Beyond the Rules: How AI and Proactive Coaching Are Transforming Trucking Safety

In today’s episode, we sit down with Anthony Triggs, the Director of Safety and Compliance at Interstate Van Lines. With over 25 years of hands-on safety experience and a current CDL, Anthony shares his unique "servant leader" approach to fleet management.We dive deep into the implementation of dash cam technology and event recorders within the moving industry. 

Anthony explains why the primary focus should always be on driver exoneration rather than just rule enforcement. We also explore the 15-year technology gap between freight and moving, the power of "operational huddles" for driver buy-in, and how AI-driven "nudges" are proactively keeping drivers safe.Whether you are a safety director or a fleet owner, this conversation is packed with actionable insights on protecting your drivers and your business.

00:00 — Introduction to Anthony Triggs and the "Servant Leader" philosophy.
01:10 — Why Anthony maintains his CDL after 25 years in safety.
03:02 — The 15-year technology gap: Freight vs. The Moving Industry.
04:42 — How to achieve a "flawless" dash cam implementation.
05:16 — Using "Operational Huddles" to build driver trust.
05:48 — The #1 goal of event recorders: Driver Exoneration.
06:28 — Moving beyond "it's just a rule" compliance.
07:28 — How AI "nudges" provide real-time coaching in the cab.

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Anthony Triggs
Website:  www.moveinterstate.com
 
Phone Number:  800-745-6683
 
Email Address:  contactus@invan.com      

Your Hosts:
John Farquhar
National Risk Services Specialist, Transportation, Gallager GGB
https://www.ajg.com/ca/
M: 437-341-0932
John_Farquhar@ajg.com

Chris Harris
CEO, Safety Dawg Inc.
905 973 7056
Chris@SafetyDawg.com
https://safetydawg.com/

