Webinar Replay #79: Winter Weather Driving and Preparedness

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Steve Kessler: Good afternoon. Welcome everyone to sort of a special webinar based on the current weather conditions around the country. We decided to put together a short webinar here about winter weather, driving and preparedness.

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Steve Kessler: So, we do appreciate you all. Take some of your time out to join us today. My name’s Steve Kessler, and I’m going to host the program.

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Steve Kessler: And before I introduce Paul, our guest, just a couple of housekeeping items, 1st of all, those of you that are logged in are muted so we can’t hear you. So, if you have a question or a comment, you can type it into the chat box there. There’s a link in the tray in the bottom to

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Steve Kessler: put your question or comment. In the chat box. There’s also a Q&A box. You can use either one.

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Steve Kessler: but that’s how you can communicate with us, and we’ll try to make sure we answer all your questions. By the way, if you don’t mind. Why don’t you all just jump on the chat? Tell us who you are, who you’re with and where you’re from, and

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Steve Kessler: that way we’ll kind of know who’s out there that’s joined us on the webinar.

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Steve Kessler: So, while you all are doing that, let me introduce our guest today, I’m very happy to introduce Paul Schmidt

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Steve Kessler: Smith. I’m sorry. I’ve known Paul for quite a long time now, and they’re a good client of ours.

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Steve Kessler: Paul is a Safety director for Wayne Transports, Inc. They’re based out of Rosemont, Minnesota.

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Steve Kessler: So, being a company running out of Minnesota, they’re a little bit familiar with winter weather and such I do happen to know. Paul is about a 20-year veteran in this industry, and happy to let you know he’s a 20 Year Air Force veteran also. So, thank you for your service, Paul.

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Steve Kessler: So, it looks like, some folks are logging in, and I see some good customers that have joined us. So, Paul, if you’re ready to go, I’ll let you take over the program.

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Paul Schmitz: Wonderful. Well, thanks, Steve, for that introduction, and welcome everybody to the webinar on this. Steve, you know, when you gave me that call and said, hey, would you like to talk about winter weather? I’m like, Wow, yeah, we’re quite in the middle of it. So, it’s kind of exactly where we’re sitting. And then you, I remember you telling me it’s like, Yeah, we’re expecting snow and weather down here in Texas. I’m like, well, that kind of kibosh is my plans to go south for a while.

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Paul Schmitz: So, we’re just going to stick here for a bit. But yeah, winter weather preparedness driving is something that we obviously we deal with a lot up here in the Northern States. I’m seeing a lot of people check in from, you know, Texas, Alabama, Illinois, someone, Shane, from Nova Scotia. I’m like, Wow, okay, we’re all over the place.

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Paul Schmitz: But yeah, there’s something for sure that you can say we have had some crazy weather. Right, Steve. It’s just been nuts.

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Steve Kessler: Well, I think we’ve had weather more serious winter weather than we generally have, especially far south. You know I’m here in the DFW area, and we have sleet and snow, and then it’ll rain, and then it’ll freezing rain. We’ve got a whole mixture of it going on here today, and

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Steve Kessler: I’ll tell everybody I was telling Paul this morning here in the DFW area. We’ve only had 3 snows of more than 4 inches in 40 years, so it’s a rare thing for us down here, and I’m sure we have clients and other companies that are looking in on our webinar today that have drivers that don’t drive in this very much

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Steve Kessler: we thought it might be a good idea to put out some kind of pointers and some tips that might help our trucking companies out there.

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Paul Schmitz: Well, it’s a great idea, Steven. I’m really glad that that I’ve been given this opportunity to do this and share, you know, being in this industry and working pretty much in this upper area of our great America.

