scenes. So let’s talk a little bit about prepping drivers for accidents, first of all. What do you guys do to prep your drivers so that hopefully they know what to do if they’re ever involved?
Brent Falgione:
The one thing about accidents is professional drivers, it’s inevitable. At some point we’re going to have an accident. We hope they’re not severe, we hope they’re not frequent, but at some point we’re going to have an accident. So we really start with our teammates when they came to orientation. Part of our orientation process is we go over step-by-step how to be prepared for an accident, what the accident kit looks like that we place in the permit book so the driver always knows the permit book is in their driver’s door. The back page or back folder of the permit book has their accident kit in it. Not just that it’s there, what to do with it. And we go over step-by-step on what information to gather to remain calm, who to call.
The number one priority when you get in an accident is always check to make sure the other party is safe, everybody’s safe. Once we determine that, it’s just metal and plastic at that point, and we can figure that out. So we walk them through step-by-step from that first day, “Here’s what to do at the time of the accident. Here’s where your permit book is,” who to contact, and the phone numbers are on the accident kit. Once they’ve contacted, “What information do I, as a professional driver, need to gather from the other parties?”
We really break it down, and we use real life accidents, things that we have had happen to our drivers. We will pull up photos of the accident scene that were taken by the driver. We’ll pull open their accident kit and we’ll show them, “Hey, this is one that probably could have used a little better information,” or, “Here’s one that’s got all the information that we’re going to need as a company and our insurance company’s going to need to protect you and the company after the accident.”
Andrew Winkler:
Yeah. I think about the orientation process, and definitely, we do that as well. Accidents never happen at a convenient time. So you’re hoping the drivers can retain some of the things you’re teaching them in orientation. But it never happens at 11:00 AM on a Tuesday. It’s more like a Saturday at 11:00 PM or something when somebody’s sleeping. And everybody gets a little rattled. When something happens, you’re nervous. Hopefully, nobody’s hurt in the accident, but you got to try to bring it back. And hopefully, the driver recalls what you taught them in orientation, you can walk them through the process so we can get through the process itself.
Brent Falgione:
Absolutely. In orientation, you get so much information thrown at you where we feel if we have the accident kit there and we actually walk you through step-by-step on how to fill it out, hopefully some of that will be retained because, as you mentioned, it’s never 10 o’clock on a Tuesday.
Andrew Winkler:
Never convenient. Yeah.
Brent Falgione:
Never.
Andrew Winkler:
No.
Brent Falgione:
It’s always weird hours of the night. And you get a lot of outside influences that can cause you to get flustered. You’ve got oncoming traffic, or you’ve got lights, sirens, noise. You’ve got somebody that’s upset. You’re upset when it wasn’t your fault. You’re upset because you’re getting delayed, you’re not able to make your next stop or make it to your rest area. Or even if you’re in a truck stop and somebody backs into you and wakes you up in the sleeper and you have to get up, you’re usually not real happy about that. So hopefully, we can outline those so you know which way to go with them.
Andrew Winkler:
I’m going to date us just a little bit because we’ve been in the industry for a long time, but I remember back in the mid-90s putting accident kits together. And it was just like you said, it was something in the permit book to ask the right questions. But in the glove box of the truck, we were putting disposable cameras. Remember, we had to have those? And we even went as far as putting a drug test kit in there as well just to make sure we had the right things and there wasn’t any problem getting the driver drug tested if it was a serious accident.
Brent Falgione:
Yeah, thank goodness technology’s changed. Everybody’s got a cell phone where they can take photos. There were some interesting photos on those disposable cameras back then, but thank goodness that’s gone.
Andrew Winkler:
I’m sure there are a few listeners out there probably going, “What’s a disposable camera? What is that?” But talk about technology. Are you guys using anything? You mentioned cameras. Are you using any mobile apps with your drivers or anything that would help in those processes?
Brent Falgione:
We’re currently developing a mobile app for our drivers where they’ll be able to just upload all that documentation right to the safety department. We’re about 30 days from kicking that off. We just went through the development phase. There’s a lot of great apps out there, but we felt they didn’t serve all of our needs. We want one encompassing app for our drivers to support them where they don’t have to have 50 apps downloaded on their phone.
