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I look forward to this week every year. It's National Truck Driver Appreciation week as designated by the ATA (American Trucking Associations).
All week long we have been celebrating one of our most important associate bases -- our fantastic drivers. Our drivers deliver more than 2 billion pounds of goods annually and never take a day off from demonstrating the values of the KANE Code.
Every weekday morning at 9.30 am ET our department participates in a stand-up meeting. Our group, which encompasses transportation, safety, HR, marketing, and customer service takes time to discuss safety, operations, personnel, and the customer experience.
The meeting typically lasts between 10-15 minutes. All this week, the main topic has been our drivers and providing updates on the things we have done to thank them for the job they do.
But just like Mother's Day or Christmas, it should not be a one day event. We should never lose sight to celebrate every day. Especially in these challenging times (driver shortage first and foremost), we know our drivers do a spectacular job and we appreciate them for working safe and being a beacon of our professional beliefs on the highways and byways.
I was inspired by the numbers that our transportation department shared this week concerning our fleet's performance. Year to date in 2018:
- RIR (recordable incident rate) of 1.6 -- the industry is at 4.5 according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- 128 drivers
- 450 vehicles and trailers
- Driven over 6.5 million miles
- Delivered over 26,000 orders
- Zero critical HOS (hours of service) violations
- Only one (at fault) DOT recordable accident in two years
- Maintenance OOS (out of service) rate below the national average
- Zero driver fitness violations
- 98.5% on-time delivery
Now that's excellent.
Thank you all for being safe and carrying our message of: Be careful. Be kind. Be yourself.