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Paul Schmitz: Has taught me a lot of things. Now, when you talk about winter weather driving preparedness, I mean, there’s a decent amount of common sense that comes into this. But sometimes we, you know, miss some very low hanging fruit that we can be good at. And so that’s kind of what I’m going to dive into. One of the most common questions that I get in the safety realm

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Paul Schmitz: is this next one? And it kind of applies to just about everything. Is there a magic bullet to any of this? Is there something that will just instantly shoot it down? Or is there something we can do to make it all go away. The answer is no. So, stop searching. It’s going to take work. It’s going to take several steps for all of us to do in our positions to make that happen. So

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Paul Schmitz: Before we get into what those things are. Let’s just quickly talk about the risks that we face when it comes to winter weather preparedness, or just the driving experience. So obviously, whenever you’re dealing with winter weather driving conditions.

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Paul Schmitz: you’re going to have those inherent natural additional risks, and those are possibilities, for you know, very serious collisions resulting in injury or death. And almost always you’re going to have property damage. So, I mean.

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Paul Schmitz: what happens in those

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Paul Schmitz: is, you know it. It does have an effect on you, your operations, your people.

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Paul Schmitz: Just so we understand, you know, just basic numbers. And this is again just basic.

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Paul Schmitz: There we go. So just some quick stats. 2022. I looked these up, and it looks like they. You know, we had almost 500 fatalities. And then that year 32,000 injuries, over 150,000, all resorted, basically related to sleet snow ice these winter conditions that we’re talking about. So, it’s a very serious thing, and it can have an effect on us. And that effect

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Paul Schmitz: is basically not only with our people, but also it can affect our bottom line, customer relations, and how we’re perceived by our customers because of, you know, because of basically safety ratings and things like that. So, all this stuff has an impact. So, these are the risks that we’re looking at. So how do we control these risks? What do we do to help? Basically, fix that? What’s what is the key?

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Paul Schmitz: Okay, well, there’s several keys, and a lot of it is like, I said before common sense, we’re looking at things that we can do and should do.

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Paul Schmitz: But one of the things that I always point out is start early with your awareness and your training concept. You know. And yes, I’m going to stand on a bit of a soapbox here with vertical lights, or for infinity workforce solutions. They have a great selection of things that you can use all right.

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Paul Schmitz: The key is, keep the drip going. Start early, keep the awareness training going, and then keep it going throughout the season. Don’t just put it up once and think that that does it. It’s too easy to get complacent and fall back into old habits by starting early. It gets their mindset

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Paul Schmitz: of these conditions are coming, be aware, be ready for them alright.

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Paul Schmitz: and whenever you have a lesson that happens within the organization that revolves around one of these things. Use those lessons learned to turn them back around into positive messages back to your fleet. Don’t be afraid to use either successes or shortcomings to help your fleet to be successful. So many people keep these things, especially safety departments we hold we left hold this information in, and we don’t like to share it because we’re afraid

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Paul Schmitz: or maybe ownership is afraid. Use this communication tool to help your fleet to be more aware. They learn, believe it or not, from each other, and they listen to each other probably more than they listen to us. So, if you share a lesson that one of your drivers learned with the rest of your drivers. It’s very powerful also in the end. Don’t forget to praise and make sure that the drivers are doing well.

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Paul Schmitz: Get that pat on the back.

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Paul Schmitz: That will then actually go through the organization, and you don’t need to do it with just the drivers. But you can also do it with your operational staff as well. If you hear them talking to the drivers about, hey? It’s a little snowy out there. Be careful. Pat them on the back. Hey? Thanks for taking the time to let that driver know. To drive safely. These positive inspirations will have an amazing impact on your fleet.

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Steve Kessler: Hey, Paul? Sorry to interrupt you. But are you talking about lessons learned?

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Steve Kessler: Do you make use of camera footage, for example, to show a good reaction by a driver as part of helping learn lessons.

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Paul Schmitz: Yeah, absolutely. Steve. So, one of the things that we do is we do a weekly safety awareness video. So, we do this through the through infinity through our LMS, and basically, we put out a video that’s about 3 to 5 min long. It’s a brief safety tip on something that’s going on either in the fleet

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Paul Schmitz: or something that we see as a potential issue. And one of the things that I did recently within the last year is I started gathering and having my safety supervisors feed me positive footage where you know near collisions have happened, and the drivers done something really well.