So currently, we’ve got an email address set up where they can text or email those photos and that information too, and it goes to our safety department, our safety director, and goes to myself and our operations, vice president of operations. So immediately, even if it’s three o’clock in the morning, you’ve got a set of eyes to help you with these things.
Andrew Winkler:
Sometimes you need that. It’s great that you have backup people and it’s going to multiple people, because once in a while somebody doesn’t get the text or doesn’t wake up or see it. But we need to be there in the moment. The drivers need us, for sure.
Brent Falgione:
Absolutely. I mean, it’s one of the most important things we tell our drivers and I tell every driver I talk to, no matter what company they work for, “If you’re in an accident, don’t go it alone. We’re here to help you.” Because we all know, ultimately, if you end up in litigation, it’s going to be the company that’s going to get sued. But you, as a professional driver, can get brought into those suits too, and most times do. And so we’re here to help you protect yourself, and your family. Let’s make sure we get all the information.
Because I’m the first to admit we have preventable accidents. And when we do, we want to take care of those and get those taken care of and solved and resolved and get the payment made out and make everybody whole as quickly as possible.
We don’t ever want those to go to litigation. So it’s really important, to pick up that phone, and give a call no matter what time of the day it is. And if your company doesn’t have somebody that you can call in the middle of the night for an accident, I don’t know too many companies out there that are reputable that don’t have somebody to call. That’s what we’re here for.
Andrew Winkler:
Do you ever run into this? I’m thinking about this because it just happened to us. We had a couple of incidents over the last couple of weeks. We were in our leadership meeting and the safety director was going over some of those things. He’s telling us about these, and there was a delay from the driver calling and reporting it. Sometimes it was a day or two delays. And then you asked the driver, it’s like, “Now, you know better. You know what the policy is. You need to call right away or as soon as you possibly can after you’ve secured the scene or what’s ever going on.” And it seems like the excuse is, “Well, I didn’t know who to call. I didn’t know what number to call.” Are you guys doing anything? How do you make sure the driver has the right number and knows who exactly to call?
Brent Falgione:
So when I go up to meet with the orientation class each week, one thing that I do is make sure that they pull out their cell phones, and we enter the numbers in their cell phones right then and there.
Andrew Winkler:
Yeah. Watch them do it.
Brent Falgione:
We watch them do it, help them do it, and talk to them. I’m not saying we do everything right because I don’t know of a company out there that does a hundred percent correct every single time, but we sure try. And I tell them… And our drivers, any of our drivers or anybody in the industry that knows me, I don’t fire drivers for having an accident. Now, if you don’t tell me about an accident, I may fire you because I can’t trust you. So transparency is everything. I know we’re all human, we’re going to make mistakes, but the insurance industry put out a study and it said that the average report time was four days on an accident. Four days.
Andrew Winkler:
That doesn’t work, does it?
Brent Falgione:
That doesn’t work.
Andrew Winkler:
No.
Brent Falgione:
By the time it’s four days, I mean, it used to be you’d be able to get a car repaired in four days, not today, but you used to be able to. And so our company mantra is four hours or less. We have to know about every single fender bender, everything four hours or less. There’s no excuse. With technology, you can send via your ELD, you can send a message to dispatch if you don’t have cell phone service. Most cell phone providers have pretty good coverage through the country. There’s not too many places where you can’t get a phone call out. So pick up that phone and call.
Andrew Winkler:
I think probably a good portion of the trucking company leaders out there look at things a lot like you and I both do. And that’s when an incident happens, first of all we want to take care of everybody involved. If you’re a driver and you’re panicking and you’re worried about your job, maybe that’s the reason they’re delaying and not calling, don’t act like that, because I think most of us think of, just like you said, “I’m probably not going to terminate somebody over an accident unless there was a lot of negligence involved.” But we need to help you. We need to help the process and everybody that’s involved there. So don’t let that kind of fear creep in and be the reason you don’t call your safety director or your team immediately.
