19. Charlie Charalambous of the IHSA (Infrastructure Health & Safety Association)

Charlie discusses "The Best Kept Secret in Trucking" and all the offering that the IHSA has to offer YOU the transportation professional. 

Charlie Charalambous, Coordinator, Research and Stakeholder & Public Relations, IHSA
Charlie Charalambous works for the Infrastructure Health and Safety Association (IHSA) as a Coordinator, Research and Stakeholder & Public Relations (Transportation). Charlie started his career in the transportation industry at Markel (Northbridge) Insurance working in Risk Services and then moved to ISB Global Services in 2017 where he led their commercial transportation sales division. In 2020 Charlie joined the IHSA in the Stakeholder and Client Relations Department. Charlie is an active member of the Fleet Safety Council and holds a seat on the Truck Training Schools Association (TTSAO) Board as the Director of Communication and Public Relations. Charlie also volunteers his time on the conference executive committees for the FSC Annual Conference, the National Recruiting and Retention Symposium and the TTSAO Annual Conference.

IHSA website: http://www.ihsa.ca/Homepage.aspx
IHSA Training Page: https://www.ihsa.ca/training/services.aspx
IHSA on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBAfn2JoEUM8s9yIzyRiVuA


Keeping it Safety Dawg Simple!

Transcript

Charlie (0s): What I really wanted to show you was safety in general trucking. So what happened last year was 

Chris, Safety Dawg (6s): That is a Charlie Charalambous. My guest for this week. Charlie's from the IHSA. The best kept secret in trucking and Charlie and I discuss all the benefits and deep dive into the IHSA. Join us. Welcome to the dog on it. Trucking podcast, where I get to talk to some of the industry. Great. You can show your appreciation by clicking a like subscribe, and please leave a comment. 

I want to know what your thoughts are with that. What's going on the show. Hey Charlie. Welcome to the dog on it. Trucking podcast. I'm the heck. Are you my friend? Good, Chris, how you doing? Excellent. Excellent. Charlie. I wanted you on the show because I was hoping you could shed some light on what I think is the best kept secret in the trucking industry. Can you tell us what IHSA is all about? 

Charlie (1m 7s): Absolutely. So the best kept secret as you call it. The IHSA stands for the infrastructure of health and safety association. So the IHSA probably is easier pressed to refer to it that way. In this point on the associates is Ontario's trusted health and safety resource. Our goal is to improve the lives of Ontario workers. It's the vision of the, I have to say for self sense, safe and healthy workplaces, frequent incidences illnesses, and fatalities. 

Chris, Safety Dawg (1m 40s): Awesome. Okay. So I said a mouthful. I know I, and you did, and it was great. You recently joined the IHSA. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and maybe your career path, just so that people understand what is available and what's out there in the transportation industry a little bit. 

Charlie (2m 3s): Absolutely. So my history or my, my career path and transportation started over 15 years ago, I was a corporate trainer. So being a corporate trainer, I was looking for an opportunity and I was fortunate to get a job at Markel health insurance, which is now North Ridge insurance. Yep. It started off downtown Toronto in corporate training before moving into the risk services department, which was safety and training at the time. And I had to get a little bit more exposure directly with our clientele at the time, which is only trying Markel was just trucking before you became Northbridge. 

So I continued there. I was there for 12 years and working in safety and training with services with some brave people design, some training programs, worked with organizations, trucking companies, POS Canada. After 12 years, I decided to try something a little different and took a sales role with another company where I was helping companies manage their chaining, your abstracts, ours from promo records or just things like that. But then a few months ago on March 2nd of this year, I started with the I'll just say I've had a pretty long history with the IHSA through something called the fleet safety council, gotten to know them really well. 

I've been a big fan for a long time and the opportunity came up and I looked, this was the place for me to go. So on March 2nd of this year, I officially became coordinator for research stakeholder and public relations. And how long was it before we went into the COVID lockdown, started your new job? Probably about a week. I started on March 2nd for the, my second week. We were asked to work from home and I've been working only from home ever since under lockdown. 

So trial by fire, I went right into it, ran into a health and safety association. Cool. And what a way to start a new job? Absolutely. Oh, cool. Can you, what's the purpose of, let's talk about IHSA a little bit. What's the purpose of AYA? Just say what's the goal? Well, as I mentioned before, I'd say his goal is to provide self, the safe self safe, and healthy resources for different sectors across Ontario, for employees to make sure that everybody is safe, healthy, and decent. 

