Hire Truckers Podcast

00:00 - 00:10
Aaron Craddock: Welcome to the Hire Truckers podcast where we interview experts in driver recruiting. We provide industry insights, marketing trends, and motivation to help you level up your recruiting game.

00:10 - 00:46
Ginger Craddock: Welcome to the Hire Truckers podcast. I'm your host, Ginger Craddock. Today's guest started out as a professional driver, and then he's moved up the ranks in safety and compliance and is today making a real difference in the lives of other drivers and serving fleets at TVC Pro Driver. So today's podcast guest is Brian Runnels, the Director of safety and compliance at TVC Pro-Driver. Welcome, Brian.

00:46 - 00:48
Brian Runnels: Hi, Ginger. How are you?

00:48 - 01:11
Ginger Craddock: Great. I heard your presentation at the Ari Garrison Safety Summit, and I immediately came up to you after the presentation and said, Brian, I would love to bring your story to the Hire Truckers podcast. So thank you so much for your yes. I can't wait for our audience to hear your story and your success within the industry.

01:12 - 01:14
Brian Runnels: Sure. Absolutely. Can't wait to tell it.

01:14 - 01:32
Ginger Craddock: Excellent. So as I kind of alluded to in the intro, Brian, you began your career behind the wheel. So what originally drew you to trucking? And how did that evolve into a leadership role in safety and in compliance?

01:32 - 01:46
Brian Runnels: Well, actually, if you wanna go even farther back than that, I started wrenching on trucks when I was about 18. My dad was a driver. My mom was a driver. So it was kinda just going into the family business. I didn't really have anywhere else to go.

01:46 - 02:19
Brian Runnels: But, yeah, it it started I I went behind the wheel in 1992, stayed there until the end of 02/2011. And then from that point on, was very, very lucky and blessed to, the last six or seven years I drove. Did some really good things for that company, won some awards, did did different things, and got noticed by the the safe the VP of safety there. And he pulled me off the road and and put me in a safety position. And it that's how it all started.

02:19 - 02:36
Brian Runnels: It was a a great learning experience. That was a fantastic company. It was Gordon Trucking back in the day. They were purchased in 2014 by Heartland Express. But when they were Gordon, it was it was a very, very good structured safety department.

02:36 - 02:46
Brian Runnels: So I I learned a lot of good habits there, and that it pretty much carried me through the way I do things all the way up until this point. So very happy with the way that turned out.

02:47 - 03:24
Ginger Craddock: That's incredible. And and I love we we know the pain point that the industry is feeling with having really good quality mechanics and technicians. And knowing that you started out renting and then went to the driver role, went to the safety piece, each of those no doubt has informed each next step. So let's start with what lessons from the time as a driver still shape how you approach safety and compliance today?

03:24 - 04:01
Brian Runnels: Well, there was the the biggest lesson for me was really the it sounds so simple is the space management. That can either make or break your career. And at one point and I'm I'm very lucky that it wasn't in today's litigious society and things like that, but I'd I'd crashed I rolled a truck over because of lack of spatial awareness and not reacting the right way and ended up hurting people. It's it's a whole much longer story than we have time to get into. But, you know, from that point forward, things definitely changed.

04:01 - 04:16
Brian Runnels: I was about two years into my career. It was 1996. And like I said, it way different societal pressures now with a crash like that. You look at it now, and my goodness, I could have gone to jail. Nobody died.

04:16 - 04:40
Brian Runnels: Thank god. But, you know, I could have gone gone to jail for just the lack of attention that I had. I was able to and you can't even do it now. I I was able to go to traffic school for the ticket that I received and was able to get back behind the wheel, which is a scary thought in itself, but I was. And then went 2,000,000 miles without scratching the paint on anything.

04:40 - 05:28
Brian Runnels: And it was just a simple lesson of knowing what's going on around you and really giving you know, you we hear all the time that a four wheeler or another driver is gonna do something crazy or stupid. You have to have that spatial awareness, and you have to have that time to react in preparation for that happening. And it is possible to do that with it does may take some training, and it may take the driver to actually be accepting of that training and not just thinking, oh my god. Another one of these things. You know, when those things are offered to you offered to a driver, man, take advantage of that because some of those trainings are really expensive for companies to to purchase and and put out there for their drivers.

