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Driver Safety Tips for Fourth of July Trips and Post-COVID Return to Work Commutes

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Historically, the Fourth of July holiday weekend has presented some of the most dangerous days for drivers in the United States. Indeed, it may be the country’s riskiest holiday of the year. This year, while many may be cancelling their holiday plans and staying home, others may be taking to the roads after months of little travel amid COVID-19 lockdowns.

Looking beyond the long weekend, many drivers are also getting back on the roads as businesses across the country return to work after COVID-19 closures and quarantines, either resuming their old commutes or driving for work.

“Stay-at-home orders resulted in less vehicle traffic but, incidentally, speeding and reckless driving increased dramatically as drivers took advantage of the empty streets,” said Kevin Quinn, vice president of claims and customer experience at Mercury Insurance. “This dangerous behavior puts lives at risk and can result in unnecessary collisions and fatalities. It’s especially dangerous as cities, counties and states reopen and more drivers begin returning to the roads. Drivers need to check themselves and be aware and respectful of the increasing number of vehicles surrounding them.”

He added, “Many drivers are also out of practice—aside from maybe some trips to the grocery store, their longer commute driving skills may be a bit rusty. It’s important to review the rules of the road before setting out on your trip to ensure your safety and that of others.”

As you and your employees get back behind the wheel, Quinn offered these 10 tips to help everyone stay safe over the long weekend and during the return-to-work period for businesses nationwide:

  1. Get reacquainted with your vehicle and driver settings. If your vehicle stayed in park for the majority of stay-at-home orders, it may require some maintenance. Check the oil level and tire pressure to ensure they haven’t decreased before driving. Make sure your seat and mirrors are still positioned optimally for an unobstructed view of the road ahead and remove as many blind spots as possible.
  2. Have a collision avoidance plan. Plan ahead for potential driving emergencies—such as a dog running into the street, another vehicle running a stop sign or a sudden obstruction on the highway—and create a strategy for how to react. Having a collision avoidance plan helps to make you a safer driver and protects motorists around you.
  3. Plan travel time accordingly. If you need to be at the office or an appointment by a specific time, be sure to allow yourself enough time to arrive at your destination without rushing. Account for potential delays like traffic congestion and don’t wait until the last minute to leave your home. Speeding and weaving in and out of traffic lanes to get where you need to be is dangerous and inconsiderate of other drivers.
  4. Remove distractions. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, most crashes are the result of distracted drivers. Distractions such as using or manipulating your phone, noisy or overly active passengers, eating and multi-tasking will all result in unsafe driving conditions. Reduce or remove these types of distractions while on the road so you can focus on keeping yourself and your passengers safe while driving.
  5. Be aware of other drivers. Driving safety isn’t just about your behavior, but also depends on those around you. Don’t assume they’re being attentive—they may be distracted and not see the stop sign or traffic light ahead of them. Use caution when entering intersections, changing lanes, turning and entering and exiting parking spots.
  6. Remain cognizant of speed. Speed limits are set for a reason, so don’t break them. Driving under the speed limit can be dangerous for others on the road. If your car won’t accelerate to the posted limit, turn on your flashers and safely make your way to the side of the road for service.
  7. Maintain proper following distance. Rear-ending makes up a substantial portion of total injuries sustained in collisions. Following too closely behind a car hinders your ability to come to a full stop on time and it also limits your sight-lines. The rule of thumb is putting at least three seconds of space in between your vehicle and the car in front of you. Use a fixed object—such as a pole or overpass—and count the seconds between when the car in front of you passes it and when you pass it to determine the appropriate following distance.
  8. Stay actively engaged in the task of driving. Most modern vehicles are equipped with advanced driver assistance systems—like lane departure warning and active emergency braking technology—to help drivers avoid collisions, but this technology isn’t a substitute for proper and safe driving practices. Keep your eyes focused on the road ahead, and check mirrors, over your shoulder and use your signal when turning or changing lanes.
  9. Remember to yield to pedestrians. Walkers and joggers may have grown accustomed to fewer cars on the streets, thus, may forget to look both ways before crossing. They also might not be paying the utmost attention to their surroundings, particularly if they’re looking at their phones, but pedestrians do have the right of way, even if jaywalking. Use caution when driving on roads with high foot traffic.
  10. Obey posted traffic signs. Many cities have been repairing roads during the stay-at-home period, when fewer people were driving. Keep an eye out for any temporary traffic signs surrounding transit construction.

Mitigating Construction Risks with Advanced Training Techniques

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Construction is consistently ranked as one of the riskiest jobs in the United States. Fluid workforces, high-risk scenarios and a communication disconnect between home office and front-line workers all result in the very real possibility of serious injury or even death.

