Hey Drivers! Well here we sit in the month of May and things are good. The weather’s getting better, we’ve got plenty of freight to haul, business is booming, and your paychecks are bigger thanks to the biggest raise in our company’s history. Things are good, but they could be even better. Over the last couple of months we’ve had a lot of small incidents that have had a real effect on our bottom line. Collisions with poles, collisions with customers’ products stacked on their yard, collisions with bridges, and collisions with other trailers. We’ve had trucks towed out of mudholes. Doors knocked off trailers. Fuel spills. And trailers dropped with damaged tires and no post trip inspection. Every single one of these incidents could have been avoided. They were all preventable. So why did they happen? In most cases, the driver was in a hurry. You all are busy. You’ve got pressure to get there on time. And that pressure can cause some drivers to cut corners. For most of these collisions, if the driver had got out and looked (remember that? G.O.A.L.? Get out and look?) the collision never would have happened. But it takes time to get out and look, right? Yep. But I bet every one of those drivers who hit something or had to get towed out of a mudhole would get out and look if they had to do it all over again. The other place we’ve seen drivers cut corners is on pre trip and post trip inspections. This has been one of the most frustrating things we’ve dealt with all year. You are required by law to do a thorough pre trip and post trip inspection. You are required to fill out an inspection form on a post trip inspection if you find something wrong. These are not M&W rules that we can make exceptions for whenever we want. These are FMCSA requirements that will cause us big problems and hurt our business if they’re not followed. We can be audited and fined. If you’re inspected and get a violation for something that should have been caught on a pre trip inspection, that violation is on M&W’s record for two years. Every violation raises our CSA score. And every time our CSA score is raised we are less attractive to our current customers and potential customers. Also, when our CSA score goes up, that leads to more redlights on your prepass, which leads to more inspections which cost us time, and the more we’re inspected the more opportunity they have to write us up for something. Then the whole cycle begins again, getting worse every time. Cutting corners hurts our business. This applies to drivers as well as office staff. We spend a ton of time in the office just making sure we’re compliant with all the regulations. If we cut corners, our business suffers. It’s up to all of us to make sure we’re doing things the right way for the sake of safety and the stability of our business. Keep that in mind as you go through each day. All the little things you do have a direct affect on our business. It’s not just you and a truck out there. When you hit that pole, someone has to make that repair to your truck. Someone has to deal with the customer and make sure our relationship with them hasn’t been damaged. Someone has to deal with insurance and paperwork. Someone has to make an accident file. Someone has to write a check. All these things take time and money. Successful businesses like ours have plenty of both. But we have to work hard at it every day because if we get on a bad streak it can all disappear in a hurry. And when it does, raises, giveaways, new trucks, and all those types of things are going to be much harder to come by. All this is in your control, though. Don’t cut corners and we’ll enjoy the benefits of being a part of this amazing, successful company for a long time to come. Thank you all. Be safe.