According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration: “Distracted driving is any activity that diverts attention from driving, including talking or texting on your phone, eating and drinking, talking to people in your vehicle, fiddling with the stereo, entertainment or navigation system—anything that takes your attention away from the task of safe driving.”
As a fleet manager, you have warned your drivers of the dangers of distracted driving:
- Put that cellphone away! A mere five seconds of reading or sending a text takes your eyes off the road for the length of a football field or more.
- Take care of your trucking business before ever turning the key—adjust your mirrors, adjust the volume on your radio and electronics, and review your route—so your full attention is on the road.
- Once underway, focus on the messages the road is sending about your safety: the city lights ahead telling you to anticipate increased traffic, the weaving driver saying be cautious, and the work zone sign signaling lane closures and reduced speeds.
But there is a different kind of distracted driving: worry. It can be worry about home and family. Worry about personal finances. Worry about job security and business challenges. Worry about the impact of pending regulations or the company’s transition to team drivers. Whatever the source, during long hours of driving, worry can fill a driver’s mind—and take that mind off the road. This is a different type of distracted driving, but it is just as dangerous.
Fleet managers are not trained psychologists … well, most aren’t, anyway. But almost all fleet managers are coaches. Fleet managers lead a team, showing the steps to achieving the best results, coordinating the efforts of personnel, and keeping everyone’s eye on the ultimate goals of safety, efficiency, and profitability.
See also: Fleets Explained: What is distracted driving?
We’ve all seen the coach grab a distracted player and yell, “Get your head in the game!” That may work, but it’s probably a little late. Better that the need to focus on the task at hand is set out long before.
One of the many coaches I had throughout my school days divided the need to focus into two pots. He said one pot contained our practices and the competition. Just two hours a day. However, to achieve our goal of winning required our full focus for those two hours. The other pot—22 hours—held our schoolwork, meals, rest, and time with friends and family. Those were important and deserved our concentration during the hours away from the field or the gym. But if we jumbled the contents of the two pots, we would not be successful at either.
No doubt, truck driving takes more than two hours a day. Still, the lesson fits. Achieving the ultimate goals of safety, efficiency, and profitability requires full focus while driving. The balance of a truck driver’s life is also important and deserves concentration while away from work. Neither can be successfully achieved when the mind is distracted.
Distracted driving is dangerous. Safety requires drivers to keep their eyes, ears—and their minds—on the road ahead.