Brent Falgione:
Absolutely. I mean, we all fear change. We know what it costs to change jobs. We don’t want to be unemployed. Our family’s at home and we got to be able to provide for them. We take that out of the equation. If you call, that’s all we ask, you call and we’ll help you.
Andrew Winkler:
Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about, let’s say the accident has happened and the driver has called you and notified your team, what’s happening in the background at your company?
Brent Falgione:
So once the driver has called us, whether you get our safety director, me or somebody on the operations team, we’re going to walk you through the same steps every time. And much like you have an accident kit, we have an accident kit in the office. It’s a checklist, and we go down that checklist with you. We’re going to ask you, “Okay, you’re going to need to follow the accident kit.” And you’re going to get a picture of their driver’s license, a picture of the registration, a picture of the license plate of the other car. Get pictures of the other automobile, truck, or piece of property. Whatever’s damaged, get pictures of it.
But we’re going to also coach you to not get right up on it. Take a picture back. With the resolution on the digital cameras now on your phones, we can always zoom in. So stand back, and get pictures of all angles.
But probably one of the most important things that we have found post-accident as we work through these claims is whoever the reporting agency is that shows up on the scene, whether that’s the local police, the sheriff, state patrol, for any first responders get pictures of the side of the door so it tells us who was there. Get a picture of the license plate because that identifies who the driver was.
So if we’re waiting for an accident report or trying to figure out who was on the scene, we have that information, can go back to them and say, “Okay. We haven’t got this report yet,” or, “Your report is different from this report. Let’s sort it out and get to the facts.”
Andrew Winkler:
So you can’t take too many pictures in this case. And the phones will handle all kinds of stuff, so just take shots of anything and everything that you can.
Brent Falgione:
Pretend it’s a 10-year-old’s birthday party. Snap pictures for Grandma everywhere.
Andrew Winkler:
Right, right.
Brent Falgione:
So we tell them just, “You can’t take too many pictures.”
Andrew Winkler:
Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about it, so the driver has reported the accident to your team, what is the insurance company doing in the background for the next several days?
Brent Falgione:
So the insurance company, once it’s been reported to them, they’ve got a lot of moving parts in the background. They’re going to be looking for independent adjusters possibly to go out to a scene. They’re going to be waiting on the police report. They’ll be looking at photos, the photos that you took of the scene, of the accident damage. They may even reach out to you to get a statement. That’s one really important thing that we tell everybody is we feel bad even if an accident is our fault, but we want to limit who we talk to about it. And the reason is, you want to make sure that you have all the facts.
Now, they may be able to see something from the dash cam video, which we will instantly provide them, the photos that you provide, and statements of witnesses. The perception during an accident doesn’t always match up to what truly happened. So you want to be careful about your statements. But if your insurance company reaches out to you, and generally your safety department or a member of the management team will reach out to you and say, “Okay. This adjuster’s going to be contacting you to discuss the accident,” go ahead and talk to them.
And when I say be careful who you speak to, let’s back up a minute. Any law enforcement agency or first responder, any information you can give them about the accident, especially if there’s an injury or fatality, make those statements to them. Always make those statements. Fill in law enforcement to the best of your knowledge, but keep it to the facts that you know. And that’s sometimes we think we know. It’s human nature to want to be the person in the know, but unless you actually know what happened, don’t make that assumption.
Andrew Winkler:
The podcast that dropped this week was on dash cams and things like that. And I remember the guest we had on there, he was talking about a situation where there were actually two eyewitnesses to an accident, and they assumed the truck was at fault, but when you went to the dash cam footage, they found something else out, that the four-wheeler actually cut the truck off. And of course, the truck clipped it and sent it into the ditch. But from the eyewitness’s point of view, they couldn’t see that. They didn’t know that. They told what they thought happened, but the video was critical in that case.
Brent Falgione:
We’ve seen that in our own accidents. We had one not this winter but last winter where an automobile lost control in front of our truck as they went to go around them. To the witnesses, we hit the car and caused them to spin-
Andrew Winkler:
Exactly, yeah.