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Steve Kessler: Right.

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Paul Schmitz: I’ll call out the driver’s name. Call him a driver, star. I’ll send them a gift card. You know these are things that help to enhance that safety relationship and build that culture. So yeah, good question, Steve.

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Steve Kessler: That’s great!

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Paul Schmitz: So. What about awareness and training, awareness and training is so critical in this? It is by far in my imagination as well. That is the most critical step of this. And, as I said, you want to basically get out there and start your campaign before the weather hits. You

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Paul Schmitz: know your location. Now, obviously, down in the southern area, you guys weren’t expecting any of this, but at the same time there’s nothing wrong with saying, hey, look, guys, we could get weather. These are some of the things that you can do to help prevent collisions and basically keep yourself and everybody else safe out there, making sure that you take time to use all resources available. So, what do I mean by all resources. Well, if you’re a customer with

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Paul Schmitz: infinity, obviously they have the resources immediately available other things you can do through either eld messages, email messages. Anything else through your operations? Team. Keep that communication going to

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Paul Schmitz: keep that awareness high again. You want to keep that going. You don’t want to slow down and let that let that pressure off

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Paul Schmitz: make sure that you’re taking time to always be consistent with your messaging and with your value on that safety element. It’s extremely important.

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Paul Schmitz: The so much time is spent just giving the message and then backing away or changing that message. And then that consistency gets lost. And then there’s a bit of confusion that could happen in there. Psychologically, they start shutting down. So, keep that message consistent whenever you’re doing that. Okay?

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Paul Schmitz: I didn’t see part of

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Paul Schmitz: my slide here. So, one of the other things is that when it comes to the resources. So, what you want to do is engage your drivers, engage the coworkers, and help to identify any safe or unsafe driving practices. So, engaging is one of the keys. Second, the key to this is the encouragement element at all levels. You want to encourage

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Paul Schmitz: and include your operations team and keeping that message and tempo up what I like to do is I like to have I like to go through the dispatch here in Rosemont, and then, get my safety supervisors in their regions, to have regular communications with their dispatchers, to see how are how are your drivers doing in this? In this in the weather.

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Paul Schmitz: you know. You know, when was the last time that you had a just a brief conversation, or checked in on their well-being, and saw how they’re doing mentally, because when you get into the winter weather a lot of things can happen. Besides the safe driving

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Paul Schmitz: the mental stress that comes with driving in wetter weather can be very taxing on an individual so checking on their mental well, being as well is another important step and your dispatchers and your operations. People talk with them daily. So that’s your biggest key to that world.

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Paul Schmitz: finally, don’t ever forget to share. Again. I’m going to repeat some things here, but share the lessons learned through successes and adversities, basically to help to strengthen your team and never let off that accelerator. Just keep that accelerator going. Okay?

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Paul Schmitz: so, moving on in awareness training, these are some tips. Okay, these are going to be your highlights. So, a lot of common sense here, but these are the ones that we key in on obviously slow down. All right. Everybody is in a hurry. Nowadays the general motoring public is going 6 to 10 or better over every speed limit out there, even under worse conditions.

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Paul Schmitz: We must make sure that our drivers, our people, understand the reality, and why you need to slow down. Give them the reasons why. Don’t just tell them to slow down. Give them examples. Give them the reasons why

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Paul Schmitz: increasing following distance. I mean, these are our top 2 focuses. By slowing down and increasing that following distance and giving more space, more time for reaction in those worsening conditions. Obviously, these are things that without any doubt

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Paul Schmitz: will help to decrease the probability of having a collision with another motorist. It also gives you chances to react to other people who are, you know, driving poorly

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Paul Schmitz: another big one that most drivers already know this, but it’s always a good idea to remind them. Hey? Don’t forget when you get into these wet, icy, snowy conditions. Don’t put that cruise on. You need to focus. Now, understand that this comes with