Since it's holiday, it's done by providing services, resources, training to help control and eliminate hazards amongst the different groups. There's a focus on structural construction sector, electrical utilities, and of course transportation where I fall. And that's how I know why HSA, obviously I'm in the transportation field and they have a heck of a lot of resources available. Can you for the trucking industry and maybe all industries as a whole, but specifically for trucking, can you give us some examples of some of the things that are available? 

Well, sorry. Before we get into that, who is a member of IHSA? Okay, well, that's a fair question. So I just say, does have members and nonmembers and essentially companies who are registered and pay WSI B premiums, excuse me, WCB premiums into one of the IHSA designated sector. So as I mentioned, transportation, construction, electrical, utility, and aggregates are automatically members of IHSA because what happens is a portion of their WCB premiums are redirected into IHSA to focus on prevention. 

So that enables us to create these, these great resources to get back to the industry and support health and safety. And so if you were paying WSAB and you were in those, you're 

Chris, Safety Dawg (5m 58s): Automatically a member, there's no additional fee, 

Charlie (6m 1s): No additional fees. Another are fee courses that you can take, but there's different pace or rate structures depending on if you're a member or not. And it really does depend on your move rate of the bus WSI fees. So for transportation, for example, there are several rate groups where you could fall. That includes general Chuck bank, trucking courier, miscellaneous transportation, school buses falls under that lumber builder supplies and a tape wasting materials, the site with the other sentence, 

Chris, Safety Dawg (6m 32s): Hey, I'm going to throw a question at you and I remind the audience you've only been with IHS eight weeks. Well, I'm just curious somebody, I know just recently took a new job for a, I don't even know what you call them, but they're delivering Amazon parcels. Right? So, and it's part of the last mile group of people. And, you know, there's, there's a group of these companies and I expect a group of expanding companies in that marketplace. 

If they're paying WSID, would people like that be also part of IHSA. 

Charlie (7m 9s): So under Amazon, I would imagine that they can fall under that career right group. So the employer themselves would follow your WIB, which makes them an night say, 

Chris, Safety Dawg (7m 21s): Okay, I just, and I remind our audience, you know, Charlie's only been here for a few weeks. I asked them, but it's just because somebody I know has taken the job in that sector and with COVID and everything else. I just imagine it's an area of huge growth in the right now and for the foreseeable well future. So I just curious, that's all personal. 

Charlie (7m 48s): It makes perfect sense. And I w what I will share with you, this is that I do know, and that is 35% of IHSA membership right now is transportation, which sounds really good. And then I kind of tried to drill down on that a little bit more, and that actually equates to over 271,000 full time employees in the province of Ontario. So it kind of puts it in perspective right there. 

Chris, Safety Dawg (8m 14s): Sorry, hit the wrong button. That's a heck of a lot of people, and that's only 35%. I wonder how many, this isn't a question. Cause I wouldn't know it. I wonder how many people are employed in transportation. You're not Terry. No, it's a really good question. It's gotta be a huge amount of people because we know about driver inc. We won't get on that subject. And we know about owner operators, which are legit, but if there's driver inc owner-operators, those are people who own trucks that are totally self-employed because my company may only have one truck. 

For instance, if I'm the owner and I drive it, there's a lot of reason that there are people who don't pay. WSID a huge, I'm just curious. Anyone can, can you give us some examples of some of the services or some of the courses or step, well, there were in COVID. What do you have to offer for people who want to pick up some knowledge in the trucking industry about the resources that IHSA has for COVID-19 and truck drivers? 

Charlie (9m 19s): Sure. We can start with COVID 19, which is, you know, since I started and really what I've been working on in my role, I'm going to be working directly with the industry, creating new resources, but obviously with everything that's going on is going to have you focus on COVID actually, if I could share my screen, I can, I can show you what we've been doing. I have the website up. So this start sharing. I think so perfect. And what I'll do is actually I'll start at the very beginning. 

