This week on the Oakley Podcast, host Jeremy Kellett chats with Dustin Barnett and Carl Morrow of the safety department at Oakley. During the conversation, the group thanks owner-operators for their significant decrease in unsafe violations. They also discuss the importance of safety and customer service at Oakley Trucking, the impact of the CSA program on the company and drivers, services and requirements, hazmat best practices, speed and force cameras in construction zones, upcoming changes to the submission process for maintenance reports, and more.
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- Dustin and Carl’s work in safety at Oakley Trucking (1:16)
- Categories of safety violations (10:03)
- Vehicle maintenance violations (11:49)
- Brake violations (13:59)
- Hazmat violations (21:08)
- Speed cameras in construction zones (24:28)
- Personal conveyance misuse (27:09)
- New policies for submitting maintenance reports (29:55)
- Reminders for CDL renewal and physicals (31:41)
- Reporting issues with ELDs (34:20)
- The importance of safety at Oakley (38:17)
Oakley Trucking is a family-owned and operated trucking company headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. For more information, check out our show website: podcast.bruceoakley.com.
Transcription
Dustin Barnett 00:00
I first wanted to start just congratulating and thanking them for the drastic decrease we’ve seen in our unsafe violations that have come in over the last few years. Back in December of 21, just to kind of put it in perspective, we had a 75% in our unsafe basic CSA, which threshold is 60 So that started getting a lot of unwanted attention. So we sent out some memos just informing everyone of the score that we had to we did have and you know, excited to say over the last few years, it’s dropped to a 27% and are unsafe and, you know, that’s a tribute to the owner operators.
Jeremy Kellett 00:49
Welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. This show is brought to you by Oakley trucking headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. The purpose of this podcast is to communicate with Oakley owner operators and their families by giving them up to date information concerning Oakley trucking and the trucking industry. From business advice to safety updates to success stories. Also to give an insight to outside truck drivers that might be interested in joining the Oakley family. There’s Jeremy kellett director of recruiting here at Oakley trucking and I’m your host for this podcast. This is the Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. And we try to bring you some good stuff every week at this podcast and on this episode this week, we are bringing you the safety department here at Oakley trucking, we’re gonna take a dive into what’s going on at Oakley trucking in the safety department first, you know, we’re gonna we sit down with Dustin Barnett and Carl Morrow, which is a new guy that’s been in the safety department here maybe six months or so. But we’re gonna visit with him a little bit on their responsibilities, some of the things that they’re seeing right now that’s happening amongst the fleet, some maybe some simple things that we can correct but also addressed, you know, address stuff like the CSA, where you’re talking about the vehicle maintenance and hazmat? You know, we’re even going to get into the personal conveyance. Oh, yeah, wait for that one. That’s gonna be good. So we’re gonna, we’re gonna get their perspective on some stuff, speed and force cameras and construction zones. So just got a, you know, a lot of good stuff that I think sometimes we don’t take enough time to really talk about safety like we should. On this podcast, I always tell everybody coming through orientation, that you have to buy into two things to work at Oakley trucking, and that’s customer service and safety. And it? No, it’s like, no kidding, Jeremy, we got to do this. But, you know, I think our safety department takes it to the next level to where we are, we are going to be one of the safest companies in the business. And we do that by our owner operators taking care of us, and they know how to do it. And it’s, you know, it’s because of your day to day activities. You know, your preventive maintenance. You’re running the logbook. I mean, the ELD is, I mean, it’s your experience driving all these million miles you guys have out there, you’re the one that keeps us company going and doing it right we I just think we need to get a little more in depth with the safety department on talking about some of these issues that are coming down the road. I mean, in his stuff that needs to be addressed. So appreciate y’all listening to this episode. So instead of you know normally I do an Oakley update, sponsored by Arrow Truck Sales. I mean, this is the update. I mean, this is a safety update episode. We’re just going to do the whole thing here. So there is no update. On this episode. It’s all about safety today.