One of the major challenges in the construction industry is getting information and training to the front-line workers who face the most risk, but are often the least informed. Company emails and company-issued phones go as far as the foremen but do not always make it down to the crew themselves. Training is not always readily available or is more compliance-based than it is practical for the day’s work. This creates major risks for front-line workers, contractors, insurers and anyone involved with ensuring construction projects are safely and accurately completed. As a result, the construction industry is increasingly turning to new virtual and mobile technology tools. In an effort to improve its communication and training practices and provide critical information to its workers.

Visualizing High-Risk Scenarios

New, interactive modules are allowing safety teams to offer more effective and engaging job-site training in the form of videos, quizzes, virtual reality and 3D simulators. Exposure-based training platforms can also provide a “hands-on” experience, giving front-line workers the opportunity to encounter different situations while in a safe environment.

For example, a 3D simulation of a “hazard hunt” tests workers by having them identify all of the potential hazards on a building such as tilt, unsafe conditions and proximity to power lines and how to mitigate those risks. Fire safety prevention can be made into an immersive experience to help a worker identify the proper fire extinguisher based on the simulated fire, increasing the likelihood that they will make the right choice in the event of an emergency.

Simulations can also take tradesmen step-by-step through the process of working on specific tasks, allowing them to learn the process from start to finish and monitoring for the most common risk exposures. To become a signalman when working with cranes, the current process is to watch videos and memorize the hand motions. With simulators, workers can now be put into specific scenarios and learn how to proceed in the safest way and without endangering the person or equipment. Ultimately, new exposure-based training helps workers overcome any natural inclinations that put them in harm’s way and increases their awareness of all the risks of a specific task or job site.

Facilitating Effective Communication

Construction workers may be on a site for three months, or they might work on a job for one day. In both cases, contractors take on the same level of risk when it comes to ensuring each employee is appropriately trained. And with a workforce that is constantly in motion, construction managers face the challenge of tracking who has been trained on what. Paper filing systems and limited access to the training records while onsite can lead to oversights when it comes to identifying improperly trained workers.

Virtual training allows contractors to more easily track exactly who is trained on what, and store the important documents in a digital archive. By keeping critical information readily available digitally, onsite managers can more quickly confirm and step in if someone is not properly trained and manage overall communication for the duration of the project even as the job site’s workforce changes.    

Builders are also using digital communication platforms to address the communication disconnect between the home office and the front-line workforce, and in order to reduce the risk of miscommunication. These apps allow teams to send messages, emergency alerts and even just-in-time training videos that can highlight safety hazards specific to the job site to individuals or entire crews in an instant, helping to reduce unnecessary work stoppages and operational friction. They can also deliver micro-training refresher courses so that workers can better retain and implement the new knowledge and skills they have learned.

By deploying new types of digital training techniques, companies can improve communication and provide the front-line workforce with the right information to make safe decisions on a job site, reducing overall risk and most importantly, ensuring that their workers get home safely.

3 Key Risk Management Responses to the Coronavirus

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The novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV continues to spread throughout China and other countries, seriously impacting business operations around the world. As governments and companies act to protect their citizens, operations and employees at home and abroad, these actions threaten to produce business interruptions, travel risks and other effects that could be detrimental to business continuity.

On January 30, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the virus a global emergency, meaning that it is a threat beyond China, after more cases have appeared in other countries around the world.

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According to the New York Times, the WHO has only made such a declaration five times since 2005. The virus has killed more than 400 people (including 2 outside mainland China) and has infected more than 20,000 in more than 25 countries.

In addition to the cancellation of major public events in China (including celebrations of Chinese New Year), many international businesses have curtailed their operations there since the outbreak. According to Bloomberg, this includes Starbucks (which closed more than half of its shops), Toyota (which stopped production), McDonald’s and KFC (which both closed restaurants), and Disney (which closed its resort in Shanghai), among others.

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Some international companies have instructed their employees to work from home to limit exposure as the virus spreads, and Amazon, Microsoft and other tech companies also limited employee travel to and from China.

China has maintained mass quarantines of areas with high number of infections, including Wuhan, the origin of the outbreak, and some other countries are also taking extraordinary steps to limit the virus’s spread. Last week, Russia sealed its entire border with China and cancelled all trains between the countries except for a single train line between Moscow and Beijing. Japan is currently quarantining more than 3,000 people on a ship after a passenger tested positive after departing the ship, while the United Kingdom has advised its citizens to leave China. And the United States issued a proclamation suspending entry for non-citizens who spent 14 or more days in China before attempting to enter the United States.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) stated that the risk for people in the United States is “considered low at this time,” with elevated risk for individuals who may have increased exposure—such as healthcare workers and others in close contact with patients with the virus. However, companies should still act to protect their operations and employees, especially if operations require international travel and if supply chains depend on Chinese business continuity. Here are three approaches to limit risk from the coronavirus:

1. Take Travel Precautions

The CDC has recommended avoiding all non-essential travel to China, and the U.S. State Department has asked people not to travel to China. If travel is essential, the CDC suggests avoiding contact with sick people, any animals, animal markets or products made from animals. If traveling employees are older, they should take extra precautions, since, “older adults and people with underlying health conditions may be at increased risk.”

