Truckers Face Additional Driving Challenges During Hectic Summertime Traffic Season

By Steve Brawner, Special to Transport Topics

This story appears in the April 25 print edition of Transport Topics.

For the trucking industry, the summer driving season, which begins with Memorial Day weekend and ends on Labor Day, means more than just hotter temperatures and an end to ice and snow. It also means sharing the road with more passenger-vehicle drivers — some of whom are paying more attention to road maps, electronic devices or kids in the back seat than to the road in front of them, safety experts have said.

These extra summertime drivers can make life on the road more hazardous, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration statistics.

The most recent NHTSA data show that more traffic fatalities occur historically from July through September than during any other three-month period in the year. For instance, in the third quarter of 2009, there were 9,094 traffic fatalities compared with 7,539 in the first quarter, 8,970 in the second quarter and 8,205 in the fourth quarter.

Interviews with trucking company safety directors and five of America’s Road Team captains — American Trucking Associations’ group of elite truck drivers with outstanding safety records — paint a picture of the challenges of the summer driving season.

Dean Newell, vice president of safety and driver training with Maverick Transportation, Little Rock, Ark., said he usually considers July 5 the worst driving day of the year, because passenger-vehicle drivers return to the road, often midweek, after a busy day and late night celebrating Independence Day.

Newell, who also is ATA’s 2010 National Safety Director of the Year, said he constantly reminds truckers to stay focused on their own driving duties at a time of the year when their minds — as well as those who share the road with them — may be distracted by thoughts of vacations and activities in which they and/or their children are involved.

For drivers, “there’s a whole lot more going on at the house in the summertime when the kids are there — missing baseball games . . . stuff like that. So we try to encourage [our drivers] to keep their mind” on their driving, Newell said.

He begins sending weekly tips and messages to his drivers starting at the end of April to remind them of summertime driving hazards, such as children playing near or in the street, Newell said. Similarly themed posters from ATA go on the walls of his office, while digital signs at the company’s headquarters and terminals flash safety messages.

Don Osterberg, senior vice president of safety, security and driver training at Schneider National Inc., Green Bay Wis., said his company is wary of private-vehicle drivers suffering from a “warm weather letdown” after they have been on alert for ice and snow during the winter months. He also said longer daylight hours convince these drivers that they can be physically active past the point of fatigue and then get in a car and try to drive.

Allen Boyd, a driver for Wal-Mart Transportation out of Mount Crawford, Va., and an America’s Road Team captain, agreed.

“As far as [truck] drivers, I think our biggest challenge is that we put up that big guard during winter weather and, when spring and summer gets here, we kind of take a sigh of relief and forget that we’ve got a lot of things going on in the summertime, too.”

Busier roadways filled with distracted drivers are the biggest concern during the summer driving season. More families on vacation means the roads are filled with more cars that are crowded with noisy kids and suitcases blocking rear windows.

Young people, out of school or moving home from college, are more likely to be driving — often with other young people in the car. In the warmer weather, more motorcyclists, bicyclists and pedestrians and more slow-moving farm equipment are hard to see and vying for space on the road.

As Ralph Garcia, an America’s Road Team captain with ABF Freight Systems, put it, “During the wintertime, you have to watch out for road conditions. Now, you have to watch out for people.”

Inexperienced drivers in recreational vehicles, pulling travel trailers with inadequate vehicles or reading maps on the side of the road also can create hazards. Garcia said he watches those drivers’ body language to gauge their comfort level with their vehicle as they travel.

“If I see a person checking the mirror constantly, I know they have no idea what the distance is [between vehicles], and I’ll [slow down and] back out of it,” he said.

Truck drivers carefully plan their routes before they travel so they won’t be caught by surprise. This isn’t always the case with passenger-vehicle drivers. Bob Weller, an America’s Road Team captain and a 37-year accident-free driver who hauls for Hahn Transportation out of New Market, Md., regularly drives the Capital Beltway in the Washington, D.C., area. He said he often sees couples in the front seat — passenger and driver — looking at an unfolded map for their next sightseeing destination instead of the road in front of them.