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Jeremy Kellett 04:26
Before we get started into it, though, I always like to introduce myself. Dustin Barnett, Carl Morell. Thank you guys for joining me this afternoon. Yeah, appreciate you. Getting it done and taken away from that day is down there and answering all those questions. And I appreciate it’s our pleasure. Thanks for having us. Yeah, yeah, you bet. Let’s start with Barnett. You’ve been on here before? Yeah. Give us a little rundown of the introduction. You know, your history and your hobbies and family. Yeah,
Dustin Barnett 04:56
I was thinking about Jeremy this morning. I think this might be the fourth or fifth podcast that I’ve done. Awesome. Your record. Yeah. Last time we were up there, there was a table here and we were sitting across the table from one another. So yeah, I liked the new layout. We’ve changed
Jeremy Kellett 05:09
the Chinese it up a little bit. And I really like it. We kind of got this idea from the truck show. We changed it when we went to the truck show in Louisville. And we did this man, it works. So much better. So we decided to do it here at the office.
Dustin Barnett 05:22
Now it’s good, but my name is Dustin Barnett. For those of you that haven’t met me. I work in the safety department here at Oakley. This August will be six years now. You know my wife shanlee. I have a four year old son Maddox. And we just celebrated his fourth birthday party over the weekend. About 20 kids running around. But it was fun. Yeah. As far as hobbies, though, you know, enjoy going to the lake, having a four year old and it takes up a lot of my time. He’s always wanting to get into something so I just cherish those memories with him. And that’s a full time job. There. It is. Yeah, but I enjoy it. I’m cherishing those moments.
Jeremy Kellett 06:01
Carl, how about you?
Carl Morrow 06:03
Well, I got a fiance, Amanda, and three kids. You know, it’s a blended family. That’s cage, Frankie and Madison. So 1413 and 12. Busy house. Yeah, very busy. It’s never quiet at all. There’s constantly somebody doing something. Somebody’s doing something.
Jeremy Kellett 06:21
But when do you start Oakley? Probably about
Carl Morrow 06:25
five months ago? I don’t know the date. Exactly. But yeah. Yeah.
06:30
It’s going back with Carl. It goes by.
Carl Morrow 06:33
Yeah. Now what do you do? I work in a safety compliance department that kind of does it and does citations and inspections that the guys send in stuff like that and hazmat training. I’m starting to get into that mode.
Jeremy Kellett 06:48
Take that over for JP, you do a little orientation to Yeah, yeah. Which is a big hill on helping Randolph. Do some of that. So let’s be again, important. Give these listeners a little bit of your history. Because I know that I know what happened. You know, when you got here five months ago. We were actually talking to you about becoming an owner operator. Correct? Yeah, here because you’re driving a truck. Yeah.
Carl Morrow 07:15
Yeah. Actually, this was three or four years ago, y’all first talked to me. And I was working for us at the time. And trying to get me over here. So I finally took that step. And wanted to come over as owner operator, but y’all had different things for me then. So it was great. It worked out well. I worked for Brown Brothers for a long time. It was a third party for slumber J started out as a driver. They’re
Jeremy Kellett 07:42
long you drive a truck?
Carl Morrow 07:45
13 plus years. Oh, man. So yeah, I worked for them for a while. Drove came as a lead driver and then worked my way up into safety and compliance.
Jeremy Kellett 07:56
Yeah. So you had prior Office experience? Correct? That’s right. I remember that.
Carl Morrow 08:02
Our first office was in Conway. So. And then before it was said and done, we had offices and West Virginia, San Antonio, Oklahoma.
Jeremy Kellett 08:13
All think that’s what it was when you came down here to talk to me in person about becoming an owner operator, and he’s looking at your application history. And I saw that you had. Yeah, Office experience and safety and compliance. And we were at that time looking for somebody in safety. So like, hey, here, he just walked
Carl Morrow 08:31
out door. Yeah. Worked out. Yeah.
Jeremy Kellett 08:34
That works out that way. Yeah. So what do you guys, I know, we got a list of stuff we wanted to talk about here, concerning the safety department and our owner operators and some other things. Where would you guys like to start? I don’t know if we can get through all of it. But I know one of the top things here you’re talking about: congratulate new owner operators for decreasing unsafe basics. So we won’t start with CSA.
Dustin Barnett 08:58
Yeah, we can start there. I first wanted to start just congratulating and thanking them for the drastic decrease we’ve seen in our unsafe violations that have come in over the last few years. Back in December of 21, just to kind of put it in perspective, we had a 75% in our unsafe basic CSA, which threshold is 60 So that started getting a lot of unwanted attention. So we sent out some memes just informing everyone of the score that we had, and, you know, excited to say over the last few years, it’s dropped to 27% and is unsafe. And, you know, that’s a tribute to the owner operators.
Jeremy Kellett 09:37
Well, I was gonna ask, what causes that big drop?