2. Develop a Response Plan

Medical and travel security services firm International SOS also recommended that businesses have regularly-updated and evaluated business continuity plans in place to ensure smooth response to incidents like disease outbreaks. The Institute of Risk Management South Africa (IRMSA) recommended preparing a specifically-focused “Pandemic Preparedness Plan” or updating previously prepared plans to reflect current circumstances to ensure business continuity.

IRMSA also suggested creating a group within the company, chaired by a senior staff member, able to make quick executive decisions for the organization in response to any coronavirus-related impact to the business and prepare decision-making processes for future incidents.

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3. Consult Reputable Information Sources

Relying solely on reputable news sources, like government disease control agencies and reliable media, can help when evaluating and taking courses of action to reduce risk. Conspiracy theories about the coronavirus have spread rapidly, including misinformation about its source, how to protect against or treat infections, and the number of people affected. Misinformation has also resulted in discrimination against Chinese-linked businesses and people of Chinese heritage, as well as East Asian people in general. Disseminating clear, reputable information to all employees, especially those traveling, can reduce risk of infection and impact on business operations.

How a Strong(er) SRM Program Could Have Helped Boeing

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A strategic risk management (SRM) program is designed to assist organizations in identifying, prioritizing, and planning for the strategic risks that could impair or destroy businesses and reduces the chances of these kinds of crises. And while hindsight is 20-20, an SRM program – or a more effective one – could have helped Boeing avoid some of its recent high-profile crises.

Between October 2018 and March 2019, two crashes involving the Boeing 300 737 MAX 8 models resulted in the loss of 346 lives. Since then, Boeing has:

  • had a possible criminal investigation commenced against it,
  • lost $22 billion in market value in the week following the Ethiopian Airlines’ crash in October,
  • had more than 300 737 MAX 8s grounded worldwide,
  • sustained significant reputational harm,
  • received demands from airlines seeking compensation for lost revenue,
  • been sued by crash victims’ families, and
  • had sales orders cancelled or suspended.

This is a crisis from which it may be difficult to recover.

One could trace back some of the risks to its decades-long rivalry with Airbus and an effort to remain viable.

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When American Airlines indicated it was close to finalizing an exclusive deal with Airbus for hundreds of new jets, Boeing sprung to action. The New York Times reported that Boeing employees then had to move at “roughly double the normal pace” to avoid losing “billions in lost sales and potentially thousands of jobs.”

An SRM program would have required an assessment of the business model and the associated risks, including competitors, long before the call from the CEO of American Airlines. The risks would have been prioritized and this information would have been factored into strategic plans that would have included responses to material risks.

During the scramble, Boeing mirrored Airbus’ operations and mounted larger engines in existing models.

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 The objective seemed straightforward: Make minimum changes to avoid the need for training in a simulator, decrease costs, and build the redesigned model quickly. But a risk was that mounting larger engines changed the aerodynamics in the aircraft, requiring a consequential need for new software, a Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) which was supposed to prevent stalling. Boeing’s view was that pilots did not need to be trained on the software and federal regulators agreed.

However, in an effective SRM program the C-Suite would have been advised that the strategic and life safety risks were material and that training for pilots was indeed necessary.  In addition, all such risks would have been assessed to determine whether they could be used to obtain a competitive advantage.

For example, including vital safety features in the base cost of aircraft (as opposed to charging extra for them) and requiring a focus group of pilots with no financial relationship with Boeing to test the newly designed 737 MAX 8s and the MCAS system would have been a way to solidify Boeing’s reputation for safety first.

An SRM program, which monitors progress in achieving strategic objectives with a focus on continuous improvement, would have looked at the Indonesian Lion Air and the Ethiopian Airlines crashes as an opportunity to confirm that Boeing puts safety first by grounding the aircraft. Instead, Boeing urged the U.S. to keep flying its jets until after 42 regulators in other countries had grounded them and appeared to care more about economics than life safety. Only seven months ago, Boeing was synonymous with efficient jet planes and commercial aviation – it was a reputation that took decades to build. Now, the company has a long, uphill climb to resolve its many challenges and rebuild its brand.

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An SRM program cannot succeed without full support from the C-Suite as it has to be integrated into the business model and decision-making processes in order to be effective, and in time we will learn more about what risk management protocols were followed across Boeing’s organization.

At RIMS 2019, Marian Cope will lead a panel of industry experts in discussing reasons to transform an ERM program into a SRM program or develop a SRM program in NextGen ERM:  Strategic Risk Management. The session will take place April 29th at 1:30 pm.