05:28 - 05:36
Brian Runnels: They're doing it for a reason. It's not just to check a box. It's on the driver if he just wants to check the box and say, okay. Yeah. I got it.

05:36 - 05:44
Brian Runnels: But if you really take it and and use it, then it's some phenomenal advantage to you.

05:45 - 07:04
Ginger Craddock: Well, and the credibility that you have in speaking to drivers and the credibility that you have in speaking to safety professionals and say, hey. Here's what you're helping your drivers avoid. Here's why it's important to engage them on that personal level so they realize the impact that this can have on their career and how just a professional driver is aware of these nuances and owns these nuances knowing that the driving public, to your point, is gonna do dangerous things in front of these huge moving commercial vehicles. And so when you're talking about space, we most of our audience is executives in in trucking and and people that understand these nuances, but we also get the occasional listener who is just curious. So paint for me a picture of what kind of driving distance is needed for a commercial vehicle and what's one common mistake that the driving public makes when that open space is there with for a truck?

07:04 - 07:33
Brian Runnels: Well, it definitely seems like now more than ever, everybody's out for themselves. So it's if there's this much space, I'm gonna take it because it's mine. And they don't know what it takes to stop one of these trucks. They have no ideas. And and to the equipment's benefit and to the driver's benefit, boy, there's so many technologies out there and better braking and disc brakes now instead of drum brakes and, you know, that that has improved.

07:33 - 08:02
Brian Runnels: But the problem is is the cars have improved as well. So it's almost a level playing field with you still need that six seconds. You know, it's 10 mile or one second for every 10 miles an hour is kind of the the roughest rule. And I heard it all the time when I was on the fleet side, we'd be doing some sort of safety training like Smith system or something like that. And I oh, we can't keep that.

08:02 - 08:36
Brian Runnels: You know, there people cut us off all the time. Like, yeah, they they will. And it's your job as the professional to get it back. It may take a couple seconds, but you can get it back. And it's interesting because it also puts a a level of well, shall I say, a a level of angst when I I see those types of crashes, you know, when it or I see a truck that's following a car very, very closely.

08:37 - 09:14
Brian Runnels: And I'm thinking, does that driver not know what the possibility is if that car hits the brakes? And to me, the biggest thing is and, you know, we start getting into physics and and miles per hour versus time and and all this. And but the one thing to me is there's about two seconds or a little over two seconds that it takes your brain to react to something happening in front of you and to react. Well, at 60 miles an hour, you're going a 100 feet per second. And that's 200 feet before anything even happens.

09:14 - 09:48
Brian Runnels: So if that if that car slows down immediately in front of you, in the first 200 feet, you're gonna run them over and never even never even touch the brakes. So it's it's that space that you have to have to not only save lives, but to not get into any sort of trouble. And for following following too close violations, things like that, which we'll talk about later, you know, all that's a product of just not having spatial awareness.

09:49 - 10:05
Ginger Craddock: So when we're thinking about the most common pitfalls, what are you seeing for fleets or drivers? What are they running into in terms of common pitfalls, Brian, and what can they do to prevent those?

10:06 - 10:11
Brian Runnels: Are there pitfalls as far as, managing their compliance or or something like that?

10:11 - 10:12
Ginger Craddock: Yes. Sure.

10:12 - 10:36
Brian Runnels: Well, on the on the driver side, it's I think a lot of lack of education because let's face it. The compliance world is that's the paperwork side of trucking and, you know, doing their logbook correctly. And we we see a lot of fault driver falsification of logs, whether it's accidental, on purpose, you know, whatever it is. We see a lot of that. That falls under compliance.