Transcript

0:00

And welcome back to the Trucking Risk and Insurance podcast. Today, we are joined by Anthony Triggs, the director of safety and compliance at Interstate Van Lines, with his over 25 years of hands-on experience, and currently still holding a CDL, Anthony brings a unique servant leader perspective to the safety arena. We're diving deep into the world of event recorders and dash cam technology. Anthony shares his journey of implementing these systems into the moving industry, focusing not on just compliance, but on the critical goal of driver exoneration. We'll also discuss the transition from freight to moving, and how AI driven nudges are helping keep drivers safe on the road. You won't want to miss this insightful conversation on protecting your fleet and your drivers. Let's get right into it. Welcome to the Trekking Risk and Insurance podcast. Anthony Triggs, welcome to the Trucking Risk and Insurance podcast. Can you take just a 2nd or 2 and introduce yourself to our viewers, please? Good morning and thanks for having me here this morning. My name's Anthony Triggs. I'm currently the director of safety and compliance at Interstate Van Lines out of Springfield, Virginia, in the DMV area of Northern Virginia, right outside our nation's capital of the great United States of America. And guys, I have to pick one you. We did win the golden hockey. It was Karen Square. I watched it. It was good. It was a good game, so. But what I want to share my experience with you guys is this, I have over 25 years of safety and risk. Uh, knowledge, I'll call it OTJ. Really? I started with a trucking company when I was 25 years old with freight and jumped into the safety arena because I felt that safety department was going places and one of the requirements to be in that safety department was I had to have my CDL. And as a servant leader, as I kind of pride myself in being is, I'm not going to ask somebody to do something that I can't do, and how is I going to train drivers if I didn't have my CDO. How could I ask them to do something or teach them if I didn't have my CDL? So I obtained that. I've kept it current, still to this day. Medically certified. I can go drive the equipment if need be, but I try not to, because I try to look at data and how can we help our drivers be successful? Um, so the last 4 years, I've been here at Interstate, and it's been a great journey, and I'm looking to several more years here because as I shared first, I was in freight for about 25 years and now I'm in the moving business and learning another part of the how we move America. And the main topic today we're going to be talking about our event recorders. But before we get into that, I just want to ask a curiosity question. How, what differences have you seen between the moving industry and the moving of freight? Probably the biggest thing that I saw when I 1st made that leap was straight was about 10 to 15 years a hit of moving as far as technology was concerned. Um, that was probably the biggest thing. Now, from the EOD mandate? No, obviously we had to be, you know, where EODs, but from an automatic event recorder, where dash gam technology. The company I was with before, we had automatic event recorders installed in equipment and probably had been operating them for about 10 years total before I made the leap into the moving business. So that's probably the biggest and that's a great question, Chris, that I really saw. Um, the other thing and it really goes to technology is uh, digitalization, um, just automation or the paperwork, uh, trying to drive that in, you know, really in the moving world. There's a lot of documentation paper that people have to sign. So trying to move that to the iPad or a tablet, uh, because there's some things that we have to meet different, um, customer levels without getting into the details that we have to have certain paperwork for certain customers. So at the end of the day, we've got to kind of migrate that together. So. Let's talk about event recorders or some people might call them dash camps. Um, what's your experience been, so you had to implement a dash cam policy and install them in the moving company that you 4 years ago, but I was going to say recently joined. How did that all go? So it really went flawlessly, I would say, and very easily. Uh, really to share the details of what we did. We started researching dash cams. We were partnered with the vendor, uh, with EOD and trailer tracking and what have you, and we really did want to move away because we wanted one dashboard, and that vendor also had artificial intelligence with the dash cam or automatic event recorder. Uh, so it was pretty easy to make that leap with them because our three-year contract was up and we're going into the 4th year, so we renewed, um, and incorporated that. But really, uh, what we started doing was, um, having operational huddles. In the moving world, we have a luxury of we normally see our cruise before we dispatch them versus in the trucking world. You probably have drivers all over the place and you don't get to see them, right? So we had operational huddles, and they were really, I would say, uh, not toolbox talks or safe talks, but just sitting down alongside a group of individuals and saying, hey, here's what we're doing, and here's why. And that was really the focus. And the number one focus was driver exoneration. We really wanted to protect our drivers. The data that we had is interstate. I couldn't substantiate and say, hey, I need the event recorders to improve our safety, uh, because our data really didn't show us that. But what it did show us was we didn't have something to totally exonerate our driver in a crash. And that's what we wanted to do. Now, the other thing, Chris, you shared an introduction. Your, uh, consultant for a captive, we joined a captive and it's a requirement to have those, uh, dual facing event