Dustin Barnett 09:41
Well, there’s a lot of factors. You know, I think our operators when they hear that there is a problem, they’re more apt to try to get it corrected. So I think that’s one of the leads, we instituted a new dash camera Netra Dawn, which actually helped focus on some of those top offenders. Getting speeding, which puts them kind of more at risk to be stopped.
Jeremy Kellett 10:03
So the unsafe, you know, just to back up, you know, there’s five or six categories in the CSA and one of them is an unsafe category. That’s a and you’re unsafe violations are typically beating is amazing bill is that that kind of cell phone use your cell phone use? Okay, cool. So that was high, which basically was speeding. Yeah, and then because probably because of the cameras we installed, the forward facing cameras have cut down on that quite a bit. It has.
Dustin Barnett 10:38
And, you know, we know, whenever we look at the data, we’re just focused on those top offenders that, you know, are putting themselves more at risk. And after direct focus of that, and I know probably fuel had something to do with it as well, with the fuel prices increasing, you tend to see that fleetwide drivers kind of lowering, you know, their speed, trying to get some more miles per gallon. So that was a factor. But, you know, overall, we’re just pleased to see it drop, because it was, you know, we did have so much attention getting drawn and phone calls around it. Because you have to think of what CSA is and how it impacts the company and the driver. So first you have, of course, the D O T. So that’s how they let the program determine who they’re going to come in and audit. If you’re elevated within that certain tier group, then you know, in their eyes, you’re more at risk. So the D O T started getting traction. And then, of course, on any customer audit, we’re hauling their freight. So we want to make sure you know, we’re getting it there timely and safely. So customers look at that data. And then the owner operators themselves, you know, we’re gonna talk about it here in a little bit, but our vehicle maintenance category, and our Jeremy mentioned five, but one of them is discussing it. That’s nearing the threshold to 74% and the threshold to 75. So that affects all of our owner operators. So next time you go to the scale, if we’re over threshold, and we’re in that intervention stage, then that’s when the D O T officer is going to start pulling around and doing more thorough inspections of the equipment. So
Jeremy Kellett 12:10
and was our vehicle maintenance category going up?
Dustin Barnett 12:13
Well, the top three categories that we’re seeing is number one is brakes. So we have 153 violations within the brake category. And then second is tires. We have about 61 violations and tire
Jeremy Kellett 12:31
related to y’all break that down between truck and trailer.
Dustin Barnett 12:34
We do. We actually did that car probably a few weeks ago, just curious to see. And it’s almost even within a few percent of each other, but it was like maybe 47 and 50 or 47. And you know, the remaining three, but it was interesting to see that breakdown. It was pretty Eve a couple of
Carl Morrow 12:54
months ago, I think our CSA score, we accumulated 216 points. And 149 of those were vehicle related. So over half of them were vehicles, you know, that was one month, and that was one month. And it’s increasing each month just by a little bit. So you know that
Jeremy Kellett 13:18
and your vehicle maintenance as brakes, tires. What else do you say?
Dustin Barnett 13:24
Just anything vehicle related are top lights. This is the third one with a lot of lights that are out. But for brakes, you know, and that was kind of a lean in as well. But that’s why we wanted to sit down with you today to discuss the issue we’re seeing in breaks, do you think 153 violations and just brakes alone? And the second 161. So we have almost double the violations in one category. And that breaks. A lot of those violations that
Jeremy Kellett 13:52
From that break, did they have a test or a week they did break checks? Or is a my dream and you’re
Dustin Barnett 14:00
you’re probably thinking ahead because here in August of 20 or that the 20th of August, there’s a brake safety test week.
Jeremy Kellett 14:08
Okay, that’s probably a lot of reading. probably read it in our notes. I guess I was thinking that Okay, so, oh, crap, that ain’t good if we started looking forward. Now. We’ve had a bunch here recently. I mean, just for the lack of us checking our brakes, I guess so the, um, they’re saying the brakes or you know, any type thing in or what is more out of the just out of adjustment. That’s what it gets down to. Right. And
Dustin Barnett 14:37
There are several categories, they can ride them in the brakes, but yeah, Carl’s right, what we’re seeing is breaks out of adjustment. And, you know, for us going through orientation, we certify every owner operator to adjust their own brakes. So there, there’s a station out there in the shop where they get their hands on and, you know, go through any questions, they have an adjusting brake. So, you know, we’re doing all that we can to train you accordingly. So it’s kind of on the owner operator at that point.
