THE TRUCKER: American Central Transport Takes First Place in Truck Safety Category
The Trucker News Services
LIBERTY, Mo. — American Central Transport has taken first place in the General Commodities Truckload/Line-Haul Division/Between 20-50 Million Miles Category in American Trucking Associations national truck safety competition.
The carrier received its award during ceremonies at the ATA Safety Management Council’s 2013 Safety and Human Resources National Conference & Exhibition held recently at Sparks, Nev.
The ATA National Truck and Industrial Safety Contests are the only two national safety programs that recognize the extraordinary safety accomplishments of motor carriers across the United States by operation type and size.
The contests are judged based upon a trucking company’s safety experience.
The truck safety contest calculates an accident ratio based on vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and the number of DOT recordable accidents as well as based on “all accidents” which includes virtually all accidents involving property damage, injury or death, regardless of fault or DOT recordability. The all accidents ratio is used as a tiebreaker.
Carriers are judged on their safety records relative to others within their classes of competition. Safety records are determined from the carriers’ vehicle accident rates or lost workday case rates. Carriers enter based on type of operation.
A carrier with more than one type of operation can enter more than one category by recording the numbers that pertain only to that operation.
Each category is further broken down by local and line haul operations and again by VMT.
The type of operation categories are General Commodities Truckload, General Commodities Truckload, General Commodities Less than Truckload (LTL), Tank Truck, Heavy Hauler, Flatbed, Auto Transporters, Van/Small Truck Delivery, and Miscellaneous Fleets.
In the event a carrier ranks in the top three of a category/division, they undergo an independent audit overseen by the state trucking association of their domicile state, which verifies the numbers and ratio submitted.
Any carrier awarded first, second or third in any category division is invited to compete for the ATA President’s Trophy.
Entry requires the completion of application that encompasses the entire scope of a carrier’s safety operations.
These are judged by specially selected law enforcement judges, who generally specialize in commercial vehicle enforcement.