I recently read an interesting blog post on the Department of Transportation’s website. There were several things that caught my attention about the headline, “DOT joins Network of Employers for Traffic Safety to help drivers get ‘Back to Basics’.”
1. A “Network of Employers for Traffic Safety” — what if there were a network of EMS employers, private and public from across the country, that worked to improve EMS safety, driving safety specifically. That’s a pretty cool thought. Standards and expectations would become consistent across EMS providers all over the nation.
Quite a few years ago, there was an effort to create and promulgate a set of voluntary consensus standards. I don’t know that it went very far, but it planted a seed, at least for me.
2. The second thing that caught my eye in this headline was the term “Back to Basics.” The basics of driving — not code 3 driving, not evasive maneuvers, but basic driving: Things like safe following distance, signaling, proper lane changes; correct, safe and comfortable starting and stopping.
I would also like to see us promote the fundamentals of safe, courteous driving.
The DOT blog post came about as a result of a national meeting of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance held in Minn.
More than 400 truckers from across the country competed in a friendly driving competition. Eligible drivers had to be collision-free, regardless of fault, for at least a year prior to the competition. Would you be eligible?
Next, participants had to take and pass a written test on safe driving. How would you make out?
Then participants performed the driving section, which consisted of a driving course, safe driving practices and negotiating real-world scenarios. It sounds a little like EVOC with additions. (FYI, a driver from Fed-X won. He has more than 2.1 million miles of professional driving experience; we don’t even log our drivers’ miles.)
While there are obvious differences, we in EMS share a lot of similarities to commercial truck drivers:
- We are professionals.
- We operate on congested roadways.
- We share the roads with drivers of differing skills, abilities and sobriety.
- We are often taken for granted — the millions of successful miles pass unnoticed while the bad one gets all the attention.
I can imagine an EMS driving competition with companies, services and agencies from all over, showing that driving and safety can be serious and fun at the same time.
I can imagine a competition where everyone learns something and has the opportunity to go back home and share with their colleagues. I know it can be done: I set up one local and started one national driving “rodeo.”
Consider the following statement from the American Trucking Associations’ website: “The National Truck Driving Championships are an excellent way to encourage safe driving habits, instill professional pride, and increase commitment and retention.”
Do we deserve any less in EMS? We face many of the same challenges of image, pride and retention.
In the trucking world this competition is called the “Super Bowl of Safety” and each year encourages thousands of drivers to operate collision-free.
We do deserve a Super Bowl of Safety. We do need encouragement to operate collision-free. We need pride and a reason to stay in the business.
So what do you say? Are you up to the challenge?