Jeremy Kellett 15:04
Yeah. And that’s coming up August the 20th through the 26th brake Safety Week. And it’s all brake related, I guess violations that they’re looking for. Yes, sir. Well, we need to get a hold on ahead of that game. Anything else on the CSA that we were talking about? Let’s say we had higher CSA points applied? Citations versus inspections? Correct? Yeah. Be sure to send your inspections or citations within 24 hours or the process you want to elaborate on?
Carl Morrow 15:41
Yeah, we would like to send them within 24 hours so we can get them in the process. And because we only have 15 days to process the citations, you know, our inspections, I’m sorry, not citations. But yeah, there is a difference between a citation and an inspection that they get maybe a level one, level two or level three, you know, those level ones level twos and level threes do go against their CSA score, they might not receive a fine for it, but it will go against their CSA score. But a citation they may get or warning is just a ticket they have to pay. So it doesn’t go against their CSA score. So there is some kind of confusion on that. But when they do get an inspection, it does hurt them, for sure. And their CSA score.
Jeremy Kellett 16:27
I thought the citation went on the CSA, not
Carl Morrow 16:31
necessarily. I mean, if you can just write you a ticket.
Jeremy Kellett 16:35
And then not even not be associated with aggression, correct? Yeah, I got you
Dustin Barnett 16:40
know, a lot of those that we see Jeremy are kind of like these city ordinance citations and you’re in a small town and a city officer pulls you over invites you for speeding in the town, they don’t actually do an inspection of like a doT inspection like you’re thinking of it’s just kind of a city ordinance. And there’s never a show. But if the
Jeremy Kellett 16:59
The DLT man wrote you a ticket, and he did an inspection, it’s probably there.
Carl Morrow 17:04
Yeah. And you can get the if they write it on the inspection form, they can cite you for it as well. Yeah, that’s kind of like a double whammy for him.
Jeremy Kellett 17:14
What were your thoughts? Girl man coming in here? No, five months. And you learned about this CSA pay? You know, your pay is associated with CSA violations? Yeah. I mean, you know, you got a fresh look at it. As a former truck driver, I mean, what’s your thoughts on that?
Carl Morrow 17:32
It’s good for the company, it’s good for the driver. And you know, it makes them keep up with their equipment. Because they get bonus pay for it. You know, you know, at the end of the day, that’s a lot of money for them. So, oh,
Jeremy Kellett 17:45
They are the guys. Are they realizing it? Yeah, you
Carl Morrow 17:48
kind of gotta break it down for him sometimes, to let them know, hey, look, this is what you lost out on because of this inspection. And then they like to turn around, so Oh, well, you know, I’d rather him bring me a citation for it and inspect my truck. So it does happen.
Jeremy Kellett 18:04
Well, it’s, uh, you know, safety is a top priority. And I think when you associate a man’s money with it, you get their attention real quick on it, and how important it is to us as a company too but I mean, the majority of the owner operators here, do it right around you. Yeah. I mean, we’re talking about a small percentage of the company that, you know, some of them are operators that don’t do it right all the time.
Dustin Barnett 18:34
Yeah, 67% of the fleet have a zero CSA score. Oh, yeah. So you look at the other 33% and 17 of that is within the one to 15 point category. So not much, not much. So used to think anything 16 points in greater than usual stops means that we’re seeing a lot of these points, it’s not just one defect that’s found. It’s multiple. And that’s kind of what’s hurting that vehicle maintenance at the moment.
Jeremy Kellett 19:03
You find something and always look for more.
Carl Morrow 19:07
I’ve seen him Hi, 66 points.