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Paul Schmitz: an element that’s going to hit them as well, because if they’re not able to use the cruise now they’re more they’re going to be more engaged, and they’re going to wear down a little bit more or a little bit quicker, potentially, because you know now their foot. And they’re having to constantly be feathering that accelerator watching that speed. It takes a lot out of you. I remember, I had a trip to make. I was moving my daughter from

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Paul Schmitz: North Dakota. She decided to move out of Fargo, North Dakota. If you know Fargo. It’s like way up north. They got tons of snow, and she said, I’m done with it, Dad. I want to move

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Paul Schmitz: to a warmer climate. So, she picked North Carolina Wilmington the beach, I mean. You can’t get any far different than that right.

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Steve Kessler: Nice.

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Paul Schmitz: So, she says to me, she goes, Dad, can you help me move? I’m like, Yeah, of course. What do you know? What? What do you need? So, can you drive the U-Haul with my stuff in it?

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Paul Schmitz: So, I’m like, Okay, great. You make the arrangements for the truck. I’ll meet you there. We’ll do all this, and then we’ll get things rolling.

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Paul Schmitz: I get in the truck. We get it all loaded. I get off on the highway. I try and set the cruise. Wait a minute. There’s no crew on this truck.

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Paul Schmitz: I had to go from North Dakota to North Carolina with no cruise through mountains and all kinds of stuff

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Paul Schmitz: it was it? It will wear you out so. You know, just a just a tip. Alright. No cruise control in those conditions.

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Paul Schmitz: checking forecasts. How many times have your drivers checked forecasts? Do you share forecasts with your drivers? And you know, do your dispatch and say, hey, look! We got some snow inbound. We got some ice, I know you probably see this, but just reminding you we got more coming, or whatever the case may be. This shows a couple of elements, one. You’re advising them and giving them some information which is valuable to them in in their world.

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Paul Schmitz: It also gives the element of Hey, I care about you. I’m sharing with your things that should be concerned. You know, in your world. And I want you to be okay. So, checking the forecast, sharing the forecast, very important

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Paul Schmitz: vehicle preparedness, there’s so much to do here, the normal pre-trip that most people do, which

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Paul Schmitz: I hate to say it. But so many drivers don’t do those pre trips, you know, if there’s something that I can do to fix that. I would love it. I think I’d be a millionaire if I could figure out how to fix that one pretty much for every carrier out there.

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Paul Schmitz: We do a lot in education on inspections, and we don’t focus saying pre-trip, or we don’t say focus on saying, post trip. What we do is we focus on the reason why those inspections are so important.

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Paul Schmitz: Most of the guys will understand, you know, if you give them the reasons why

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Paul Schmitz: so, preparing the vehicle when you’re dealing with ice and snow, some of the things that is extremely important in the preparedness is making sure that the backs of the trailers are kept clean. If the snow and ice buildup on those lights, and any placards or anything you’ve got

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Paul Schmitz: motoring public can’t see them as well, and they’re you know, they’re already tailgating, driving way too fast. They’re going to run into the back of your guys. You know, causing some issues. Obviously, from that standpoint, tires make sure your drivers are. If they do nothing else. Tires are extremely important to have them get them into a routine to check in those tires, not only in the beginning of the day, but every time they stop. If they get into that routine. You’re going to be in good shape. Breaks,

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Paul Schmitz: wiper fluids, windshield wiper fluid is very critical in the wintertime, making sure that it is the defrosted kind, the kind that doesn’t ice over make it. It’s a good blend. Don’t shortchange your guys on that. And the wipers are in good shape. Besides being a dot right up at any point in the year. It’s this time of year. It’s critical to keep that windshield clear, and you’re going to have a lot of clutter going on the windshield. So

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Paul Schmitz: other thing is a full tank of fuel. Tell them to keep the fuel tank, you know. As you know, as full as they can, so that they don’t. If something happens, they’ve got plenty of fuel to get where they need to go, and then also, and there’s more to this. But also, winter weather gear. Make sure that they understand, and they’re prepared for it. If something does happen that they are going to be protected from winter weather gloves, hats, coats.

