1-800 How’s My Writing?

The tractor-trailer is southbound on a Georgia Interstate. The driver takes a call from his boss, back in Nanaimo. “You behind a blue Chevy sedan?” the boss asks.

The driver responds: “Yep, How’d you know?”

Boss fires back: “The Chevy driver just called. Says you’re tailgating. Back off.”

Oops. The driver must have forgotten. His trailer sports one of those “How’s-my-driving?” decals.

You know the ones. They look like invitations to trouble. Trouble is, they work. Especially now that everybody’s driving around with a cell phone at the ready.

Richard Lea is the vice president of sales and marketing at Driver’s Alert, North America’s largest 1-800-how’s-my-driving? business. Driver’s Alert takes calls for about 5,000 truckers, bus companies, taxi fleets and even ambulance-services. All told, Lea has decals on about 350,000 vehicles in Canada and Stateside.

Business is not merely brisk, it’s getting brisker. For one thing, Lea says he can prove that insurance companies look favorably on fleets that employ his service, For another, the proliferation of cells has been a godsend for guys like him.

Insurance companies don’t automatically lower your premiums if you use the service, but improved driving records sure can’t do you any harm. Markel Insurance’s head of safety and training services Dave Goodwin agrees, but adds that safety’s only one of the factors affecting premiums. However, if you run in Manitoba and are signed on with that province’s public-insurance program, your trucks will automatically get 1-800-2advise decals. That program is administered by a Georgia-based outfit, much like Lea’s.

You can subscribe to Lea’s service for about a buck a truck per month. If your number of reported accidents doesn’t decrease by at least 10 percent the first year, you’ll get your money back. Lea says, about 85 percent of calls from drivers using the 1-800 numbers are complaints. Another 10 percent are, believe it or not, compliments, and the rest are job enquiries or other unrelated things.

When a person does make a call, before they are even asked “What happened?”, a Driver’s Alert customer-service rep conducts a two-minute interview. Not only does this get the caller’s dander down, it allows the call centre to get a full description of all the vehicles involved as well as all the circumstances around the alleged incident. He also insists that the caller leave a daytime phone number. So nuisance calls are kept to a minimum. If the caller doesn’t cooperate, the incident never gets reported to the client.

But if all conditions are met, off goes a two-part report. The first is a play-by-play of the incident and the second includes suggestions for how the carrier might deal with the driver. Should the driver’s supervisor choose, he or she can upgrade the driver’s skill level with a bit of training. And of course it all goes on the driver’s record.

The three top complaints are swerving, speeding and tailgating. And most of the calls Lea gets are not even about trucks. Complaints about tractor trailers account for only about 35 percent of his business. It’s mostly, he says, about buses.

“I guess truck drivers really are the best drivers,” he says.

Now if only we could get that word out to the rest of the world.

Oh. One more thing. My brilliant pal John figures it’s time to print up a bunch of decals that other people could sport as they go about their daily jobs. That way, they’d all be under the same scrutiny as your drivers are. Just think: A lawyer driving around with “I -800-how’s my litigating?” Or your kid’s teacher with “1-800-how’s my teaching?” Being as publicly accountable as your average trucker might keep a lot of folks between their own white lines.

On that note, how’s my magazine?