Survive Your Alberta Transportation Audit:

Transcription

1 Survive Your Alberta Transportation Audit: 4 Tools For Automatic Compliance By Dariel Edey Custom Transportation Compliance Solutions Understandable, Practical, Guaranteed Notice Neither the author or the publisher make an expressed or implied warranties or guarantees of, or accept any responsibility liability whatsoever for the material in this guide. Survive Your Alberta Transportation Audit is protected by Copyright Laws Edey Consulting Services. All rights reserved. This guide may be reproduced and distributed freely in its original unaltered form. All reprints require the display of copyright notice and the Edey Consulting Services logo and web address. An Edey Consulting Services guide, published by Edey Consulting Services Edey Consulting Services Page 1 of 7

2 Dear Fleet Owner/Manager, Companies with commercial vehicles are under so much pressure today. The price of fuel, taxes, the lack of competent workers to hire, and pressure from customers to slash prices to the bone then wait 120 days to pay. Try waiting 120 days to pay your troops and see the mutiny. If that wasn t enough, there s regulatory compliance. If all the rules the you need to know to run your business were put in one place, the Encyclopaedia Britannica would seem small. Heaven forbid something goes wrong because you didn t adequately enforce National Safety Code Standard 10, Part 1, Sec 3(2)(b). And the tools that should make life easier are making things tougher. Pass a COR to get a reduced WCB rate. Fiddle around with ISNetword and Complyworks so a big company will hire you. Did you do all your due diligence? Is any of this really making our workplaces safer? It would be easier to stomach if it was. But, the more I talk to people, the more it seems like every year it s getting harder and less profitable to run trucks. Imagine one of your trucks gets shut down because the driver was over houred when he went through the scale. Mandatory 10 hours off. The load doesn t arrive on time, the customer is mad and you have to scramble to make it right. Add more stress to your life, take more profit out. But it can get worse. That moment could trigger a full blown audit. It s not a good feeling when 2 inspectors show up, demanding to see the drivers files. I help companies recover from situations just like that for a living. For one of many reasons, an audit is triggered. The scrutiny from Alberta Transportation can be jarring to an organization, stressful to the owner and the manager, and expensive to fix. But it doesn t have to be. Not if you are prepared. I have a passion for helping companies become compliant with Alberta Transportations rules. This guide was written to give you some tips on how to simplify compliance with Alberta Transportation s rulebook. It doesn t have to be painful, in fact, we pride ourselves in making it as easy as possible. I m here to help you. As a reader of this report, you are entitled to a complimentary Compliance Check Up (a $600 value). If you call and I m with a client, please leave a message. I will get back to you within 24 hours. My number is I hope you find this guide helpful. Dariel Edey 2011 Edey Consulting Services Page 2 of 7

3 Survive Your Alberta Transportation Audit: 4 Tools For Automatic Compliance By Dariel Edey Tool 1: A well written Transportation Safety Program. The job of any program is to take the rules, break them down into plain English, and make them easy to follow. That s not how most safety programs are designed, but the good ones are. The person building the program s job is to make sure everything needed to be in there is included. The first thing you ll need to easily pass an Alberta Transportation Audit is a well written Transportation Safety Program. Unfortunately, what Occupational Health and Safety is looking for in a Safety Manual and what Alberta Transportation is looking for are two different things. Keeping the two separate makes life easier. A program is required, and the more effort that goes into it, the better. This is not a place to skimp. It needs to be clear, concise, and compliant. It needs to have examples of all of your compliant forms. You might be asking How do I know if my program is compliant? The government gives a shortcut for rating your program. It s the National Safety Code (NSC) Compliance Quiz. This is the actual audit form they use for audits. It s at The trouble with the quiz is that it doesn t actually give deep details. It s like looking at fields from 1,000 feet in the air. You can tell if something s missing, but you can t tell if there is hail damage. Important questions to ask about your program are will it pass the NSC Quiz? is it easy enough to read that your average employee can understand it? was it custom built for your company? does the program writer stand behind their work? 2011 Edey Consulting Services Page 3 of 7

4 It is extremely important that your program is built right. The adage You get what you pay for doesn t seem to apply here either. We have found some rather interesting things in Professionally built, very expensive programs over the past year. Some random company s name o a livestock hauler in an oilfield service company s program Fill in the blanks, not filled in References to non-existent units o super b s in a hotshot company s program Disclaimers o The author of this program is not responsible for omissions or errors Standards unneeded o Yellow lines to designate safe areas in a company that didn t have a shop Standards unenforced o Hard hats required in a shop with no crane You can think of your program as a blueprint. If you have a good blueprint, and the contractors follow it well, you end up with a nice house. If the contractors don t follow it and just wing it, chances for a nice house are poor. It does not matter how well you follow a bad blueprint, the results are going to be bad. It doesn t matter how fancy your program is, if it isn t followed and integrated, it won t help you pass an audit. A complete, user friendly, implemented program is how you pass. Tool 2: A system to manage the drivers files It starts the day you hire them. You ll need to collect: application form employment history 5 year drivers abstract driver evaluation copy of the driver s license. After that, abstracts need to be updated annually. All tickets, convictions, and administrative penalties must be recorded as well. And then there is training. TDG, WHIS, Hours of Service, Cargo Securement, Pre-Trip Inspections. The NSC Quiz does not specifically say the 2011 Edey Consulting Services Page 4 of 7