10:36 - 11:23
Brian Runnels: So that's a huge pitfall is trying to make more out of something like hours in a day that aren't really there or something as simple as a a permit book. We we see at TBC, we see violations all the time for vehicles not having an annual inspections, for not having your medical card, for not having the right permits, for for things like that. That is all just general stuff that compliance things that a driver needs to have all the time. On the company side, common pitfalls that we see on compliance is a lot of the same, making sure that the drivers have the correct things, enforcing hours of service rules. You know, pretty much everybody's on ELDs.

11:23 - 12:01
Brian Runnels: There are exceptions, but pretty much everybody's there. And, you know, there's reports that come up with unassigned drive time and their personal conveyance usage and and things like that. And it's a company's requirement to monitor those things. And, you know, whether it's coaching, whether it's progressive discipline, whether you know, whatever that looks like to correct that issue, that is something that they should be doing. So I see that that being a common pitfall if it's not the manpower to do it or, you know, hey.

12:01 - 12:50
Brian Runnels: We we gotta get that load there, reason to do it, or maybe just a a a lack of education on that end. Because, you know, one of the things that that we had talked about previously was that transition from driver to safety. And I was very, very lucky to have an incredible support system and education system to teach me the right things to do that. I'm sure there are drivers that come off the road that wanna move into a position like safety, and they get thrown to the wolves and learn as they go. And that's very, very difficult for no other reason than just trying to keep on top of the compliance part of things, you know, whether it's DQ files, hours of service, permitting, you know, all those different things.

12:50 - 13:06
Brian Runnels: It's it's a full time deal just to do that. And now you haven't even started talking about doing safety because safety and compliance are completely two different things, and they have to be handled separately.

13:07 - 13:23
Ginger Craddock: So with the light bulb went off for me when you said safety and compliance are two different things. So help our audience understand what the difference is between these two. I thought you explained that really well.

13:23 - 13:47
Brian Runnels: Yeah. So like I said, the compliance thing is the paperwork side. That a lot of that is files and paperwork and things like that. That is the rules that you have to live by to operate a trucking company or to drive for a trucking company. Safety is your proactive measures to keep from having violations, citations, crashes, bad roadside inspections, things like that.

13:47 - 14:03
Brian Runnels: Those are the things that you do to prevent those bad things from happening. So compliance is a a more of a reactive side. Safety is a true proactive side of the trucking industry.

14:04 - 14:31
Ginger Craddock: That explanation is gold. And so we want safe drivers. They are the elite drivers in the space. And so I know TVC Pro driver offers things to help fleets in these areas that we're talking about. Can you give an overview of what you guys offer that supports both the driver and the fleet operations?

14:32 - 15:07
Brian Runnels: Sure. So first, let me say, TVC is a membership based organization where, you know, it's a it actually reg it's set up as an auto club. So drivers will join from whether it's through their fleet or, you know, there's some sort of setup there. And then what that does is it supplies drivers primarily with legal resources in case they get some sort of civil infraction out on the road. And, you know, it it in a perfect world, nobody ever needs that.

15:07 - 15:38
Brian Runnels: But, realistically, it does happen and happens often. So we have a network of roughly 7,000 attorneys that are nationwide in all the different jurisdictions up at in Canada as well. And if a driver receives a citation, they can go to, we can have one of the attorneys go to court form and and help them out with that. On the backside of it, we have a team at TVC that handles any data cues that are affiliated with that citation. So we take care of that once the citation is done.

15:39 - 16:22
Brian Runnels: My team also does work with violations on inspection reports that there are no citation to. We also help companies challenge crashes, that are found in the crash preventability determination program so we can help them with all those types of things. And then as the the added resource of kinda what I do is, you know, I'm also available for the fleets that have their drivers enrolled in our programs that I can do driver safety meetings for them. We do a lot of work. We've got teams boxing up stuff for driver appreciation week right now and getting ready for that.

16:22 - 16:54
Brian Runnels: So we do a lot of that for our customer base. And, you know, just getting that word out a lot of times, it's just hearing it from someone different that may make a difference or having a different story to tell. You know, safety directors, and I I was guilty too. You're just constantly banging on your drivers all the time and, you know, constantly talking to them and trying to get the same things through them. And sometimes it you almost sound you almost feel like you're Charlie Brown's teacher, you know, doing the want want want thing.