Jeremy Kellett 19:10
I won’t stop Yeah. Well, you know, it’s not going away. You know, they’re gonna look for everybody. And it’s just like, if you get that red flag over the threshold in a cat one category, then it’s just going to throw a red flag up to stop in all of Oakley owner operators, all their drivers and pre pass goes red coming in, you know, instead of green and here they go looking but if we stay under that threshold, and we got we’re looking good All in all categories, and it’s a lot smoother. Yeah. So it is. Oakley Trucking is a 100% Owner Operator company. We specialize in Hopper, bottom and dump and pneumatic drivers. We provide the trailer free of charge and you provide the truck. We have a large customer base that reaches the whole United States as well as parts of Canada. Our owner operators live anywhere from Texas to North Carolina to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and everywhere in between and we get them home weekends. We take it seriously when you join Oakley trucking because we need you to be successful. Oakley offers great benefits and competitive mileage pay. So you know that when your wheels are turning, you’re generating money. No matter if you’re loaded or empty. We understand that you want to make a good living and that you make our living. We only take on independent contractors and to be honest with you, we’re very particular on who we lease on. You must have a good driving record, good work history and clean, dependable truck. So if you’re interested in Oakley trucking or just want some more information, you can go to Oakley trucking.com. Listen to our weekly podcast, the Oakley podcast and subscribe to our YouTube channel. What else? Let’s see, Hazmat Best Practices share the top violations we’re seeing in this category. I know that hazmat has been. We’ve talked a little bit about that. Here lately. That’s kind of been a topic. What’s going on with hazmat?
Carl Morrow 21:08
There is placarding. We’re having issues with placards falling off the truck coming out of the holders and then not noticing it. So the DLT officer sees one placard, and then he goes around the side and doesn’t see the other one, he’s probably going to pull him over and do an inspection on it. And we’re seeing cases with that. Damaged placard not being in the right spot behind handrails or something. So we’ve seen those. So we’ve
Jeremy Kellett 21:35
got the holders on the trailers, right? Everything we need. Yeah, we do. And don’t they give you the I don’t think give you the placard that you need when you load at the facility. Correct? Or do our guys have some in their truck?
Carl Morrow 21:50
So they’re supposed to do this? What are we picking up at? They’re supposed to give them the placards. That’s the practice. And the driver matches that placard number up with the shipping paper. Make sure it’s correct. And then he puts them on his truck. And we’re seeing sometimes, you know, they’re not hauling hazardous material all the time. So they might not haul it within six months. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, they’ve got a hazardous load, they have to haul. So they may forget to stop at a railroad track where they’re supposed to, you know,
22:24
we had that happen. We have Yes, recently.
Jeremy Kellett 22:27
Yeah, that’s my, we always don’t do very much of it. So really, I can see where they creep up on a guy and he’s not used to doing it. And then six months later, he does a load and all of a sudden, he forgets what he got back there. You know, when you got to do things differently? Yeah. What else you got to do differently if you’re pulling a hazmat load just off and it’s true.
Carl Morrow 22:49
You can’t go through tunnels, you know, you have to wrap yourself around tunnels, you know, you can’t go through major cities, unless you’re not delivering if you’re delivering there you can. But you have to go around major cities for sure. And we’ve had a few of those to have. Yeah. They gotta make sure they have their emergency response book within reach while they’re in their seat belt with their shipping papers. So,
Jeremy Kellett 23:13
man, so we’ve been written up on some of that stuff.
Carl Morrow 23:17
That’s yeah, that’s our second one. The placard number one of not having their emergency response book is number two. Okay,
Jeremy Kellett 23:24
so everybody listening, make sure you get the placards like stay on the trailer, and you got the book handy.
Dustin Barnett 23:31
Correct. And a good practice if you’re able to ask the customer for maybe one or two extra, if they’re willing to give them to you. Because let’s say you you pick up a load of, you know, ammonium nitrate, and you’re Hunter miles down the road, and you do stop and notice that one, you know, blew out the likeliness that you find in that particular placard needed is not, you know, not likely, they don’t really keep those placards on hand and a lot of those stops. So if you had one or two on hand, just keep a stack of them, you know, as you do these loads, and I think it’ll be helpful moving forward. If you are in a position where one is missing. You have kind of an extra stash, you can put one in there. Good.
Jeremy Kellett 24:10
Let’s talk real quick before we get into personal conveyance law. No, that’s probably gonna be a good topic there. But is this just in the state of Arkansas that they’re going to do this speed enforced cameras and construction zones? Yes, sir.
Dustin Barnett 24:28
We received that notice last week. But before our and our operators, you know, have a lot of questions. I do want you to know that it’s speed and force cameras, but there still has to be an officer present to issue you a citation or a warning. So their reason behind it is they’re going to position themselves out of those construction areas down the road a little bit, maybe a few miles out of the construction, but they’re gonna be monitoring cameras within that construction zone. It’s gonna be capturing speed, or they’re gonna be looking at danger. You’re driving, and it might be five miles down the road before you’re pulled over for an event that happened prior. But they’re not going to adapt mailing citations, like you see in some of these smaller cities when we get there sometimes, you know, Carl pays him pretty frequently, but no mailed citations, they have to actually physically stop you. But that is going and as this winds up going, in effect, you know, August 1 here in
Jeremy Kellett 25:25
August Forest Hills in effect, so I want to, well wonder if you’ll be able to see the cameras or to be, you know, one of those things that you come up on, you’re doing this speed, if it I don’t know if it’s a camera or not, but who knows where they’ll be?