Brent Falgione:
… in front of us, but the dash cam video clearly shows the car was 60 feet in front of the truck when it lost control. Fortunately, no one lost their life or was critically injured in that accident. But for that driver, that was a scary moment because all of a sudden everything’s pointing back to his guilty. And as a driver, we start to doubt our abilities at that point. “There’s a chance I could have taken in this situation.” There was a small child in the rear of the car and he’s thinking, “Boy, I almost killed this child.”
Andrew Winkler:
It’s scary. Yeah.
Brent Falgione:
That puts a lot of weight on you as a driver. And that’s the good thing about technology. It helps us take some of that weight off. We can actually see what happened and know that you’re doing everything correctly, professionally as a driver, you should be.
Andrew Winkler:
Well, I think that gives us just another reason for our drivers out there to understand why it’s so critical that you communicate with us right away is because we want to make sure there isn’t a misstep. And by delaying that communication back to your company, there could be certainly a lot of things that could go wrong or happen before your company can even get involved and jump on it.
Brent Falgione:
Absolutely. I mean, as a driver, as hectic as that accident scene is, when you call into your company or into the insurance company, it’s just as hectic in the office there with making sure all the Ts are crossed and all the Is are dotted. We’re on the phone with the insurance company, with independent adjusters, with tow companies, with body shops. In a lot of cases we’ll contact your family, “Hey, Joe’s been in an accident, but he’s fine. He’ll be calling you a little bit. So just give him a couple of hours here. He wasn’t injured. Nobody was injured, but give him a couple of hours, and I’ll make sure he calls you when he gets wrapped up.”
Because we want to make sure that you can stay focused on what you’ve got going on. And we know that’s a beautiful thing about the difference between when you and I started driving, Andy, there are cell phones now and there weren’t cell phones then. So the technology with FaceTime and being able to see your loved ones and talk to them on a regular basis. I remember my first cell phone I got back in the ’90s and that it was a pretty cool deal.
Andrew Winkler:
You were the man.
Brent Falgione:
I’m driving on the road and I don’t have to wait at the truck stop for that pay phone. I had a cell phone until I got that first bill and it was like $3,000 and that ended that cell phone journey right then and there. But-
Andrew Winkler:
No kidding.
Brent Falgione:
… technology is a wonderful thing if we use it correctly.
Andrew Winkler:
Hey, you mentioned working with adjusters. I’m curious, do you have any kind of policies where you try to get adjusters on site as soon as possible to help?
Brent Falgione:
We do. Anytime there is an injury or fatality or a potential injury, knock on wood, we don’t have them happen very often, but if we’re in a rear-ended accident or something like that, we’re going to get an adjuster out on site. It’s just that added level of security to know that we’ve got a third party out there getting their eyes on what happened and taking measurements and documenting everything for us.
Andrew Winkler:
Yeah. So if you’re not aware of what an adjuster is, some of them are independent, and some of them work for insurance companies. But we do the same in our case, and anytime we’re involved in an accident where there are people in the vehicles, we will try to get an adjuster on site. And so these adjusters are all over the country, and your insurance company can help dispatch one to the scene, but it’s important to have somebody on your side at the scene of the accident.
The adjuster will identify themself, that they’re there representing your company and they’re here to help. And it’s really critical like you were alluding to, is if there’s injuries or potential injuries in the accident to get statements right away from the people that could be injured because sometimes people figure out they’re hurt later on down the road and they’re just trying to get some money out of the trucking company.
So the process of having that person there to document how they were at the scene is really important.
Brent Falgione:
Absolutely. The other part of that we’ve found is when we have an independent adjuster, an IA out on the scene, it gives you a person that you can vent to and just somebody there. As you said, it’s a level of comfort. It’s somebody on your side at the scene. Not to say that everybody else isn’t on your side, but it’s somebody that you can confide in that’s on the scene there, and they’re there to help.
We’ve had cases where drivers have been hit and their truck is inoperable, it’s going to have to be towed. The adjuster will make sure that he gets you to a hotel, or something to eat, or something to drink, or a restroom, or in cases of accidents where a drug screen is required, they can help get you to that drug screening facility to get that knocked out too.
Andrew Winkler:
Absolutely. Well, let’s move into a post-accident process. Let’s say the accident happens, you’ve worked through it. Maybe this is the first time you’re bringing the driver back into the terminal for an interview. What does that look like?