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Paul Schmitz: boots, whatever it takes pair of coveralls just, you know, maybe even a small training session on winter preparedness. From a personal standpoint, would be very beneficial.

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Paul Schmitz: So, and then finally, one of the other things that I usually I like to mention is making sure that they understand to pay attention to the road conditions and driver behavior. They can be the absolute best they can be the absolute safest on the road.

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Paul Schmitz: and their day can be completely wrecked by somebody else. Or some all of a sudden change in road condition.

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Paul Schmitz: This is another thing that wears them out, constantly checking road conditions, constantly looking at other drivers. So, one of the things that is extremely important

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Paul Schmitz: in this is to

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Paul Schmitz: Stay in touch with your drivers. Regarding fatigue, winter weather, driving fatigue is higher than typically any other time of the year. It’s a darker time of the year. We don’t have as much sunlight. The driving conditions are typically a little bit worse. And your people out there on the roads have become more selfish and more aggressive than ever before. So, it does take a lot out of your drivers.

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Paul Schmitz: So. That’s the bulk of what I’ve got. But in kind of going down a couple of other items here.

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Paul Schmitz: The big thing is, don’t be afraid, afraid to share experiences. I know I mentioned it before. And as Steve asked me how you know what we do.

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Paul Schmitz: so, we do like to share driver experiences. And I know it’s not a comfortable thing for a lot of a lot of carriers to do out there. You’re afraid of exposure

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Paul Schmitz: in causing yourself. You know, a potential pain from a legal standpoint or something like that. Obviously, you’ve got to get that approval and make sure that it suits your organization. But we found a great amount of success in sharing. The drivers want to know how they’re doing. They want to hear the good stories, not just the bad ones. So, share the experiences.

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Paul Schmitz: you know, especially the good ones, absolutely helps to make sure that they’re that they’re absorbing and building that culture of safety and safe operations. And then, as I mentioned before, praising me for that job. Well done!

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Paul Schmitz: Now, that’s it. Believe it or not, I’ve crushed pretty much all my points in here. So a Steve, I’ve got a quick wrap up on this, which just kind of

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Paul Schmitz: talks about some high points.

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Paul Schmitz: And I don’t know if I blew the budget on this. If I didn’t.

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Steve Kessler: No, no, not no, not at all.

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Paul Schmitz: Get in, take care of business, and give opportunities for people to ask questions if they want, or if they want the rest of their day back. They’ve got it.

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Steve Kessler: Absolutely. I think you know the keys that I took away from your presentation, Paul, or, you know, obviously, winter weather, and being prepared you must get ahead of the game you know. Think about when you get ready to set up training, whether it’s through our platform, or however you’re doing it.

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Steve Kessler: You know winter weather is coming. So, you maybe need to start with these training sessions. Maybe in the middle of fall before this. Really, all starts to get going to sort of get the mindset ready, because we do know. Sometimes these things sneak up on us and we get a real early winter storm.

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Paul Schmitz: Yeah.

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Steve Kessler: It’s very important to do that. I did want to remind everybody

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Steve Kessler: a couple of things this just this week. We released a couple of new pieces of training videos.

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Steve Kessler: one is entitled Ice and Snow. So, it is very appropriate for the kind of weather we’re having. Now, also, we’ve kind of updated a video called winter weather readiness. It’s a checklist.

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Steve Kessler: which I think is a great thing. So, we’re going to have that content available. I’m going to put a little poll question up here, and, we now have the capability through our platform to offer

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Steve Kessler: a digital checklist. This would be something a driver could open on their smartphone and see a checklist that they can kind of go down the list and make sure that they’ve got. They’ve done those things

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Steve Kessler: that we discussed here, and then maybe a few other thoughts out there. So, we’re trying to make sure that we give you the tools to you know, accomplish the kind of training that you need. And I think, you know, checklists have always been a good thing and make sure that you don’t forget something.