recorders. So, uh, I don't want to say, uh, even though I've been in the safety world for almost 30 years now, you know, we have to be compliant. I hate telling a driver, it's a rule. Right? Because there's so many rules and regulations that they have to follow to begin with. And so really what we focused on was a driver exoneration and we care we care about their safety. So, um, we went along, uh, had several different operational huddles. We have 4 facilities and we were out to those facilities several times and just kind of slow walking it. Um, and from the initial safety huddle that we had. We had a couple people that volunteered and said, I want to test. And we did some test. And, um, you know, one of the things that we learned in the test was this, the artificial intelligence. build into that dash camera. Uh, we were under the impression that that AI was going to be a toggle that we could turn on as we started to learn. All right? Just like AI, it's a learning intelligence, right? Well, it was active right away. But really what it what was focused on is the system that we're using has nudges that it'll speak to the driver and let's just use a simple situation. A driver has a handheld device in their hand. Now, I'll be the 1st to say, AI is not perfect. It might be a sandwich in their hand, but it's going to say that, hey, something's in their hand, and now hopefully they don't have the sandwich up to their ear, but that's what it's going it's trying to identify. But really, it gives that driver, 2 to 3 nudges verbally in the vehicle, in the cab of the vehicle, to correct the behavior before my safety team, which is myself and another gentleman, that we would get an email alert, an exception to say, hey, Houston, we might have an issue going on in this vehicle. Do we need to contact that vehicle? Um, so at the end of the day, uh, we learned through that together. Uh, and it's been a pretty amazing because, uh, one of the independent contractors that said, hey, I want to be a volunteer, um, He, he's one in a good way that's going to test the system for us. And, uh, also just has learned alongside with us on how we can continue to improve. So really, we had minimal pushback and where we stand today. Uh, the system that we use, it gave us a score to begin with because as you guys probably are familiar, an EOD is still pulling telematics from the truck, right? So that data is already flowing in to the system. Um, We had a safety score. Perfect score is 100. We had a safety score of a 91. Okay. Now, that was before the event recorders. As we mapped out the year and said, hey, here's our plan on how we're going to install, we're going to install company vehicles first, our local contractors that basically operate the 95 corridor. Uh, second, then our owner operators that basically go pawned upon in the U.S. Okay? would be last. We mapped that out. We started and you would, you would have thought that the longer length of halls and maybe those individuals might have had some worse behaviors than others that our score would go down throughout the year. I just showed a slide to our internal staff last week at a staff meeting that we went from a 91 to a 95, a steady improvement, and that's how we finish finished the year. Now, speaking captive, I just saw a report, just recently, last week that we were at 98 compared to the captive that we're in. So we're, we're driving that score and probably the biggest lesson that I've learned uh, in safety as a whole is, even though I might be a bold guy and have some age on me. I still can learn. One, two, people like to know the score. And they want to know how they're doing. And right on the driver app. It gives a score, and it was pretty amazing. Before we started pushing that score out, talking about it, drivers are coming in saying, hey, what's the score mean? What's a good score? What's a bad score? And so we have some plans to continue to the behavior forward with the automatic event recorders. Um, because like I said, we're not perfect. We're here to learn and continue to learn. And at the end of the day, it's it's making us better and we do have something now that we can protect our drivers for driver exoneration. Well, it sounds like you're doing more than just implementing a program. You're actually strengthening the culture of the organization that you're working with, which is huge because with the scores going up, you know you're getting buy-in on that cultural message. John, that's a great point because that's one of the things in safety of always have heard and learned. You gotta have the culture. And you know, trying to, trying to recreate a culture that's been in place for a while is very difficult, right? But trying to just maintain or cultivate just a little bit to continuously improve 80 year culture, okay? Of the company I'm working for. It is pretty easy. Uh, but it all starts when in the hiring process and really how they meet us and really what we're going to expect from day one and, you know, that, that's another thing that we're really using the automatic event recorders with is, um, I can have road testers or road examiners. I can see that new driver. If they create an event, I can follow up on that road exam, or I can also coach the road examiner to say, hey, here's what we should be looking on. It's given us another tool in our toolbox. Again, improves us. Yeah. Now, the driver facing dash camp, because that's, I think, the most controversial of them all. Some people have very strong opinions. is how I'll say it. Trying to be right. First of all, are yours event driven only or are you able, uh, to watch the driver all the time if you chose? So great question. Um, they are event driven 1st and foremost. Can I pull live video, the answer would be yes. Now, my answer to that is this. Previous life, 385, 400 trucks, 1500 trailers, 500 drivers. How do I have time sitting