So if we go to ihsa.ca, as you can see, we've got a temporary landing page. Now people can go directly back to ISA main homepage, but for now, because of the temporary closures and all the emphasis on COVID-19, you'd have out of the section for COVID-19 resources, where when people going, I'll remind everybody, watching that this is open to everybody right now. So you can go in number, not have a look at this. 

We've got an update on our facility and you know, what's open, what's close, which they're all post right now, general COVID-19 links, some resources, but right here is the big one, which is sector specific COVID-19 that's links and resources. And as you can, sorry, go ahead. If I can just interrupt for a second, for those of our people who are listening and not watching, I will make sure I put it 

Chris, Safety Dawg (10m 43s): The sh links to IHSA down below so that you can check it out after you've listened to the podcast. I mean, we have you're on YouTube, but not everybody's on YouTube today. So, you know, Nope. 

Charlie (10m 58s): Fair enough. So I'll show you these two right here. So under transportation links and resources go to the page, we broke it up into three buckets. So there's announcements and what we've done there is just shared industry announcements. For example, you know, the central workers except for me. So that was a fitted on May 7th. We started to add those date added dates, make sure that everybody knows when it was put off in that it's relevant and looking for an update, sorry. 

Things are changing so quick that they helpful. Oh, absolutely. And we've, we've all seen it. Things are changing sometimes, you know, the same day, if not the next day, right? There's new announcements coming out all the time, a resource for drivers to wear masks, Porter cost. And that was a really big deal, not happening. And we're also sharing things like updates from the CTA of Acadian talking Alliance or trucking HR, Canada put everyone document some resources there. So we wanted to share those, make them available to the industry. 

And then a lot of what I've been working on with the team is putting up and creating specific guidance and best practice documents. Right? As you can see here, we've got a long selection or long list of different resources that we've read it, all done using a risk management methodology, falling a race formats. When I say race, it's an acronym for recognize the hazard. So are for recognized a for assess the hazard C for controls. 

What controls are you going to put into place to eliminate or minimize the, the hazard and B for evaluate? So it's like any other good process you want to reevaluate everything, make sure it's working and keep it up to date and make sure that it's giving the, you know, everything that people need. Yup. Lots of examples up here, guidance on daily decontamination. So an example of that is, you know, when a driver goes home to be able to place where they can get changed and keep those work clothes separate from everything else. 

So they're not potentially bringing in bringing in anything new the home that could contaminate their home area, scrolling down your guidance on fueling vehicles for drivers during COVID-19. So that was a really big one. I'm not sure I'll click on this to kind of show you the, the format and what it looks like. So they generally have an overview. We recognize the hazard. So that's our, our, and you know, and assess the risks. So we do know, and the COVID ones all follow very similar farm format, right? We know how coronavirus is spread coughing, sneezing, personal contact person and so forth. 

But what are the potential hazards once you're in the vehicle and then list them. So they have to get out of the vehicle. They've got a touchdown company, angle, nozzle, and bat. When they go into paper entry door, counter, top of the building, right washrooms in the facility, when they go up to the lottery ticket kiosk, close contact with other individuals at the fueling station. So these are risks that we have identified, and then we provide some controls. 

So the reminder to maintain physical distance saying specific procedures while at the fuel stops. So make sure that they're wearing the appropriate PPE from the moment they leave the tab. So make sure they have gloves on them, extra hand sanitizer. If they're using a shared vehicle, wipe down that gas cap before you use it, wipe down the, the pump handle or the touchscreen when you're selecting your fuel. So things like that. Yeah. Fun. If you're in a shared cab, my goodness, it's good to assuming that you're not, it's not a team truck, but a shared truck. 

You have to wipe down the whole truck before a great deal of the interior before they should third drive it. Totally. Which would bring you to guidance on cleaning and sanitizing inside your vehicle during COVID-19. We recognize that something that's going to happen definitely shared vehicles. And I'm glad you brought that one up. I'm going to jump back for a moment because these just came up the other day and I just say is posted some self-help videos. One of them is sanitizing continued commercial vehicles. 

Speaker 2 (15m 15s): Well, so I won't bring this up. The link is obviously there, but put a seven minute long video where we actually detail how to clean the inside of the cab. So great instructional videos. You know, the other one that's really relevant here, I guess, for, for everybody is donning and doffing, a disposable latex cloud, right? So we all know that 

Charlie (15m 35s): No gloves are appropriate PPV or latex gloves can be, but there is a proper way to remove and dispose of it. And I'll put links. Are they on YouTube? Those videos? Yes. So when you click on, learn more here from the HSA website, it does direct you to a page specific to those videos on YouTube. And we are constantly creating more nodding, more resources to these, but those two videos specifically are targeting. 

