Safety

One of ACT’s long standing core values is safety.  What is safety?  Safety is when nothing happens!  ACT has a tradition of being one of the industry leaders when it comes to safety.  All of our CSA scores are way below the “alert” threshold.  In our insurance captive group, we always score near the top on our annual audits out of over 60 carriers.  We have been recognized by the State of Missouri and by the Missouri Trucking Association as one of their safest carriers.  For two years in a row, we have won the safety award by the nation’s largest trucking trade association, the American Trucking Association.  Safety has historically been embedded in our culture at ACT.  Even back in the 90’s, we won Liberty Mutual’s safety awards each year.  This is nothing new at ACT.  But it is very important and something we always strive to improve.

What makes us safer than others?  It is not one thing, but a combination of things.  The message on safety comes from the top, not just the safety department.  The entire leadership of the company is fully bought in, vested and committed to safety.  We also have operations on board, something many trucking companies don’t do. Operations work closely with our safety department in trying to improve safety and prevent accidents every day.   In sum, we are all singing from the same hymn book.  Anyone who can’t operate within this culture is at the wrong company.

Safety means more than just complying with laws and regulations, a “no brainer” at ACT.  It means going above and beyond compliance.  Who knows whether or not our driver is safe at any given time?  We have many things we work on but in the final analysis, no one knows better than the driver.  For this reason, our stance has long been that at any time a driver, for whatever reason, feels him or herself to be unsafe, (whether or not they are in compliance with regulations), whether that results from illness, fatigue, weather, traffic, stress, problems at home or any other reason, that driver has the responsibility and authority to pull over, stop driving, and notify us of his or her situation.  We will not second guess, overrule or retaliate in any way against that driver for his or her decision.  There are no exceptions.  I give instructions to all drivers that if anyone here counteracts this policy to come to me directly and I will deal with it.

The pay we offer drivers is the top pay in the industry.  Why?  We hire the best drivers with the best records.  Our standards are high.  Not only are the standards high to become an ACT driver, but all drivers must maintain that high standard to remain with the company.

This is not all we do to become safer.  We always try to become safer and always will.  We know that cell phones are presenting an ever increasing danger as passenger vehicles are more and more distracted as they share the road with us.  We explore technology to find ways to improve and we believe that no matter how good we are, we can always get better.  Even the most experienced and safe drivers can improve through ongoing training and coaching.  Our culture is one of continuous improvement and learning.

All know that being safe is a very important core value at ACT.  We welcome those who share this value.

Safe Trucking!  ~Tom