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Steve Kessler: So, I see quite a few people here looking to

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Steve Kessler: see if we can help them get access to this content. If you’re not a current customer. Do you? Can you know? Say, yes, we’ll reach out and tell you what we do and how we go about it then? Whether there’s something we can work with you on.

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Steve Kessler: So.

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Paul Schmitz: So.

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Steve Kessler: Go ahead, Paul.

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Paul Schmitz: Yeah. So

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Paul Schmitz: a, as Steve mentioned, and as I had mentioned as well. The infinity catalog has a lot of titles in it that have been very helpful for my organization over the years.

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Paul Schmitz: We do also a lot of custom content which is very helpful for us, and we found that it draws in our drivers a little bit more creates a more personal environment for them connecting with our team members. And so, I’m happy to share that. If you know, if anybody you know wants to reach out and see how we’re doing that. I could take some time to visit with you about some of the successes that we’ve seen.

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Steve Kessler: Ultimately.

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Paul Schmitz: You know what you’re going to find? I 100% believe this is that people ultimately want the same, that thing that we all do, and that’s to get home in the same condition that we left in. We want to make it home to our loved ones. And ultimately, they will rise to that challenge.

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Paul Schmitz: you know, of course, with positive guidance and reminders. And

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Paul Schmitz: it’s a beautiful thing when you achieve that. And it’s probably one of the most rewarding things that I found in my career and doing safety is when

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Paul Schmitz: when you see that happen and you feel it

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Paul Schmitz: so, basically it. You know. I my biggest thing is just

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Paul Schmitz: never, never let off the throttle of safety, because it matters way too much.

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Paul Schmitz: So.

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Steve Kessler: Yeah, I mean, you know, we’re trying to, you know, not only protect the lives of our drivers like you said, and make sure they can get home to their family. But we’re looking out for the motoring public out there. I wish we had a way to provide them with some training. And that’s really an issue with this winter stuff, especially around here in Texas. You know, we have so many people that live here that have never driven in that kind of weather.

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Steve Kessler: and I think that makes it an even more challenge for professional truck drivers out there to maneuver around a bunch of people that don’t really know what they’re doing at all.

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Steve Kessler: So, I think this is very timely, and

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Steve Kessler: I don’t see any questions that have popped in. We’ve got a lot of positive comments. And

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Steve Kessler: I wanted to thank you Paul, especially for taking time out of your day. I’m sure you’re always busy.

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Steve Kessler: but I do appreciate it, and I thank you for joining us and passing on some, I think, very important information, especially with the time of the year that we’re in.

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Paul Schmitz: All. Thank you very much, sir.

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Steve Kessler: One last thing I’ve responded to a few people, but this webinar was recorded, and we will provide a link to you all. So, you can access the replay. And of course you can share it with other people. Perhaps that couldn’t join us today on the live program. So, thank you all for joining us. Everybody stays safe. Stay warm

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Steve Kessler: Paul. Thank you very much and look forward to seeing you again sometime soon. You have got to come down to Texas.

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Paul Schmitz: Oh, yeah, I’ll be down there, for you know it cause you got to get rid of that cold weather. It’s kind of deterring me from making that trip, you know.

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Steve Kessler: Yeah, wait a little while, you know. Maybe next week it’ll be in the seventies by the end of next week. So.

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Paul Schmitz: I’m holding out for that warmer weather, Steve. I am looking forward to it.

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Steve Kessler: Very good. Thank you so much.

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Paul Schmitz: Enjoy everybody.

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Steve Kessler: And we hope you’ll join us on our next webinar. Thanks, Paul. Appreciate you, sir.

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Paul Schmitz: Take care!

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Steve Kessler: Bye, everyone.