Brent Falgione:
So the way we do it, and we’ve found this to probably be the most rewarding for the driver, is when the driver comes in, we’ll sit down with them, and we’re going to talk through or figure out your side of view. What’s your perception of what happened? Now, sometimes that’s in a written statement, and sometimes it’s not, depending on what the insurance company wants us to do.
But then we’ll go over the photos that you’ve sent in, and we go over everything from start to back.
From the time you called, we’re going to explain to you, “Okay. Here’s why we asked for this information, and here’s what happened after it. So these photos we sent off to the adjuster, he sent off to the independent adjuster, and they’re going to go out on the scene to look at the automobile that was involved on that car that rear-ended you,” or, “Okay. Here’s the highway.”
We’ll pull up Google Earth. We’ll pull up the highway. We see where you were doing the speed limit. Were there any exterior forces that maybe… I won’t say what caused the accident but could have weighed on the accident? Was there an on-ramp, an off-ramp, a stop sign, a yield sign, a school zone, whatever the case may be? Was there construction going on? We’re going to talk through that. What was the weather like? We want to know all of it. Everything that you’ve provided to the police, we want to know as well.
And then we break down the accident to say, “Okay. Given the situation, other than getting out of bed five minutes earlier or staying in bed five minutes longer, what could we have done to prevent this accident? Is there anything at all we could have done?” We’ll look at from the time your day started on the pre-trip, if you loaded or unloaded prior to the accident, the load that you’re going to pick up, the next load or the load that you’re under, what’s the time restraints there. Your route selection. We look at the route selection.
There are certain highways in the US that we talk to our drivers and we try and stay off the two-lane highways as much as possible. Let’s stay on the four-lane highways so we always have an out. Always have an out. The Smith System. You got to look, scan the road, and find that out.
But we break it down. And it’s not to cause blame on you, but it’s to help us evaluate the accident, help you evaluate your actions during the accident. And ultimately, in the end, we hope there wasn’t a thing we could have done. It was completely non-preventable. But if there was something we could have done, we can learn from it and move forward, and it makes you a better driver.
Andrew Winkler:
So you mentioned the word non-preventable. That’s a big one in our industry. So can you explain to us the difference between preventable and non-preventable? And do you feel like professional drivers are held to a higher standard than the four-wheelers out there?
Brent Falgione:
The difference between a preventable and a non-preventable, a non-preventable accident is there was nothing in your control that you could have done to prevent the accident. Nothing. Not, “I could have done this, but it was still safe.” No, it’s nothing. Preventable accident, I would say… I look at myself too and back at my driving career, and I always joke that I only had one preventable accident.
Well, I only had one accident, but in my mind it was preventable. So preventable accidents, if you could have done anything to prevent that. And that even means if you’ve got oncoming traffic, oncoming traffic onto an on-ramp, you’re in the right lane, could you have gotten to the left lane? Maybe you couldn’t. Maybe there was a car there. That’s the great thing about technology. That’ll tell us if there’s somebody there. Or could you have slowed up and let somebody in front of you if they clipped your right front fender?
So we look at all aspects of that, of is there any way this accident could be prevented? Now, without divulging who the driver was or too deep into the situation, we provide the facts and the photos. And in cases of questionable accidents, we’ll rely on a group of our drivers that are senior drivers that have excellent safety records, and we may review that accident with them to say, “Okay. We’re kind of stuck here. Is this preventable or non-preventable?” And you as a driver, if your safety department deems it preventable, don’t be afraid to question, “Was it preventable?
Explain to me how it was preventable.” Because any accident’s going to go on your DAC report, and that’s your credit report. I know earlier in podcasts you talked about the DAC report and how important it is to keep that clean. So don’t be afraid to respectfully question whether something’s preventable.
As a professional driver, you deserve that answer. And as a company, we feel you deserve that answer. So we’re going to talk through that. If it comes up that we don’t always agree on whether something’s preventable or non-preventable, we’ll take it to that panel of drivers and say, “Okay. Here’s the accident.