16:54 - 17:10
Brian Runnels: And it's it's good to have another voice come in and and say, no. Really, what they're saying is important. You listen to what they're saying. So that's some of the stuff we do. We have some resources that we can get, fleets, but that's kind of the additional bonus that that we provide.

17:11 - 17:51
Ginger Craddock: Well, on the safety side. Saw that in real time at the safety summit. You know, your ability to affirm and encourage and challenge and cast vision for the safety professionals, like the way that you connected it to your personal story and the work that they're doing as safety professionals helping their drivers. Like, was incredible. I I could see the light come on in the room, not just for myself and the things I'm learning as a vendor, but for the safety professionals that are in it every day.

17:52 - 18:08
Ginger Craddock: That personal connection that you made and just the tools that you shared with them, I saw the light coming on and they felt helped, empowered. That was some of the feedback that I got from the safety professionals after your presentation. So really well done, Brian.

18:08 - 18:35
Brian Runnels: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. I I think that when you can talk, when you can relate to them on the level that they're they're at and you understand what they're going through, whether it's a driving level or a safety director or anything like that, to be able to pull those resources. I know that when I was an over the road trainer, the company Gordon did a great job of putting us in contact with other trainers.

18:36 - 18:49
Brian Runnels: And we were able to reach out to other trainers and say, look. I just can't get through to this guy. I've tried this, this, this, this. Maybe it's a backing issue. And, you know, I've I've done all the tricks that I know.

18:49 - 18:57
Brian Runnels: And I could call one of our other trainers. I say, alright. I've tried all these. What else you got? And they would give you try this.

18:57 - 19:33
Brian Runnels: Okay? And sure enough, it would work. Well, now instead of being angry that someone had a better idea than I, now I've actually got that bullet in my gun too. That instead of having four things to try, now I got five things to try. And if you can take that, whether you're a driver or in safety or anywhere, really, if you can take that and just add it to what you already have instead of being threatened by someone having a better idea than you, then you can do a lot when it comes to safety because then you can relate to more people.

19:33 - 20:18
Ginger Craddock: A 100%. And, man, we are all we we are rowing in the same direction to, you know, put more safe drivers, equip more safe drivers on the road. And, it's a team it's a team win, and you've painted that picture really well that that you're able to affirm someone else and say, hey, thank you for that pro tip. But then to your point, you've also expanded what's in your tool belt to help the next driver and how that multiplies over time and raises the level for the entire industry, the entire team. And I love that you're collaborative in that way.

20:18 - 20:21
Brian Runnels: Now we just gotta get the industry to do it all together.

20:21 - 20:31
Ginger Craddock: That's right. That's right. And and I believe that we're on a mission to do that in some of these things that we are a part of bigger picture.

20:31 - 20:56
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20:57 - 21:03
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21:03 - 21:23
Ginger Craddock: So that brings me to my next question around technology. There's a lot of conversation around technology. So what role does technology like the ELDs, the dash cams, and data analytics play in building a safer, more compliant fleet today?

21:23 - 22:03
Brian Runnels: Quite honestly, that answer is it depends. It depends on what you're doing with that data and doing with that information. You know, there are there is so much being thrown, especially at a safety director or a safety team, so much data coming in that they're really unless you've got a full team to manage this, which some of you know, the bigger companies have that. You get down to small I say smaller, probably less than 200, a 150 trucks, something like that. Now your safety department's getting smaller and smaller and smaller, and there's still a ton of data coming in from those 150 trucks.

22:04 - 22:42
Brian Runnels: It's so important to find what that data point is that you need to focus on because you don't want to just let a whole bunch of stuff not get checked on or discussed because you're on one data point, but you do have to pick out, okay. What is the most likely to cause a crash? What is the most likely to cause violations in this area, of the country? You know, I live in Indian Indianapolis. Indiana's the the state patrol here is famous for writing unsafe driving violations on an inspection report.