here in 8 to Gen RD to look at all that video? Now, smaller environment where I'm at now, 75 company vehicles, 100 drivers, team of two. That's it right now. We don't have enough time in the day to watch the video. It's it's behavior based, exception based, and that's what we're looking for. And honestly, what we were looking for was, again, going back to driver exoneration 1st and foremost. And then what else can we do to help our drivers improve? Because we don't want them to get stale or stagnant, right? We want them to continuously improve. And at the at the end of each day. I mean, it's really the next day at the morning dispatch, a lot of them are saying, hey, how did I do or, you know, is there anything that you need to talk to me about? It's a total different situation now that we have 100% implemented. Yep. Sweet. Well, I was going to say now you're, you're, you're, you're opening up those conversations. You're creating that opportunity to have those conversations. So, but at the same time, you can also put minds at ease to go, well, you haven't created a reason that I need to watch your video all the time. I have AI to do that that picks up an event. So if you don't create an event. I have no need to watch you. I haven't got time to watch you. I got a job to do. John, I think you eavesdropped on our ops totals because that's what we said. And honestly, it's, it's, it's been amazing on the receptiveness of the drivers. Uh, but, another point I'd like to make is this. It's focusing on the positives. We had a driver that if we said, we went the 1st 90 days that never triggered an event. We went, hey, was it installed correctly? We started asking questions, not being, you know, not to the driver, but we said, hey, is it working? And then, you know, we've had celebrations and honestly, had a anal report that I just mentioned, that driver is our top driver, has longevity, is a female, too, by the way. and sets the example, sets the bar and she's one of our job inspectors that sets the quality mark and part of her quality is safety. So at the end of the day, I mean, it's just success story after success story. Awesome. Well, in your business, because you are in the moving industry, when you have a crash, there's a lot of stuff in that truck that is not easily replaced. There could be heirlooms and keepsakes and, you know, sentimental value. It's not like a load of freight that, okay, well, we just turn up the factory and recreate it all again. Great point, Chris. You're exactly right. I mean, there, people's livelihoods. There... whole life might be on that trailer or truck. And if we cause a crash, I mean, that is a huge explanation to those customers, because you're never going to replace that stuff. Yeah, yeah. I mean, some, obviously, you do have crashes because hopefully not at fault ones, but, you know, everybody's involved in a crash every now and again, if you do enough miles, how do you mitigate those losses, just out of curiosity, and you can include dash cam in that answer, if you like. Uh, honestly, now that we're 100% implemented, that's the 1st thing if we have an event, we're gonna, we're gonna go to the footage and see, okay, 1st off, how can we protect the driver and protect the company? At the end of the day? Um, we're going to do a normal accident investigation alongside that video. We're going to do a, you know, fake witness statements. We're going to gather the basic, uh, your basic steps of an accident of, you know, exchanging information, photos, things like that. We're going to obtain, but we're going to pull that video and look at it. Obviously, we're going to go to the insurance companies, uh, or our insurance company too, and report it. Uh, but try to mitigate that situation as best as we can. Um, hopefully, and I feel pretty confident that that video is going to exonerate our driver to say, hey, we're not at fault and we're going to be on that subrogation side saying, hey, how are you going to repair for our vehicle? Because we have a responsibility to other customers that want their heirlooms and we've got to have that truck operational. Sure, sure. Well, no, it's, it's great. Yeah, I can't imagine some of the stuff that you are, um, hauling and literally, it's irreplaceable in many cases. So, you know, it's unfortunate that these things do happen. Yeah, have you yet started to look at the side view mirror cameras? Uh, In my tenure here at Interstate, we have looked at some different technologies, we haven't made the leap yet, went down this path 1st and foremost. Uh, in the moving business, we're probably going to look at something like rear view cameras first, the side views I'm familiar with. Um, I still have a lot of relationships from the from the freight world. Um, and so I'm, I normally attend the American trucking association's safety, security and HR conference. So that's one of the 1st things when the vendor exhibit hall opens. I'm going through to see what's new. right? What's the new technology that's out there and see what's out there to see, you know, how can we continue to get to improve? But we have not made that leap yet. Yeah, and I mean, I'm not as familiar with it. Uh, we've got our truck show coming up in April, and I hope to see um, and get a little more knowledgeable. I've had several people ask me about it already. Um, I had uh, the, one of the people from SureCam on the show, and they, that's one of the technologies that they offer. They're not an ELD provider. All they do is make a dash cam, but they also have the side view and the rear view. Dash cam's available. So, um, it's I find it fascinating technology. And because I asked that after the crash, it gives you another window or another bit of information to analyze in in the crash scenario. Unfortunately, the vendor that we're partnering with has those side cameras available. and we just haven't adventured down that path