“You definitely back off if you see somebody in front of you, and you’re coming up on them and they’re slowing down,” he said. “You back off, and you try to stay away from them because they’re lost, they’re trying to find what exit they need to get off, and they’re in the wrong lane. And next thing you know, they’re coming over two or three lanes to get off that exit. You really have to be aware.”

Alphonso Lewis, an America’s Road Team captain who drives for YRC Worldwide around Montgomery, Ala., said many drivers are headed south down Interstate 65 to the beach and aren’t paying attention to the road. In those instances, truck drivers must be prepared to give distracted drivers more room.

“The main thing we have to do is pay attention to what we’re doing. . . . Driving’s got to be your main focus when you’re on that highway,” he said.

Eddie Hosegood, a Road Team captain with 2 million accident-free miles who drives for Publix Super Markets out of Lakeland, Fla., said driving in the Sunshine State brings special challenges.

“In Florida, we get people from all over the world that come there,” he said. “A lot of people that come there, they think we drive on the wrong side of the road to start with because of the country they came from.”

To deal with the congestion, drivers and companies occasionally change their routes or delivery schedules. Because Hosegood drives through Orlando, Publix tries to deliver its loads early in the morning or in the middle of the night before the roads become clogged, he said. YRC’s Lewis said he’ll drive around Montgomery instead of through it, if necessary.

Newell said Maverick Transportation, a subsidiary of Maverick USA, Little Rock, Ark., runs irregular routes and gives its drivers, many of whom are experienced, the freedom to make their own ways. About the only time the company will enforce a route change is when it knows a big event, such as a NASCAR race, will affect congestion dramatically.

Len Lamkin, vice president of direct store delivery planning and logistics services for Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., headquartered in Atlanta, said the company does not have static routes. However, he wrote in an e-mail, “We do ‘tweak’ our expected driving speeds and sometimes ‘close down’ roads in our system where needed, based on several different criteria — road construction, seasonal patterns, special events, etc.”

Package-delivery carriers must make deliveries to specific places by a certain time, so there’s not much they can do about summertime routing challenges. The U.S. Postal Service does not change its routes, a USPS spokesman said, but certain companies do, based on seasonal population changes.

Mike Britt, director of vehicle engineering at Atlanta-based UPS Inc., said he changes routes mostly based on monitoring traffic patterns. He said he looks for impassable roads, unsafe weather conditions and other factors.

Larry Bizzell, senior corporate safety adviser at FedEx Corp., based in Memphis, Tenn., said the company monitors certain routes for traffic patterns.

“In Orlando, you want to try to avoid I-4 as much as humanly possible. I-4 becomes a parking lot a lot of times in Orlando,” he said.

Out-of-school children are a constant concern for FedEx drivers, Bizzell said, adding that his drivers are instructed to travel near the center line in residential areas if there are no oncoming cars to give them more space away from houses. Drivers also are told to look beneath parked cars for little legs that might dart out into the street and to watch for pets and balls because kids often follow, he said.

Fast-food restaurant parking lots, gas stations and rest areas bring their own dangers because kids suddenly can emerge from around a corner or out of a parked car. Amy Lokken, director of health and safety for Coca-Cola Enterprises, said the company does not give specific instructions on summer driving but does warn drivers to be careful when school begins because students are more likely to congregate at bus stops and on sidewalks.

Garcia, who hauls from Albuquerque, N.M., to Kingston, Ariz., said many passenger-vehicle drivers prefer to travel at night to beat the heat and end up dozing off behind the wheel. When the car veers onto the shoulder, they’ll awaken and overcorrect and then end up in a ditch.

Road construction increases in summertime and often isn’t engineered to make life easy for drivers of large trucks, Garcia said. Passenger vehicle drivers make the problem worse when they ignore posted speed limits and zoom past a truck before a lane closure.

“I’ve had some of the closest calls by people trying to get in front of me,” he said.

Animals in the wild become more active during warm weather months, he said, and are more likely to pick the wrong time to approach the highway, especially at night. Smaller animals, such as skunks and porcupines, simply “commit suicide,” he said, when they run into the road.

Larger animals present a more difficult quandary for drivers. His advice when facing an elk or deer in the road: Hit it rather than swerve and cause a more serious accident.

Garcia said he listens to citizen’s band radio chatter and drives a little slower when he thinks animals may be in the area.

“I always keep an eye out during that time period,” he said.