22:42 - 23:13
Brian Runnels: And you know that, okay, by studying that data that you have coming in, those trucks that are in this area, you really gotta focus on their speed. So you you gotta talk to them about that. The cameras are the other thing. If if a company is not coaching on the camera footage they're receiving, first of all, you gotta filter out the noise because there's so much stuff that would come in. There's there's ways to filter out some of that noise to where you're just working with the actionable items.

23:13 - 23:53
Brian Runnels: So many of these of the camera vendors and stuff, they're set up for self coaching and and different things like that and take advantage of that. But, you know, once you coach on those cameras, it's been proven that the the fleets do improve. And I'm I'm not saying one vendor's better than the other. They all they all say that same thing that if you coach on it, the fleets get better. And quite honestly, if you have that stuff and you're not coaching on it and you're not using it, that is gonna open you up to some litigation maybe in the future that you don't wanna be opened up to.

23:53 - 24:25
Brian Runnels: So, you know, if if you have it, you better be using it, and you better be documenting what you're using because the data is good. The the technologies are good. The cameras are great, for the most part. And even when they're not great and shows something that is not to your benefit, at least maybe it can be taken care of quicker because there's no argument of fault. There's no argument of preventability.

24:25 - 24:31
Brian Runnels: Okay. We're gonna we're gonna pay this. Let's pay it. You know? So that's something that the and the technology is just getting better.

24:32 - 24:52
Brian Runnels: The things that are on trucks now are amazing. The question I have is, are drivers trained on how to use that stuff? And why does that stuff react like it does? If you don't understand that, then you don't understand why it's doing what it's doing. That's probably some sort of driver behavior that needs to be corrected.

24:52 - 25:16
Ginger Craddock: Well, in that connection that you made with the data on the coaching, if you use the data to coach and extrapolating out what the highest you used a word that I know is really important. Explain for our audience accident versus crash.

25:16 - 25:38
Brian Runnels: Yeah. I I have such a problem with the word accident because there are no accidents. Somebody messed up. Somewhere along the line, someone made a mistake that caused a crash. That's why, you know, the feds call it the crash preventability determination program.

25:38 - 25:59
Brian Runnels: It's not the accident preventability. It Let's call things what they are. And, yeah, that the word accident just I don't know. It's one of those maybe not silly things, but it's just one of those things that twist me funny that it's not an accident. Stop saying that it is.

25:59 - 26:11
Brian Runnels: You know, whether it was somebody else or whether it was you, someone caused a crash. And I I wish we would just get to calling it what it truly is.

26:12 - 26:59
Ginger Craddock: Well and and when I think about my personal driving behavior, after you and I had that conversation accident versus crash, and I was digesting just the incredible content from the safety summit, I began to ask myself the question, what are the practices that I'm doing on the road? Because I I log 3,000 miles in ten days in my personal vehicle. You know, it's the nature. I I love transportation for many reasons and my time on the road is part of it. But I began to ask myself that question of what actions am I taking that are practices that are preventing crashes?

27:01 - 27:41
Ginger Craddock: Ask yourself that question. It improved some driving moments just because I challenged myself by asking the question differently to myself. And if I can mean the person in the mirror is the the hardest person for me to manage. And so working on that, I encourage everyone in our audience, professional drivers, support people in the industry, whoever you are, ask yourself, when I'm on the road, what actions am I taking to prevent crashes? Because we all can improve the experience on the road and we all can improve safety on the road.

27:41 - 27:54
Ginger Craddock: So that brings me to my next question. How do you balance the need for strict compliance with the everyday realities and pressures that our drivers are facing on the road?

27:56 - 28:39
Brian Runnels: On the compliance side, quite honestly, it's most well, let's say, most often, companies don't have the resources to hire somebody else to continue their their compliance efforts. The automation of compliance stuff has come so far. And if you can really take advantage of those types of softwares and things like that, which, you know, it's interesting. I've been into many, many companies when I was doing loss control on the insurance side. And I'd ask them about some of their processes and some of their softwares that they're using and stuff like that.