I hope my audience, or at least to the people like management, who may say to truck drivers, ain't go watch this. I saw I'll put those links directly to those YouTube videos in the show notes below. So people can click on them directly and maybe share them. Oh, that'd be great. Yeah. And I think you're absolutely right. It's, they're short for, to the point, I think like the cleaning of the commercial motor vehicles, one seven minutes long, or just under seven minutes. But you know, in this day and age everybody's got some sort of a smart phone easily as a safety manager and owner of a company. 

Then just email that link out to your drivers and ask them to have a look at it. Yeah. Something as simple as that. But thank you for bringing that up. Appreciate it. Yeah, no, no. It's, it's all about getting, you know, useful information out to the public, as I say, is the best kept secret. I don't think it should be a secret when you pay for this, you know? Absolutely. So those are the, the COVID-19 resources that we've put together. I guess I can give you back control of the spring now. 

Well, I was going to say, here we go. 

Chris, Safety Dawg (17m 15s): Oh, B before we leave that, what can you have? Okay. So that was good for truck drivers and stuff. And I know there is a lot more resources on the site targeting truck drivers, but what about dispatchers or management stuff? Do you have anything like that on IHS website? 

Charlie (17m 36s): Absolutely. So I'll stick more am right here. There's a lot of different ways that you can navigate to that. Actually I did load them up. So I do have in preparation, I put up right here. So this is a full list and I'll just, I'll scroll back up to the top of the moment, but this is a full list of IHSA string, right? A lot of these training programs can be done at one of our facilities or it could be done at your facility, you know, wherever customer lights. 

So there are, before you go on. So you said, I have to say or onsite. So these are a human led activities and the majority of these ones are, we do have some eLearning courses on there and some specific transportation learning ones on there as well. Okay. So let's say you're learning. Huh? Go figure. Here you go. Here's your hint right there. Well, when you bring up the learning, like the first one that comes to mind, distracted driving, distracted driving. 

Yes. Obviously something that's near and dear to all of our hearts, especially those that work in safety transportation, but yeah. A wide variety of courses you ask supervisors at dispatchers. First one that I would think, you know, just basic supervise, right? So break course designed for supervisors and you, and I know driving, you know, a dispatcher is in many ways a supervisor, right? So giving them those tools that you know, that one on one course to give them the tools and the experiencing need to manage that relationship manage the day to day with the driver is really important. 

So that's one, but there are a lot of other, as you can see, they're not all transportation specific, cause this is for all sectors, but nothing wrong with a dispatcher supervisor, taking a course on highway traffic, better understanding that you've got hours of service. Another very big one for us. I'm not scrolling too fast here, but is here joint health and safety certification part two for transportation, you know, something important for them to know. 

Right. 

Chris, Safety Dawg (19m 52s): Are you, are you suggesting that companies with 20 or more employees should have a health ready? Something like that? Yeah. That makes sense. Now specifically, I always forget whether it's, if the number is 20 or more, or is it above 20? Do you remember offhand? I believe you're right around that number. I'm going to say 20 give or take one or two. I'm going to say 20. Yeah. I think it's 20 or more is the wording, but I could be easily mistaken on that, but you know, there's something many companies I go into because they are 25 trucks and their boats. 

So they're way more than 20 employees. I know that you don't have a joint health and safety for them. And if they do it's on paper only often because it's a requirement and it's just kind of swept under the table. Fortunately. Yeah. That's a, that 

Charlie (20m 48s): Is unfortunate. It's such a big piece there and inside of it is a requirement too. Right. I think getting people out to that type of training makes them more aware of it and takes it away from that just on paper concept that, right? Yeah. It takes them next level. Absolutely. So that's the course list. What the other thing I'll show you here while we're here. If you go to products we actually have on this page, brief product demo. 