Dustin Barnett 25:42
The article I read said that there’ll be signage, you know, camera enforcement areas, so you’ll be made aware of the cameras, but I’m not really sure, but they will.
Jeremy Kellett 25:53
I’m assuming the deal is to protect construction workers. I mean, we’ve had some I know here in Arkansas, get killed by vehicles in construction zones. So I’m not sure that’s a big reason why that’s happening, which is a good reason. I mean, it needs to be construction, junk zones are dangerous people working right beside the road. I mean, you know, I’ve got, you know, my son has some friends that are in that kind of business. And, you know, they’re at the house last night. And, you know, you think about it, I think about that now, I was 23 year old kids out there trying to 20 forward trying to do their job and, you know, colleges zipping by so definitely needs to happen. So, it does. Don’t be surprised if you get caught five miles down the road. And then wonder why if you’re misbehaving in a construction zone, yeah. Because they probably shouldn’t say they’ll probably pick the truck out before they pick out the four wheeler. Okay, how about this personal conveyance? You know, I know there’s a lot of y’all getting a lot of calls on it.
Dustin Barnett 27:09
Well, that’s causing more misuse.
Carl Morrow 27:12
We get the calls after the fact.
Jeremy Kellett 27:13
Or y’all do the calling. Yeah. going, Hey, this ain’t gonna work. So you want to give us some examples, personal conveyance do’s and don’t?
Dustin Barnett 27:24
We can, I think that might be a podcast off.
Jeremy Kellett 27:29
So you want to talk about just some of the ball? Or if Yeah,
Dustin Barnett 27:31
well we can do is the most we’re seeing as far as PC misuse is if you run out of time, and you’re 10 miles away from the constantly your ship or just where you’re trying to get to, you’re not able to just put it in personal conveyance and extend your day to get to that facility. Because the argument is you drove for hours leading up to you not having any available drive time. You didn’t look for parking, you know, along the way, he kind of granular 11 out and then you just put it into PC to extend your day. So that’s one thing I wanted to mention. And everybody would be very clear that, if you’re out of hours, you can’t just put it in PC to extend, there’s only one alternative to that is if you’re actually physically at the shipper constantly. Any run out of hours while you’re there, loading or unloading. There isn’t a law now where you can PC to the nearest safe haven and start your 10 hour break whenever you arrive there. That’s going to be one of the only times but that’s kind of what I wanted to mention. Do you have anything else Carl without getting in the weeds, too?
Carl Morrow 28:33
I don’t want to get too deep into it. But yeah, it’s but it’s so much.
Jeremy Kellett 28:37
I mean, it’s you’re going to I mean, we just mentioned personal conveyance, we’re gonna there’s gonna be some weeds come out. Yeah, people are gonna be commenting. But that’s good. That’s what we need. We need to be open to communication here and understand. Yeah, we don’t have to get too deep in it. But that might be right. It might be a podcast,
Carl Morrow 28:53
as well. It’s called Personal conveyance for a reason, you know, for personal use. It’s not, I mean, if you have to use it for company use, then you’re not supposed to use it. You know, if you want to go to the gym, on your off time, you can use it if you want to go get something to eat, go to the movies, that’s all personal reason. So you’re able to do that. You just can’t PC to go home, and things like that,
Jeremy Kellett 29:15
like scenes? Well, I’m sure you all spend a lot of time explaining that. But once again, do we have much of the percentage of owner operators Mr. Eaton? I don’t know, for me, I would think I will
Carl Morrow 29:31
not overall now. Most everybody, have you had a conversation with them? And they’re like, Oh, I didn’t know. And he never talked to him about it again. Yeah. You know, they understand.
Jeremy Kellett 29:43
So I didn’t understand this. When you put it on here. We’re coming up with a new system to submit mm RS within the trans Flow app electronically. You want to find that?
