Celebrating Industry’s Finest
This Editorial appears in the Aug. 2 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
August is our favorite month. It’s usually a relaxed time of year, when most people take vacations and kick back a little before rushing back into the thick of things. The seasonal shipping crush usually begins to take shape in September, so August feels a bit like the lull before the storm.
One of the things we at Transport Topics like most about August is the National Truck Driving Championships, the annual celebration of the best in our industry.
Drivers from across the country, who have won their state competitions — after months and sometimes years of practice and hard work — bring their skills to an event known as the “Super Bowl of Safety.”
They bring with them families, friends and cheering sections from their companies, hard-core fans who cheer their heroes with all the passion and fervor of high school football on a Friday night.
This year, 415 drivers will travel to Columbus, Ohio, to compete in a wide variety of weight classes, vehicle applications and axle configurations. They are the best of the best and, as drivers and sponsors told TT, they welcome the event’s emphasis on safety.
In fact, the driving championship is run by the Safety Management Council of American Trucking Associations, which has sponsored the competition since 1937. To be eligible, a driver must have been accident-free for a year, but most drivers in the championship have records that far exceed that standard.
Competitor Chip Taylor, of FedEx Ground, said “Safety has to start with the driver.”
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has drawn renewed attention to safety with its CSA — Compliance, Safety and Accountability — program, which focuses attention on driver behavior and fitness as part of a carrier’s overall rating.
Mike Smid, chief operating officer of YRC Worldwide Inc. and president of YRC Inc., which is sending 42 drivers to NTDC, said the carrier backs FMCSA’s driver-safety emphasis. “We’ve always held our drivers accountable from a safety standpoint,” he said.
Held in conjunction with NTDC for years, the North American Inspectors Championship adds another dimension to the focus on truck safety, testing the top inspectors from each member jurisdiction of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance.
We salute the continuing commitment of competitors, their employers and the state, provincial and local governments working to make the Super Bowl of Safety a success.