So not everything that I should say is, you know, yeah. Eight, four. So there are safety talks listed your bulletins again for all of our sectors. But you know, I was scrolling through the earlier preparing for when we were going to talk a little information on who I would say is fall prevention, safety, toolkit. You know, there's definitely a need for that across all industries, keeping your promise poster, put smoking. Yeah. 

As you, as we take a deep breath, I'm still scrolling there. These are all three available. Download. See that the page is pretty long, often safety advisor, mobile devices, you know, the dangerous distraction on construction sites. And we know this as well as the impact side has vehicle. How about your guide to safe and efficient winter drive? And that's a free download that you can see, you can make it a poster, have it printed and posted in your facility, send a note by email. 

Well, this one's actually a booklet, so you could actually download it and use that as part of your safety talk. So your drivers moving, you know, winter's coming to everybody prepared, get everybody ready, just put a reminder, right? And as you can see, just from the cover, they're not sure how big that's coming out on your end, but you can see it. There's a truck there, school bus, regular passenger vehicles. So it really does cover all of them as a, as a nice resource for safe driving during spring and winter months. Yeah. I'm going to have to look at it because I need more five minutes safety video. 

So you're giving me ideas here on top of five minutes, safety videos for there you go for dog speaks. And then there was another thing I wanted to show you. We recently, 

Speaker 2 (23m 10s): There's a, I just say health and safety magazine that goes notes, but our latest edition was transportation specific. This was a special edition 

Charlie (23m 22s): Just for focus on transportation. A lot of work's been done in the last little while on, on transportation. So here you've got a safety talk on sharing the boat with trucks, but what I really wanted to show you was safety in general trucking. So what happened last year was there was a risk assessment done in partnership with the ministry of labor training skills and development. I just say workers, supervisors, they brought in companies from across Ontario and may were able to come out with the top 10 health and safety risks for general trucking right there. 

And not going to be a big surprise for you. The number one is stress tractor driving, number one. Yep. You and I have had this conversation. Right. But yeah, I know we both feel the same way, but it's not a big surprise with driver fatigue, careless drivers on the road, driving conditions, lack of truck awareness, slips, trips, and falls, stress inadequate, or insufficient training skills or qualifications and other things it's been really in the spotlight in the last couple of years. Well, it'll sorry. 

I was just going to say is stress. I wonder if they did the survey now during COVID I gotta believe, or I certainly believe, and Linda core come from the Nova Scotia trucking association. Also, we were talking about that. And that's another episode. If you want to talk about truck driver, mental health, but I got to believe that right now truck drivers are under increased stress because of COVID and you know, having to keep yourself distance and having to keep cleaning and washing hands. 

And you know, they're, they've got a high exposure over there. They do. And it's great to see the recognition that's going out for truck drivers right now, but you're absolutely right. The reality is we were all told to go into lockdown and those that were able and have that ability to work safely, home break, try to limit our exposure outside. And my dad, most of your shopping, once a week, two weeks with truck drivers were out there, they were on the frontline and we recognized that as well. And actually one of the COVID-19 resources that we on that page that we looked at earlier was driver mental health, recognizing that we know the pressure they're under the stress being away from their family during a very stressful time for everybody. 

Yeah, it is a stressful time. So absolutely can. So this magazine is available for free download or transportation companies can actually go online and order physical copies to share with their drivers. And there's there's, we just touched on some of the resources that will go through the entire magazine, but it's a great magazine and I've really kind of improved again, watch the show links it's right on the website, but it was really well done. And those top 10 things even looking at that we looked at are things obviously that we're going to be looking at as well as an association suit. 

I'm sorry, I'm just making a note here. I got to talk linked to magazine in the show notes. And there you go. Is that a picture of our mutual friend there? Mr. Geek? That's the Broderick yet from after transport, the volunteers, he was part of that to that risk assessment. So there's one of the apps of one of the companies that came out and they also helped out getting somebody out there to photograph D and the vehicles and some of the interactions in and around the vehicle for the magazine. So, yeah. Cool. 

Cool. Well, let, let me ask you a question. One of my favorites, things that I know you were involved with at the sporting, the Hamilton chapter of, well, you know, what's the relationship 

Speaker 2 (27m 7s): Between IHSA and fleet safety council. So I'll stop sharing the screen there. Yeah, yeah. Actually the fleet safety council you're right. That's something that's near and dear to my heart has been 

Charlie (27m 18s): Well while we've talked about, I have to say being the best kept secret, which I really want to change. You want to get that out there, but at fleet safety council, in my opinion, is where you're going to get the biggest bang for your buck as a safety professional, depending on the chapter, very reasonable rates, like $50 a year to be a member. When you get 10 meetings a year they'll in July and August POS, Ontario dusty, the IHSA administratively. 