5 training required. When your program is built, it is important to discuss everything your company does, so specific training can be built into it. Nobody is expecting you or your people to remember to do all of this perfectly every time. That s where the program comes in. It s job is to keep everything straight, so you don t have to. All you have to do is know where to look. Tool 3: A system to manage the unit files It starts at in service date. You ll need to collect: Identifying mark (Unit number/serial number) Make Model Year built Date you put the unit went into service. After that, all maintenance needs to be recorded. If there is no piece of paper recording the grease job, the grease job didn t happen. All CVIP s need to be filed, and you need to have a system to remind you to get them done. All according to your program. Tool 4: A system to teach and enforce Hours of Service rules The dreaded hours of service. The actual rules are outside the scope of this report. I have written a book called the Plain Language Guide to the Hours of Service. It is available at Most drivers do not know the hours of service. It s scary, but it s true. Just today, I taught an Hours of Service course. One guy in that course had been trucking for many, many years and had recently worked for a company famous for being sticky on their logs. He was mad that he had to be there at all, it was just wasting his day. 5 minutes into the course, he looked surprised. He had learned something. 8 times throughout the course, he learned something new. At the end he shook my hand and said a hearty thank you. I get that just about every time I hold an hours of service course Edey Consulting Services Page 5 of 7

6 But, an hours of service course only goes so far. I don t remember much from my Grade 9 Social Studies. I don t even remember my Grade 9 social studies teacher s name. Most of us only remember what we use. A good log book auditing system with disciplinary actions keeps reinforcing the concepts. It reinforces the hours of service. If not, everybody reverts to their natural state. There are many benefits to regular Hours of Service monitoring. Some of them are: Reduced/eliminated stops Out of Service Violations at the scale. Depending on the violation, a driver can be shut down at for up to 72 hours. Although that s rare, 10 hours in the bunk behind the scale is not uncommon. A driver that is not allowed to run over houred is never in a position to be shut down at the scale. Reduced fatigue related accidents Lower exposure to liability You prove due diligence It s a requirement to pass an NSC audit as a Federal Carrier. Conclusion I m not going to lie, for a company starting down the path to compliance with Alberta Transportation s rules, the process is complicated. Installing these tools in a company can be a lot of work. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it, without government intervention. I would be out of a job. Management, drivers, administrators, and mechanics all need to be trained. Systems need to be built and implemented. Everyone needs to know and perform their role. But once the systems are implemented in your company, it gets to be a habit. The work needs to be done, and depending on your fleet size, that can be a lot of work. But, everything happens. Automatically. A visit from Alberta Transportation becomes no problem. They can t touch you when you are ready for them. That s the secret magic formula, systematize compliance and you ll be ready. I ve worked with companies that had to 2 weeks to keep Alberta Transportation from shutting them down. That s expensive, before they levy 2011 Edey Consulting Services Page 6 of 7

7 Administrative Penalties. Then we had to systematize it all to keep it going. The earlier you integrate compliance into your company, the easier the process is. Don t wait, make sure you have a good transportation safety program, and start implementing it today. Edey Consulting Services Guarantees Your Success Few people in consulting have the guts to guarantee anything, but Edey Consulting Services (ECS) has a triple guarantee. 1. If ECS is contracted to audit your logs, violations will be reported to you by ECS, not by a government official. Guaranteed, or your money back. 2. All programs built by ECS will pass the Alberta Transportation Audit. Guaranteed, or your money back. 3. If ECS is contracted to act as your Transportation Safety Manager, you will pass your next Alberta Transportation Audit. Guaranteed, or ECS pays the fines.* *Guarantee 3 applies if we start working with you more than 8 months prior to your audit. What to do next Call me at or to arrange for your complimentary Compliance Check Up (a $600 value). We ll see where you re at, I ll spend some time teaching you and your managers, and I ll put together a plan to bring your company into compliance if needed. Whether your audit is next week, next month, or next year, we hope you will choose Edey Consulting Services to custom tailor a system that suits your needs. We make compliance as easy as possible for you and your company. We guarantee it! 2011 Edey Consulting Services Page 7 of 7