too extensively yet. What I would share with you is have a newer vehicle. I just purchased in the last year. And I am amazed at the number of cameras that are on that vehicle. In the different views. Um, it, and even when I put it in reverse to back up, Obviously, the backup camera is going to come on, but it shows the front view too automatically so that if I'm trying to adjust parallel parking, it's, I mean, it's right there. Uh, so the old days of the mirrors, I'm looking at everything besides just the mirrors. It's the cameras too, and there's several different views that I can go to. Get that 360 view nowadays. The technology is just, it's phenomenal what we're starting to see. It's kind of cool. Yeah. Well, John, do you remember that camera? That was a super convex camera that was, it never caught on, but it gave you 3 times more vision. Yes. Yes. Driver's dream mirror, I think it was. Yeah. And that was, it was cool. One of the problems was that it gave so much information that the drivers had a harder time understanding what they're viewing. Yeah. Um, and I'm, I'm looking for somebody with experience on these cameras because I wonder if that could possibly happen, at least with some of our drivers, that they get sensory overload, basically. Well, well, we are seeing the technology come out in the replacement of the West Coast mirrors for a camera, which, which, I, I really want to drive a truck with one of those. I've seen some of it and it's really cool technology because not only does it give me a much wider view. It gives me a clearer view, particularly in inclement weather. Your mirror is not all covered with ice, snow, and water. Um, you're also getting night vision, so I'm backing up and now I've got a more. It looks like I'm backing up in the daylight. You know, there's there's measurement lines in there to give me an idea what the distance is between the back of my trailer and the vehicle behind based on these lines. So there's there's just so much more to help the driver be a better driver. Um, but it's, It's a challenge, right? Just as you're saying, Chris, there's so much information coming at you through that type of that technology. And, and now you're looking, you're not looking outside the vehicle, you're looking at the A pillar of the vehicle where that, that tablet is that's got that camera. So, you know, to what you're talking about, Anthony, it just it adds to more of what you're going on, but we still have to do this one step at a time to get the driver buy in. So we don't overload them. And I'd agree with you. I think it goes to one boarding the driver on that technology. Training. You know, I like to use the word onboarding versus training, but uh, even using myself as an example, the vehicle I just purchased, the rear view mirror, it can be an actual rear view mirror, or it's a camera. Yeah. When I test over the vehicle, there's a rear view mirror. When I pulled it off the lot, it was the camera. Now, I taught myself to get used to that. And I wouldn't go back to the review mirror. Right. Because it's a lot of view of what's happening and it's, yeah, I mean, I've gotten used to that technology. And at the end of the day, I'm, I have an older vehicle too, that I drive, but only has a rear view camera and I found myself this weekend because it was nice out when I was driving it, looking for those other cameras. So it's... I mean, how many of us, I'm thinking of my car in particular. When I 1st purchased the car that I'm driving now, it's got the rear view camera, and I said, I'll never use that shit. I'm gonna check my ears and... Well, I made the mirror comment way back. Yep. And now I can't live without it. I'm going to get it. I've got another car and it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, and I get into that, and I feel like I don't have the information to, especially to back up. Well, and you, you, you find yourself forcing yourself to look at that physical peace rather than the camera that's showing there. I, no, I got to, I, I see the camera, but I also got to look in the rear view mirror. I got to check my side mirrors because we get very laxadaisial when it comes to the technology and going, oh, I can see everything out there. But if you don't check your side mirrors or your river mirror. You just might miss something. So, what other issues, Anthony, have you had implementing uh, the dash cameras or um, responding to the events that are generated? Um. I'll say it this way. Uh, keeping up with the technology because the vendor that we're with, they are, uh, investing to improve themselves and they're having... them a shout out if you want. It's it's Samsara. So we're partner with, and they are, they are investing that we see, and it's, um, I've had to put in a process myself, that every Monday, I'm going to the dashboard, which I normally do, but I'm going to a feature management tab, to see what features are there for beta testing and what have you, because they're, they're, they're pushing out things and things that they can't even, I don't want to say can't communicate, but that are just there that say, hey, test force or what have you. And it's just how, you know, can that feature help us? Can it not? Um, and there's such things as, um, there's a piece of technology, uh, on, uh, heat on a trailer axle that we were looking at. Uh, there, there's different things coming through that device telematically that can help us not only be a safer but a more, uh, from a fleet maintenance standpoint, improve us as well. Um, the, um, really the events that are coming through, like I said, maybe 5 a day. Uh, we're doing the coaching pretty rapidly. We're not getting behind on the coaching. Previous life. That was a challenge because the number that you have. But really, I go back to. It's the culture that we have and our drivers that are getting the, uh, nudges and self coaching