So we provide administrative support at the meetings for the conference annual conference as well. But there's a, there's a really strong connection and relationship there. And that was actually my introduction to the IHSA many years ago when I first joined the Toronto chapter. Yeah. Now just before you move on, because I do want to talk quickly about the conference. Yeah. Where are the, before we do that, where are the chapters? Obviously this is Ontario based only correctly. 

Hopefully, hopefully we have listeners from across North America, but it's like, you gotta be here in Ontario. Can you name off some of the locations of the job solely? Yeah, so, well I mentioned the Toronto chapter. So that one obviously is right in the DTA room Mississauga once a month or when we can have in person meetings. Again, we can meet virtually philosophy while some of the other chapters, you know, we start, there's an Ottawa chapter. There's a chapter all the way at Windsor. 

There's a chapter in Sudbury. So regardless of where you are, we're trying to get lb outside areas there. London has a chapter from all Hamilton, Niagara, you mentioned. So the Elton magnet chapter, I went to Cambridge central chapter, Cambridge Kitchener area. And there's the North, the North of Sudbury. So there's eight chapters, essentially things that cost them all there. I hope I did Durham, Durham guys, chapter as well used to be in your borough and they meet nosh London, but almost anywhere you are based in Ontario, you have access to a chapter. 

And let me, sorry. I was off screen here, but let me, I would encourage all the listeners. If you're based in Ontario, there's no better place to get a lot of really good safety information and to meet fellow people. And it's like nine or 10 meetings 

Chris, Safety Dawg (29m 42s): A year. And the total cost is 50 bucks to a hundred dollars. You can't get it better than that. But as I said, it's something that's always been near and dear to my heart. I learned a lot through the fleet safety council. I know a lot of great people and just see, you know, depending on the meeting, you know, you can have anywhere from 10 to 15 people at a chapter to see different professionals from different companies and business is out the door competition is out the door. 

It's all about seeing, okay, they're willing to share ideas and it's fantastic. Sorry, it's sharing. I mean, this is where I've met. I met people from labor Canada. I've met MTO officers. I've met LPP officers. I, when I say met them, these are the, some of the speakers. I remember lawyers have been there, like the list of expertise that's brought in. And sometimes it's a member speaking on their expertise and sharing their knowledge. 

It's just a huge value. I really appreciate it. I wish I could get to more meetings. However, there is a big meeting coming up called the, of the convention for the fleet safety council. Can you tell us about that? Sure. 

Speaker 2 (30m 59s): So annually, we have a conference. So last year we celebrated our 28th annual fleet safety council conference. I should preface that with saying the actual fleet safety council has been around for over 50 years, right? That's for a couple of different names, but yeah, 

Charlie (31m 13s): Now it's council. We've had the conference for 28 years. We were starting to plan the 29th annual conference set for October 2nd of this year. It's a one day educational event. We always have a networking cocktail party the night before, actually before that we have a little bowling event for anybody that wants to go bowling. Again, an opportunity for members to meet each other, hang out, have some fun in the social environment, you have the cocktail party, the, the evening event, and then conference on the Friday. 

So we were planning it. We had our date set. We had our venue booked. I've been on the conference committee for several years and we all started talking to purpose safety, health, and safety professionals. And we made the decision to forgo the in person conferences year. A decision was made to actually take our conference offline online and have a virtual event, half day event this year for the industry. So cool. Do you have the dates for that? Have they been set? 

Yeah, absolutely. So it's the same date that we were set to do the actual in person conference, which was October 2nd. So on October 2nd, rather than do, obviously we're not going to have a bowling event. We're not going to have any kind of a social gathering the night before, but we are going to have a half day conference. We recognize it is difficult for people to sit in front of a computer for a full day. So a half day event, there will be scheduled breaks. People get up, grab a cup of coffee, maybe check a couple of emails. 

