"Life is like a grindstone – whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends on what you’re made of."

– author unknown

There has been much discussion about driver health over the last several months, and for good reason. Walk through any truck show, truck stop or your own driver’s room. It is not hard to recognize that a large percentage of our professional drivers have opportunities to improve their health. These folks generate the revenue that feeds our industry, and they are also parents, spouses, siblings and co-workers who bring great value to those personal lives. And though our industry’s safety performance has continuously improved over time, our most important responsibility is to sustain that continuous improvement.

Another priority must be to improve and protect the image of our industry. We must do a better job of managing those public perceptions that directly influence regulatory agendas and open the door to a wider variety of adverse plaintiff actions. We should also be promoting the value of long, healthy lives and how each life affects and influences so many others. Only good things can come from a unified effort to promote driver wellness and to assist them in achieving healthier lifestyles.

Like all successful transportation and logistics companies, Greatwide always puts safety first alongside the satisfaction and success of our owner-operators and employees. So when we learned about the Healthy Tucking Association of America (HTAA), it caught our attention as its charter aligns so well with our internal priorities and the industry challenges I’ve discussed. The HTAA (healthytruck.org) has offered up a great platform for Greatwide to build our own wellness program upon, what we have branded Greathealth™. I also see it as a platform our industry can use to address the core challenges I described – safety, managing public perceptions, political action, claims defense and promoting quality of life among our drivers and their families.

I found I was rather naive when we first considered implementing a wellness program a couple of years ago. Hoping our owner-operators and company employees would get behind and participate in a wellness initiative, I instead found they were simply not interested. I think most just didn’t understand the implications of poor health habits. I also think our first attempt at wellness awareness was too passive, and we simply didn’t have the resources or expertise to create a truly effective program. Then came along the HTAA that provided access to members who specialize in various wellness-related services.

Now that we have some effective tools available thanks to the HTAA, I am very encouraged. For example, we installed Life Clinic Health Stations at six of our operating centers as part of a pilot program and the response has been great. One machine installed at a location where 175 owner-operators are based recorded 472 blood pressure readings the fist week.

Each location organized a wellness event the week the machines were installed. A healthy selection of food was served, and we invited HTAA staff along with their member service providers and some existing vendor partners of Greatwide.

Contractors were instructed on how to use the health station to get their BP, BMI, body fat and weight readings. All those readings are provided anonymously to help encourage participation. We also set up basketball hoops and have other ideas in the works to help encourage more physical activity, better eating habits and more frequent health evaluations. Early indications from these pilot events are very positive, and we look forward to expanding it across all Greatwide operating centers.

One thing I am most concerned about are additional regulatory requirements being considered by the FMCSA as part of its Comprehensive Safety Analysis 2010 that include initiatives aimed at identifying unsafe carriers and drivers. It proposes a safety fitness evaluation that, in part, focuses on a driver’s physical qualifications. This could easily result in new physical qualification standards such as a minimum Body Mass Index (BMI) qualification standard. If this happens, drivers will not have a choice but to get and stay healthy in order to remain qualified under DOT regulations.

Carriers must have capacity to meet service expectations and grow their business. We all know the recent severe driver shortage is masked only by the current recession. As the economy rebounds we will be dealing with that ever-worsening shortage once again. The last thing we need is for our available driver population to be reduced any more. And let’s face it, if a BMI requirement was implemented, a large percentage of our drivers would not immediately qualify.

I propose we get ahead of any government regulation and establish effective wellness programs as a best practice within our industry. That might even include requiring drivers to be more personally accountable for their health, which could be done through tougher hiring policy and internal qualification standards. I think it’s important that we as an industry establish those standards proactively before unrealistic ones are forced upon us through government regulations. HTAA can be a resource to help establish those practices and can provide a voice for us as regulatory agencies consider imposing their “fitness tests.”