Carrier Compliance – A Team Effort

Success is important but defining success changes depending on whom you ask.

Some may say success comes in the form of money. Others may say success is having many clients or delivering many loads. All these are true, but for trucking companies, success is making sure they operate within the law. The best way to create success is with a team effort.

Carriers based in British Columbia must follow specific rules and laws. Remember that each province has its own rules. Professional drivers need to be familiar with them when they travel in other provinces.

Carriers need to do certain things before they can operate legally on our roadways. First, a carrier needs to earn an NSC Safety Certificate. Then, they must follow specific rules outlined in the regulations. Everyone working for a carrier must remember that regulations are not a recommendation; they are something you must follow.

While these rules can come across as confusing, carriers should be encouraged to remember that the province of British Columbia and industry associations like SafetyDriven are there to help carriers be successful along the way. They provide help with creating safety and maintenance programs and resources like policy and procedure templates. They can also point you in the direction of experts.

Carriers work with several different types of documents, and each must be kept in specific ways. Everyone from drivers to dispatchers and bookkeepers must ensure they complete these documents correctly, and the company must ensure they are kept for the time, and in the manner, required by law.

Professional drivers play an important role in the success of a carrier. This is why they must always follow the rules. Drivers that do, help protect themselves, their company, and the public when they are on the road. Completing your paperwork properly should be as important as following the rules of the road.

Carriers should always want to protect their business. One way they can do this is by checking their carrier profile regularly. This profile is like a carriers report card. It shows important information about the carriers’ safety and compliance record, allowing the carrier to manage those issues and even to correct mistakes that might show up and affect their ability to work. Carriers need to make a BCEID account to have access to their own carrier profile.

A carrier can keep a clean profile with a team effort. This means no failed inspections and tickets. Carriers need to have rules that tell drivers what to do when something is broken on a vehicle, and what the driver needs to do to get it fixed.

Remember, the goal is to have safe drivers with safe vehicles on the road and getting there requires a team effort from all the carriers’ employees, right up to the owner.

For additional resources, check out SafetyDriven Trucking Safety Council of BC, BC Trucking Association, or CVSE.