Compliance hits the headlines
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Inviting two customers to briefing is one way Bedfords a corporate manslaughter Transport has promoted the importance of a safety culture. What other measures does it take?
Words: Guy Sheppard / images: Richard Mann Tight deadlines and unexpected events can make compliance extremely challenging for newspaper and magazine hauliers. The death of a top celebrity, for example. severely stretches an operator's capacity overnight simply because demand for such news is so intense.
Cutting corners in such situations is not an option for Bedfords Transport, whose main customers are Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers and magazine printer Polestar. West Yorkshire-based Bedfords not only sticks to A, Philip Lockwood, tried and trusted subcontractors, but also insists that they Bedfords commercial follow the same standards that apply to its own 70 drivers.
director "Our contracts with subcontractors are the mirror image of the contracts we have with our customers.explains commercial director Philip Lockwood. "If penalties are imposed for failed or late deliveries, then the subcontractors have to accept responsibility for those."
When Michael Jackson died, Bedfords needed to expand its fleet of 70 vehicles by another 20. Ensuring there are enough subcontractors willing to be pulled in at such short notice requires plenty of relationship building as well as planning.
"It sounds a bit cheesy to say, but we are a bit like a family," says Lockwood. "We give them good terms and conditions. We believe our payment terms are better than anyone else's.
Good communication Building good relationships has also paid dividends with customers, particularly in relation to overloading.This offence can cause serious problems when advertising leaflets are inserted into newspapers at the last minute or the quality of paper used in a magazine is temporarily upgraded. "When you put one insert weighing one gram in a magazine, it is neither here nor there. but when you multiply that by 50,000, it can be the difference between being overweight or not." says Lockwood.
He adds that Redfords drivers have always been told to go to the nearest weighbridge if they suspect that their load may be overweight. "To most people, they pick up a newspaper and it's a newspaper. They don't think about the grammage of the paper."
The risk of overloading appears to have receded over the past 18 months after Bedfords highlighted to customers their potential liabilities from overloading. As a result, pallet weighting systems and weighbridges have become
far more widespread at sites operated by its customers.
Lockwood says there had been an issue over forklift truck drivers repeatedly putting too much weight close to the headboard. "Wc took a couple of our customers to a corporate manslaughter briefing and they were horrified that they could be liable if they had overloaded a vehicle and the brakes failed. The way we sold it to the likes of Polestar and the Doily Mail was that if one of our vehicles was caught up in a road traffic accident and it was televised, their name would potentially he caught up in it."
Spreading the message about safety forms part of Bedfords' corporate social responsibility programme. It runs a road safety programme in schools. and Brake, which campaigns on road safety, is the company's chosen charity. "They provide us with information about legislation, and if we want a driver briefing on whatever, they will help," says Lockwood, Driver awareness Giving safety such a high profile is bound to rub off on drivers, but Lockwood believes they are increasingly conscious of the need to keep abreast of legislation anyway."They are pushing us for information themselves."
Any such requests are channelled through the company's driver committee, which consists of four drivers and two managers. "Notes from the meetings arc published for all the drivers to read," explains Lockwood. "It's a way of communicating information about new legislation, from management to drivers," Last year. Bedfords introduced an incentive scheme, rewarding high-performing drivers with £50 shopping vouchers every month.The company also looks for evidence of poor performance, such as low fuel-efficiency and heavy braking. Lockwood says that if a driver's standards appeared to deteriorate. "we would sit and talk to them and ask if they've got too much work or problems with home life".
Continuous improvement At present, there is nothing to suggest that standards are slipping. "We never get improvement notices or GV9 prohibition notices placed against us," says Lockwood. As well as being a source of pride, he believes there are practical benefits from keeping a good compliance record.
"Drivers appreciate it because they're working in a cleaner, safer environment. We don't have a big turnover of staff. When we clo get stopped by VOSA, it's a cursory stop. And customers appreciate that, when they do their research on us, they find we're acting as a good ambassador for them." •