themselves. Goal by the end of the year, we can hit a toggle that they can self-coach. That a goal by the end of this year. Okay? Are we there? We probably could make that leap right now. But slowly taking through and one of the things, as I've mentioned before, uh, keeping score, we're looking at that as how can we incentivize? How can we build a game around it, right? And I pushed out a little bit of information to our driving force, verbally in some huddles, and they want to know how they're doing. And, you know, how do they compare it to each other? And it's, it's, I hate to say this, but we're having fun. Great. We're having fun and improving safety at the same time. I'll mention this. I had a guest on previously, um, because you mentioned gaming and gamifying. His company is called Scratchy. Um, and that's their purpose is to take telematics, and gamify it so that you can reward your drivers. So that it's interesting technology, they're out of Australia, actually. Um, but it works with uh, all the major brands of uh, telematics here in North America. So you might want to look into that as well, Anthony. I'll make a note of that. It was interesting technology. Anthony, as we wrap this up, what else do we need to know about either the best way to implement new technology or what hurdles you've had implementing your technology? Uh, I would probably just, uh, start by saying as you're looking at that technology, you probably want to put some characteristics down that you're looking for as a company. I mentioned before you choose the vendor. Like one of our, one of the deciding factors as, as I joined interstate was we had several different pieces of technology on trailer tracking. Our local trucks had a, uh, GPS tracking, and our, over the road, EOD mandated trucks had a different, and what I heard being the new guy on the block, one dashboard. That was a common theme. So that's where I was going. You know, if you're looking for, you know, one dashboard, to your point, Chris, you know, uh, before you mention that they're just a dash cam, not a EOD provider or what have you. You want to look at that. And those are the things that I would say, then you build from there and just kind of build on that and start. I would have interviews of those vendors and, you know, 1st and foremost to get to know the company, where are they going, how they invest in in their technology, and then I would encourage you to do tests, uh, because really, uh, one of the reasons why we chose some star over 4 years ago was they committed that we could connect to a 1996 tractor. And when I say committed, they did, the salesperson made that commitment, and I remember it was a late Friday afternoon, about 4 o'clock. I'm on the phone with San Diego saying, you made this commitment. There was one truck that we knew that we had to connect, and how we connected, it was hardwire, and it was connected. We could, the driver was able to run an ELD. We could pull telematics, and that was before the dash cam. And right now, no, we'd be able to connect the dash came to it if that truck was still in our fleet. So at the end of the day, uh, you know, as you have those interviews, listen for those commitments and hold that vendor accountable. But then, really, you got to look at your staff and, you know, have that plan on what you're going to do and how you're going to communicate the why you're doing it. You know, some, sometimes companies will say, hey, we're going to make this leap on this piece of technology and they really don't do a good job of explaining the why. I would have to say, uh, and I'm not taking ownership on that. It's the culture here that we just sat down together and literally, we put together a PowerPoint, and we probably, uh, internally with myself in, uh, the guy that works with me, Cal, in a family member, um, who's our VP of council, uh, here. We probably beat that PowerPoint up. I don't know, 90, probably 30, 45 days back and forth, making tweaks, and, you know, and and testing it out and saying, hey, does it read right? You know, what, uh, because, you know, we wanted to really communicate that driver exoneration and that's why we're doing it. Um, and that's what we did and really uh, from my previous experience. Uh, having those huddles to where it gave them opportunity, the staff to ask questions. And I, I would just say that's probably the biggest thing. You got to have an open door. And you got to take the good with the bad, uh, feedback and you can't be adversarial. You've got to receive that, you know? And if there is an issue with connectivity or if there is something in the programming, you've got to be able to work with a vendor and get it fixed because you're going to lose that driver by and if you don't, Sure, get it fixed. Makes sense. Yep, I think you hit the nail on the head, though. The focus needs to be driver exoneration, because I really do believe that's the greatest advantage of dash cameras. Right? Anthony Trinks. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Yes, thank you, Anthony. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. And that wraps up another episode of the Trucking Risk and Insurance podcast. A huge thank you to Anthony Triggs for joining us today and sharing his 25 years of safety experience. It's fascinating to hear how that servant leader approach to safety at interstate van lines and the real world impact of using dash camera technology for driver exoneration rather than just to rule out or roll out the enforcement issues. If you found Anthony's insights on AI-driven safety and the transition from freight to the moving industry valuable, then please hit the subscribe button, by subscribing, you'll never miss an episode where we dive deep into the latest trans and technologies protecting fleets and drivers across North America. Thanks for watching and stay safe on the road. We'll see on the next one.