Here are the facts about the accident. Just the facts. Do you feel this accident is preventable or non-preventable?” And we always have an odd number of drivers because we don’t want a deadlocked jury.
But it’s amazing. What we have found is whether that number is three or five drivers that we present that accident to, in most cases, they have a unanimous decision.
Now, we talk about whether you’re held to a higher standard. Publicly, you are held to a higher standard. Now, should that be? No. But we are. We’re professional drivers. So the public is always looking at you, whether you think they are or not. And it’s amazing. You get in a fender bender with your automobile, you’re on home time, and you’d be lucky to get anybody to stop. But if you, as a professional driver, get in a fender bender, chances are if you’re at fault, there’s going to be 30 people stopping because everybody wants to hear their side of the story.
But then also amongst your peers, I think as drivers, we all hold ourselves to a higher standard, and we kind of see that with our accident review board. We see that with any of our groups of drivers that we bring in. We use a philosophy, we’re in this, we really design our company and our policies and all that, as we develop those, we rely on advisory boards and that’s of you, the drivers.
And so as we talk through things, a common theme comes up in all those advisory boards that you as a driver, we as a driver are held to a higher standard, and it makes sense.
Andrew Winkler:
I love the process of having that review board because sometimes you get drivers that are just in denial that they could have done anything differently. Unfortunately, I think they think the safety person is working against them, and that’s certainly not the case. But the process of being able to tell your story in front of a group of peers goes a long way. Now, let’s say you go through that process and the driver still disagrees. He’s just not owning or wanting to be accountable for what happened. What happens to the driver at that point?
Brent Falgione:
So like many companies, we have some training options that we do, the safety department does, and our orientation leader and we’ll meet one-on-one and we’ll go over some training. It’s specific to the type of accident. So if it’s a lane change accident, we’re going to go over lane changes and we’re going to talk through those and different scenarios. We have yet to have anybody get through the training and still say, “You know what? You’re right. That was my fault.”
Because we’re going to break it down in simple real terms, “This is what happened. We know the facts.”
We’re not going over this with you to belittle you or think you’re less of a driver. We want you to get better. As humans, we all make mistakes. Let’s learn from our mistakes and not make them twice. And so that’s the purpose. It’s more coaching than retraining. We don’t want it to look as a punishment, but we want to look at it as coaching. It’s an opportunity. I’m going to learn as much from you as you’re going to learn from me and let’s look at each situation and see how we can get better.
Andrew Winkler:
I look back at my days in safety, and I can recall a couple of different drivers having accidents. In both of these cases, they had overturned the truck. One of them, just took an off-ramp too fast and the other one was coming down a windy two-lane road and probably too fast and upset the truck. And in both cases, the first guy down the two-lane road, I says, “What happened?” He says, “Well, the load shifted.” I go, “Well, when you upset the truck, yeah, the load tends to shift, right?” He wasn’t getting it.
This was always my kind of philosophy is if you’re in an accident and you can come in and you can own the process and you learn something from the process, then I think we’ve got a better driver from the outcome of that. Now, if you come in and you’re denying it and it’s really clear that you made a mistake, I don’t have a spot for you on the team anymore. But that particular gentleman, he thought about it for a day after I told him that, and he goes, “You know what?” He goes, “I was going too fast for the conditions or the road.” And I said, “Thank you.” I do believe he learned something from it, and he was with our company for a couple more million miles, safe miles, so he did.
Brent Falgione:
As a company, that’s our goal is we don’t like drivers coming and going. We don’t like to terminate somebody because ultimately if we terminate you for having an accident, you’re still out on the roadway running down the road not only beside our team members and our trucks but beside myself and my family. And as an industry, we’re better than that. So let’s look at those accidents and let’s learn from them.
Andrew Winkler:
Absolutely. So let’s say, I’m curious about what you guys do. What do you do? Do you share any of the information with the rest of your team as far as a learning experience?
Brent Falgione:
Yeah. We have a board in the hallway, and we put up the accident photos, the person’s name and the fact that they were at fault. I’m kidding.
Andrew Winkler:
Right.