28:40 - 29:16
Brian Runnels: And they're using they have a particular recruiting software or or driver management software, and they're using it to about 20% of its capabilities because it was at the time, it was just an important thing to get it in there and get it on. And number one, they're paying for stuff that they're not using, which is mind blowing. But if you actually start using the software that you already have, now all of a sudden, okay. It's managing all my DQ files. It's managing this.

29:16 - 29:53
Brian Runnels: It's managing my drug and alcohol program. It it's doing all this. Now that stuff is off of a compliance person's desk. Now maybe you can start making a transition to having them do safety work. So that is my my biggest thing is look into what there's so many platforms out there now for driver compliance and stuff like that that, you know, put one of those in place and take that burden off of somebody because it's it's pretty amazing some of the stuff that these platforms can do.

29:53 - 30:08
Brian Runnels: Everything from managing your your IFTA miles to, like I said, DQ files, your hours of service, your drugs and alcohol, your maintenance, all that stuff's available to be automated As automate as much as you can.

30:08 - 30:20
Ginger Craddock: And the automation then, I hear what you're saying, opens up opportunity for those professionals to focus more on the safety side for their drivers. That's key. Right.

30:21 - 30:21
Brian Runnels: Exactly.

30:22 - 30:39
Ginger Craddock: And so for drivers and professionals in our industry looking to move up in their career into this safety role, what advice would you give for stepping into a role like yours, Brian?

30:42 - 31:09
Brian Runnels: No. It's it's a great step to take. At the time, for me, it was, you know, my it was time to to to be off the road and take advantage of some of the stuff that I'd worked really hard to do on the driving side. My advice is learn as much as you can. Don't just sit there and and monitor DQ files or or whatever it is.

31:09 - 31:31
Brian Runnels: Re you know, actually reach out. There's so many resources now to get education, and a lot of them are free. You know, there's a ton of different podcasts. There's a ton of different resources online that you can get really, really good information. Heck, you can get a lot of stuff from the FMCSA's website.

31:31 - 31:56
Brian Runnels: That is that is a huge benefit. And if you're on the free plug for for them, the FMCSA safety planner, if you've never used it, use it. It really is the regulations for dummies. You know, those four dummies books that came out years ago, the the safety planner does that. It really takes a lot of the the jargon out.

31:56 - 32:21
Brian Runnels: There's a there's forms library in there. There there's all sorts of information in there, and that is one of the one of the great tools to use. But and then be involved. You know, if if the company you work for is a part of an association of some sort, like a state association or something like that, oftentimes that is a very, very good resource to get information and education as well.

32:21 - 32:35
Ginger Craddock: That's incredible. Excellent pro tips. Thank you so much. So for fleets wanting to know more about the services that you offer at TVC Pro Driver, where can they connect with you, Brian?

32:36 - 32:56
Brian Runnels: Tvcprodriver.com. All the contact information's there. Everything we offer is on there. Actually, the and then the safety stuff on the on the back end where we're we're doing driver meetings and and things like that, that's just something as a fleet you can talk to your your rep about, and we can get you guys set up on doing things like that.

32:56 - 33:33
Ginger Craddock: Listen, Brian. Thank you so much for your time today. I'm always on the lookout for industry professionals that are doing what I call expanding the mountaintop of leadership. They're industry professionals that are leveling up what is delivered in our industry. And, Brian, I deeply appreciate that you are one of those professionals that is expanding the mountaintop of leadership and just improving driver safety and supporting and equipping drivers, supporting and equipping fleets.

33:33 - 33:36
Ginger Craddock: Thank you so much for the work that you're doing.

33:36 - 33:39
Brian Runnels: Of course. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it, Ginger.

33:39 - 33:51
Aaron Craddock: Thank you for joining us today. Our goal with the Hire Truckers podcast is to provide industry insights, marketing trends, and motivation to level up your recruiting game. If we added value, take a few seconds to share this with your network. Have a great week.