Dustin Barnett 29:55
Yeah. And that’s kind of in the works. I just wanted to give our owner operators a little A heads up that is upcoming, we’re trying to move away from the hard copies of filling out your monthly maintenance report. And taking a picture of a hardcopy, you know, it has been working with transplanter to embed a monthly maintenance report link within their app, hallelujah, you’re going to be able to fill it out electronically, it’s going to give you a tab for electronic signature. And then it’ll give you a prompt after you fill out your report if you want to take pictures of your receipts from there, but kind of moving away from that hardcopy more to electronic, but that’s upcoming no release date yet.
Jeremy Kellett 30:37
That’s been being worked on for years, trying to get that done.
Dustin Barnett 30:42
Well, I can give Eric people downstairs a little shout out. But he’s done a great job in developing it and it’s completed on our side, we’re just working on embedding it within the trans Flow app. So it’s a little bit easier to have even more accessible than interoperating.
Jeremy Kellett 30:58
Yeah, everybody had awesome IT departments. So it’ll be just like on the app like they do everything else, I can go through there and fill out their monthly maintenance report, take pictures of the receipts, send them in. Yeah, we
Dustin Barnett 31:14
should be on that main screen of your dashboard, where your settlements in your field network is listed
Jeremy Kellett 31:19
out there. That would be nice. And I know some of the people in the psych department would really love to hear that. That is going through electronically. And I’ll have to, I have to get it done. And I’m sure dispatch would love that to be a lot more convenient. A lot more convenient. That’s good. You said the girls had something to warn to remind her buddy. Uh,
Dustin Barnett 31:41
yeah, just a few things before I came up here. I just asked him if they wanted me to mention anything. And they wanted to remind you all to make sure to complete your physicals. And if you have any expired CDL coming up, make sure to do it at least two weeks prior to the expiration, because there’s a nationwide shortage of DMV workers. So there’s a lot of delay and getting physicals added to your CDL. So they just wonder, yeah, to get it certified. So they just wanted to give everyone a heads up to not wait until the last minute, get it done. And as soon as you get the paperwork, don’t hold on to it for two weeks until you send it to us because there’s a lot of processing that has to be done on our end. So just try to be sensitive and timely on that. Once you get your physical, just go ahead and send it in to miss Ashley, and she’ll get everything completed on Aria.
Carl Morrow 32:33
She also wants them to if they can take it into the state themselves. That way, if they’re there, and their state and they’re getting a physical, don’t just go ahead and go by the DMV, you know, and get it put
Jeremy Kellett 32:46
on your eyes. Yep, that way, that’s the quickest. If you’re at home, if you go do your physical at home, then just run it by the time you get out of there, run it by the DMV and get it certified. Yeah. Correct. Because and actually, that still takes a little while I guess, to get certified depending on the state. Yeah, it goes, we do it. With all the new guys that come to orientation, take a physical, then Miss Ashley, send it off to their state and get it certified. So we kind of have to watch and make sure somebody’s physical, not about to expire. And there’s a you know, it expires before it gets certified with the state and there’s a gap there. It’s a problem. So we got a kind of watch for that, too. Now, we’ve talked about that in the past, you know, on on, you know, prior to getting a physical, you may do it ahead of time, don’t wait until the last day to get it done. Because then it’s not like alright, I’ll come out of there. And I passed everything’s good. Now go. Now we have to certify with the state, you know, send it to the DMV and wait on that to get done and like you save for the shortage of workers. That I know.
Carl Morrow 33:58
I gotta get mine done next month,
Jeremy Kellett 33:59
though. Yeah. Don’t wait to let go and get it done next month. And that’s a day away. Yeah, that’s right. That’s right. Anything else you guys won’t cover? Do you look at the list? I didn’t
34:13
hear you. kind of glance over but I think that’s all.
Jeremy Kellett 34:18
I’m gonna let it read that last one. Oh, yeah.
Dustin Barnett 34:21
Alison, want me to mention about ELD problems. So be sure to if you’re experiencing ELD problems, if it’s not tracking your drive time accordingly. Just call in and report it to us as it’s happening. Don’t wait several days if you’ve noticed some malfunction of the unit. There’s a lot of time sensitive steps that have to occur in an event where a unit is not working properly. So she’s trying to go through an unidentified driving report daily and keeping up with you know, assigning draft time that needs to be assigned to the driver’s log. So if you could just kind of you know, as you notice something not working properly, just give us a call.