Brent Falgione:
No. So what we do is we do use it as a learning tool, but we do it anonymously. We make sure the truck number can’t be seen because we’re a relatively small company and everybody knows truck numbers. But we’ll go over what the accident was, what the cause of the accident was, and the dollar amount, because ultimately it costs the company, it’s costing you as the driver. We cover that.
Every week we have a safety call where all of our team members, either listen to it live or have one week to call in and listen to the recording and let safety know that they listen to it. We cover a lot of things on those calls. And we call it the safety call because our safety director is the administrator of it. But we cover everything from operations benefits, but we do cover a lot of safety topics. Okay?
And so we’ll talk once a month on that safety call about what our accident costs were non-subrogated, meaning they weren’t somebody else’s fault, we weren’t able to collect any money back, but what that cost us for the month. And we let them know where we’re at for the year. And then we break it down on what that equates to per mile for every person that’s on the team. And when you break it down and look at that, you think, “Okay, it’s a $10,000 accident. It’s not a big deal.” That cost everybody on the team a penny a mile for the month.
Andrew Winkler:
Right. I think the other thing that happens, or the perception maybe with some drivers is, “Oh, just turn it into insurance. It’s no big deal.” Well, that’s one thing, but you and I are both in captive groups, so we’re essentially self-insured, right? It is a big deal.
Brent Falgione:
It is a big deal. About six months ago, we had a fairly new driver join our team, and he got a little close to a tree when parking on the side of the road. We’re a refrigerated carrier, and the tree branch went through the side of the trailer. It was about $22,000 to repair. And he’s like, “Well, I don’t want it on my record. What if I pay the deductible?” And I said, “That’s great. Our deductible is $150,000.”
Andrew Winkler:
Right.
Brent Falgione:
And he said, “I guess it’s going to go on my record.”
Andrew Winkler:
He said, “Yeah.”
Brent Falgione:
And he said, “Well, I probably wouldn’t pay the 20-some thousand dollars, but I would definitely not park beside that tree again.” So as you alluded to, to help control the cost to be able to afford nicer equipment, better wages, and better benefits, we have to control those insurance costs. And one way to do it is to join a captive, and so that it puts a little more pressure on all of us to make sure that we’re accountable and we’re conscious not to have those accidents.
Andrew Winkler:
Absolutely. There’s been a lot of news out there over the last couple of years about the nuclear verdicts and some of the really bad accidents and stuff, and we hope we never have to experience that. But what happens if we are at fault in an accident and let’s say our driver and the company get pulled into a lawsuit, what does that look like? What should the driver expect?
Brent Falgione:
That’s a scary time. We, being in the industry a long time, have been through it numerous times, but you as a driver, most drivers never go through it. But if you do happen to go through it, it’s probably a once-in-a-lifetime situation. So it is scary for you and your family because now, all of a sudden, you’re getting drawn into a lawsuit. You’re named in the lawsuit. The pressures from home because now you’re personally getting sued. And the company will represent you and protect you as long as you’ve been transparent and honest.
You’ve got to be honest in an accident situation, honest with the police, honest with your company, and honest with your insurance company. We all make mistakes and we know that, but if the company knows about those mistakes, they have a better chance of protecting you. So you’ve got to be honest at all times and stick to the facts. Many years ago I had an insurance adjuster tell me that often he had clients write out a statement immediately after the accident at the scene, and he’d wait for two hours and have them write a new statement out, say, “Hey, I lost your statement,” just to see how much the story had changed. It was amazing to him, and it was amazing talking to him, how much those stories had changed, how much more information we had at two hours later. May or may not have been factual to the accident, but the story sounded a lot better. So you got to be careful with that and just stick to the facts.
The other thing is if you get into a deposition situation or you’re called in to testify in court, whoever you talked to about that accident and gave details to, you’re going to be asked about that. So you’ve got to be very careful who you talk to. Don’t talk to other drivers about it. Stick to talking to company representatives and the insurance company.
They’re the ones that are going to be able to help you. The other thing to remember is your data gets drawn in. When I say that, your cell phone records, your GPS, your laptop, and we don’t think about it, but the video games, Xbox, PSPs, all those items, and even televisions now when you have them in your truck, they all have somewhat data recording, whether it’s position history or usage history or things like that. So you’re on break for 10 hours, but your computer shows you were video gaming for eight of those 10 hours during your break. That’s not safe.