So between our events, our four different speakers that we're going to have, there will be a 10 to 15 minute break. And during that break, we're going to recognize our sponsors from last year. So we're actually putting this on without and additional sponsors. We want to recognize our sponsors from last year, recognizing the industry at the end of you know, the big news on this and thinking, this is probably where you're going to go next, but I'm going to beat the two. It is we're offering this to our members free of charge. 

Yeah. I was just going to say you faded out a little bit there when you said free, free. Yeah, no, this is, this is huge. It's free to everyone. You don't even have to be a member of IHSA, roughly a member of the I to say you don't have to be a member of the fleet safety council. And I really, you know, I'm encouraged. People are watching this to come join us. That day is online. We have the ability to reach much larger audience. And I really think, you know, we're going to share a little bit of information with, of course, with, with everybody online about the chapters. 

And like you said, regardless of where you want to are in Ontario, probably a chapter that you can get to. So I really hope that this is going to help build our chapters a little bit more and get some more members. So I think it's something different. We're, we're all learning as we go along here next year, the plan is to, you know, hopefully that everything needs back up and running normal, go back to our in person format. So we really do like the social aspect of it, the very social industry, great group for this year. 

It's a free virtual. Yeah. So I would encourage everybody in of course there will be a link to how to register for that in the show notes. So just click on that link, Charlie, what else is on your mind? I'm trying to think what we've covered, what we haven't covered, actually. You know what? There was another, when I go back to sharing my screen, if you don't mind, so 

Speaker 2 (34m 53s): These are  road safety solutions. So we talked about a little bit about the training programs that are available. What I just said has done is also put together distracted driving solutions, Distracted driving toolkit, 

Charlie (35m 10s): Two motor vehicle incidents and road safety. So these are very simple to access. I think I may have mentioned already the free distracted driving learning course, but essentially that's just, when you go in here now, you won't go through this now, but when you do click on any of these, all you're asked for is your name, first name, last name, email your company. That's not even mandatory there. What are you from? So again, flipping secret food, transportation, construction, or electrical utilities, you do not have to opt in for anything. 

This is more so we understand where we're coming from and it takes you directly into that free learning course. Same thing with the distracted driving toolkit and go in and have a look at all the different resources, the safety toxic posters. We talked about the time I spent it at North bridge, there was a beautiful, distracted driving poster. That's on there. Where at the time when I was working over the Gulf training center, I actually ordered a few of them frame them and put them up in our classrooms. As years before I joined, I have to say really easy to use step-by-step tools on preventing motor vehicle incidents and then the road safety toolkit. 

And then as you scroll down this road safety solution here on how to build that program links to all the tools and resources and training that we have. So when you go in and it's probably way too much for us to go through today, but you can click through each one and you know, step number one is click on more details. It gives me everything I need to know about knowing what my responsibilities are. And these are all documents or links to videos on knowing what my responsibilities are when designing now getting that commitment. 

Again, every tool there, a motor vehicle incident cost out a motor vehicle incident, cost calculator worksheet. So all of these tools that, you know, any trucking company or transportation company used, but I have to look at these and think for those, those smaller ones that are just starting to grow. And you reached that point where you realize that you're not just that one or two, three trucks anymore, and it's a real business and you've got to start populating some permanent girl here for you. 

So that's just the plan. There's do this check, like all these different things on the steps of the moon, walk you through. Very simple. Awesome. So yeah. Want to share that one as well? Cause I do think it's a, it's a big piece and you know, again, happy to, I'm proud to be part of this now and sharing it and then getting the word out there because that's going to be the other, my job too, is, is getting out there when we're, when we're back on the road and working within this free. 

And I'll go back to your very first statement. You know, a fellow being the best kept secret. I've tried for years. And before I started working back to suit, it's help people that some of these resources and now part of my job is going to be to get out there and share that. So pretty excited about that. That's perfect. Charlie, with that, I think that's a great way to end the show. I also thank you for being on the dog on it fucking podcast. Thanks Chris. Appreciate it. Love the name of the podcast. 

I'd have to tell you about this, so thanks. Sure. 

Chris, Safety Dawg (38m 36s): I hope you love the show as much as I did. Please leave us a, like a thumbs up a review, a comment, a rating. If it is, thank you so much. And I do really appreciate your time and join us again next week for another exciting interview.