Jeremy Kellett 34:57
Yeah, I guess they happen. It’s pretty regular or from time to time, I guess. Yeah. working properly. Are there any big steps, any big things coming down the road in the safety department? What do we need to know about? None that I can think of? I mean, it’s forwards. Not much changes other than what we talked about, with what what was? With the monthly maintenance reports, hopefully down the road? The Naiad.
Carl Morrow 35:30
I don’t have anything else.
Jeremy Kellett 35:33
I think we covered quite a bit. Well, you know, I mean, it’s great to be working in a safety department in a recruiting department. For a company like this. It’s got good owner operators like this. Because could you imagine working in those departments for a bad company? Oh, yeah, I would be miserable. And I have a lot more gray hair? Probably. It would be miserable. You know, I was toe to toe with recruiters in a recruiting department. We talked pretty regularly about how you can imagine trying to recruit for a bad company, you know, that does things wrong, and doesn’t care about safety and doesn’t care about taking care of the owner operator. And that’s something here that, you know, that I think a lot of because we’re blessed to have some good owner operators here that take care of the business. And for us to be talking about some of these things that I wouldn’t call. I wouldn’t call it nitpicky things, but I would call you know, at least we’re not talking about million dollar lawsuits, fatality accidents, rear end, you know, we’re not talking about all that stuff. That plagues that company, at least, you know, we’re talking about this stuff that can be corrected. And we know we have a bunch of good owner operators that do key and correct things and are gonna take care of business and are proud to be Oakley or operators. Definitely. They want to keep their safety record just as clean as anybody else. Yeah. I mean, that’s some of the things that I hear a lot. When you’re talking to a guy recruiting him on the phone. Is he proud of that safety record? I mean, he is proud. He doesn’t have any violations, doesn’t have anything on his MVR, he’s proud of that. So we got a lot of guys that are locked in here. It really makes it nice.
Carl Morrow 37:27
I know JP is making calls you know, we
Jeremy Kellett 37:29
got a lot of guys that hit their million miles. So he’s been making calls last week and also getting a ring size and stuff. I wonder how many we got. list, we present that at our company party that’s coming up October, the million dollars and recognize the bet we got a bunch of
Dustin Barnett 37:47
I think we might even have some 2 million miles. Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 37:49
I bet we do. Yeah. Robert has been right along with the company. So
Carl Morrow 37:57
It’s a good company to work for sure. We’re fortunate. We are fortunate still in the first deal. T number two. Oh, yeah. So that’s good.
Jeremy Kellett 38:05
30 to 59 00. Somebody said, No, you gotta have more numbers. And we’re like, no.
Dustin Barnett 38:14
Are the numbers out there just waiting for you? That’s a
Jeremy Kellett 38:20
put a couple zeros in front of it to fill in your screen. That’s yeah. Well, I appreciate you guys doing this with me. You know, it’s good information for you know, not only me, but everybody listening out there to to know, where our safety department stand some of the things that need to be corrected. And some of the things are done. Great dance, right. You know, and it just, it makes a big difference to know that the owner operator has to buy into safety to work here. And hats by and customer service, which I both go together. When you mentioned earlier about customer service customers look at our safety ready to know whether to do business with us or not. That’s a whole nother episode. But it just makes a big difference when the owner operators are buying into that safety and customer service. Everything seems to seems to go smooth when you do that when that’s your priority. So, yes, that’s all good. Thanks, guys. I appreciate y’all sitting down with me talking safety. You know, it’s good information for our listeners out there and our owner operators, and to give her you know, get people that are not at Oakley, little inside the safety department with Carl and Dustin and what they do every day and it’s not an easy job for sure. And they do it and committed to try to make this company better and keep our safety rating under threshold. So All right, thanks guys, again for joining me. I appreciate everybody out there listening to the podcast. You know, it just means a whole lot that you keep listening to this and that you share it with your friends and you tell everybody about it because We’d love for to have more truck drivers listen to the podcast and get our name out there. And what we do here at Oakley, and you know our standard tiered Oakley and we’re looking for the best owner operators out there. So, we appreciate it if you if you share the Word and spread it once again. So thanks for listening and we’ll talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this episode with Oakley podcast, trucking, business and family. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate or review the show in the podcast platform of your choice and share it with a friend. We love hearing from our audience. So if you’ve got a question, comment or just want to say hello, head over to our website, the Oakley podcast.com and click the leave a comment but we’ll get you a response soon and may even share some of the best ones here on the show. We’ll be back with a fresh episode very soon. Thanks for listening!