Andrew Winkler:
You didn’t get enough rest. Yeah.
Brent Falgione:
You didn’t get enough rest. And that’s going to get called into court. So you, as a professional driver, or anyone that’s involved in an accident have a requirement to preserve that information if needed. So come clean with your safety department, and your insurance company, and say, “Hey, I’ve…” Let them know what electronics you have on board, and then they’ll tell you what you need to do from there.
Andrew Winkler:
That’s a great point. I think one of our biggest concerns is always the dang cell phone, right? Did they have the device in their hand? You make a great point that if it gets that far if you’re not honest when you’re giving your statements about being on the cell phone or texting while driving or something like that, it’s going to come out eventually. You can try to deny it and hide it. It will come out.
But if you’re honest up front, you know it’s a mistake, “I shouldn’t have been doing this,” it was part of the cause for the accident, that’s how we know how to get in front of these things, and we never want to go to court in that case.
Brent Falgione:
Yeah. The last thing we as a company want to do is put you in a position where you do not look favorable to yourself, your family, or anybody else. So we make mistakes. Like you said, it’s going to come out. I mean, in this world, it’s always going to come out. So just be upfront and honest about it.
Andrew Winkler:
I think we had a great discussion today. Hopefully, it gives some drivers some insight about what’s going on behind the scenes of an accident. Make sure you’re communicating and contacting your company right away. Be honest about the situation, as honest as you can about the situation, and you will get through it. Your company will help you get through it. So Brent is president of Greater Omaha Express. Tell us a little bit about GO Express.
Brent Falgione:
So, GO Express, we’re a refrigerated carrier based out of Omaha, Nebraska. We have common ownership with Greater Omaha Packing, a meat packing company. So we are a refrigerated carrier that’s heavy in proteins, liquor, pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods. We run a nice little fleet. We’ve got about 135 team members that are on the road. We believe that you as a driver, can’t do our job without you, you can’t do your job without us.
Coming from a driving background, I was a driver, I miss those days, especially at three o’clock in the morning when you have an accident, you call me and wake me up. I’m kidding. But, no, there’s something to be said for being out on the road.
And many of our team members have driven, the supporting team members in the office. So we understand what you’re going through. And we as a company believe that as an industry, we all got to get better. So that’s our number one mantra is, “Together, we all win.” And that’s whatever company you’re driving for, whatever, if it’s one of Andrew’s drivers, we’re all on the same page and we’re all in this together.
Andrew Winkler:
If a driver wanted to check out Greater Omaha Express, where would they go to find you?
Brent Falgione:
goecareers.com or Greater Omaha Express on Facebook.
Andrew Winkler:
And I’m sure there’s a recruiter number there somewhere that they can pick up and pick up and call, right?
Brent Falgione:
There is. But I will tell you, and I wholeheartedly mean this, don’t pick up the phone and call a recruiter. Find one of our drivers, and talk to them. I think that’s important when you’re looking at companies to make sure you talk to other drivers.
Andrew Winkler:
A hundred percent.
Brent Falgione:
I love our recruiters, but their goal is to get you in the door. And we’re going to do it honestly. But if you want to know the good, the bad, and the ugly, talk to one of the drivers.
Andrew Winkler:
Talk to a driver.
Brent Falgione:
Absolutely.
Andrew Winkler:
Right. Thanks for being on show today.
Brent Falgione:
Hey, thank you.
If you’re involved in the trucking industry, whether as a driver, dispatcher, or logistics manager, the episode of the Driven Too Far: The Truth About Trucking podcast featuring Andrew Winkler and Brent Falgione of Omaha Express is a must-listen.
From the importance of having a comprehensive accident plan to the challenges of dealing with insurance companies and legal matters, this conversation provides valuable insights that can help you navigate the complexities of the industry.
Be sure to check out the full video podcast episode on YouTube and download it on your favorite listening platforms, such as Apple Podcasts or Spotify, to stay up to date on the latest discussions and insights on the trucking industry.
