Avatar's Transportation Blog

How Incident Management Software Can Lower Operational Costs

Accidents happen – how your drivers respond and manage the incident can make all the difference when navigating claims. As a Safety Director, it’s you...

Best Incident Management Software for Motor Carriers

As a transportation Safety Director, keeping your drivers — and other motorists — safe on the roads is tough. When you factor in your other responsibi...

AI & DOT Compliance: Why Manual Processes Hold You Back

There’s a ton of buzz around how to use artificial intelligence (AI) in the transportation industry and in compliance specifically.

Top 9 AI Tools in Transportation in 2025

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’re aware that artificial intelligence tools are transforming the transportation industry.

FMCSA Enforces English Proficiency for Drivers: What to Know

You’ve probably heard about President Trump’s April 28 Executive Order “enforcing the commonsense English-language requirement for commercial motor ve...

Polynesian Adventure Tours Uses DriverHub To Get 100% Compliant

Challenge Faced The team at Polynesian Adventure Tours, a family-owned and locally-operated company in Honolulu, Hawaii, was drowning in paper files. ...

FMCSA Removes Non-Compliant Medical Examiners: What Now?

If you learned that some of your drivers may have received their Medical Examiner’s Certificates (MECs) from non-compliant doctors and they had one mo...

FMCSA Medical Certification Changes Coming in June 2025

It’s been a decade in the making. The June deadline is fast approaching for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s rule change regarding ho...

Tried & True Metrics for Recruiting & Compliance Managers

Like a doctor reviewing bloodwork results, motor carrier Safety Directors should have 24/7 access to practical diagnostic information about the health...

3 Driver Compliance Problems Solved with AI

Anyone who has played around with even the most basic artificial intelligence tools knows that AI is good at some things and not good at other things ...

Drivers Aren't Filling Out Full Apps, What Now?

So you’re a recruiter using DriverHub, and leads are up — great news! It’s satisfying to see your Purple Cow messaging and Careers Page (formerly know...

Online vs. In-Person Bus Driver Training: Which is Right for You?

Effective bus driver training is the difference between growing your organization and suffering from cost of loss. It’s the difference between attract...

The Top 3 Bus Safety Challenges (and How to Overcome Them)

Every accident is caused by people and their unsafe behaviors.

How Much Does Bus Driver Training Cost?

Your bus operators’ accidents cost you money. They cost you lost time, rising insurance premiums, loss of business, fines, and court appearances. Wors...

When You Should Consider Switching Systems for Recruiting, Compliance and Training

Do you know that feeling when you need to make a change, but you fear wasting the time, money or effort you’ve already invested?

3 Common Reasons Safety Directors Fail

As a motor carrier Safety Director, you have a lot of responsibilities that aren’t directly safety-related. Compliance, anyone? Not to mention human r...

4 Reasons To Use Call Recording For Driver Marketing & Recruiting

How would you like to have a secret weapon for developing your driver marketing and recruiting program? We have one for you: call recording.

Why You Should Purge Records Routinely

Did you know there’s a group of plaintiff attorneys who’ve banded together to get better at suing the pants off of trucking companies? That’s right. T...

Announcing Avatar's Newest Product Line-Up

Safety Directors: You told us that you and your team live in six systems. You told us your team wastes time with data entry keeping all rosters synced...

8 Steps to Roll Out In-Cab Cameras at Your Fleet

Some business decisions are a tough call, while others are a no-brainer. In-cab cameras are one of the easy decisions. They pay for themselves the fir...

FMCSA Expands Crash Preventability Determination Program (CPDP): What Safety Directors Need to Know

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) expanded its Crash Preventability Determination Program (CPDP) to 21 crash types, including in...

DriverHub Workflow Triggers: 5 Benefits & Best Practices

Think of your perfect candidate. Maybe it’s an experienced CDL driver with all the endorsements, a clean MVR and who lives 5 minutes down the road. Im...

The 2025 Driver Qualification File Checklist You Need to Pass a DOT Audit

Want to print out the DQ File Checklist? Download the free PDF by clicking below:

Transmark Increases Monthly Hires By 50% with Avatar's Driver Marketing Agency

Challenge Faced As the second-generation owner of Transmark, Garrett Knollman has been working to revamp the business and set it up for the future. Pa...

How a Standardized Hiring Process Improves Candidate Selection

Go slow to go fast. NASCAR pit crews don’t rush to go fast. They go fast because everyone knows exactly what to do and when. Every second is standardi...

What’s the Best Place to Advertise for Bus Drivers?

Bus companies are typically sophisticated marketers. You have to be constantly booking new business, so you’ve nailed marketing strategy and tactics. ...

The Biggest Problems with Using Generic HR Software for Motor Carriers

We respect motor carriers who make the effort to muscle through making a generic HR system the system onboard drivers and manage Driver Qualification ...

5 Ways Recruiters Can Use AI and Automation to Hire More Drivers

It’s no secret that recruiters at transportation companies wear many hats.

How Safety Directors Should Use AI & Automation To Prioritize People

By now you’ve seen the sparkles.

3 Mistakes When Picking DOT Compliance Companies

Should you manage Driver Qualification Compliance or outsource it? The answer to that question is what will you do with that time and does it bring th...

Anchor Transportation Saves Time & Hassle with DriverHub

Anchor Transportation is a family-owned, 100-unit motorcoach company serving Tennessee and Northern Alabama. The 35-year-old firm has been using Drive...

What's The Best Fleet Maintenance Software?

Adding technology is one of the first things motor vehicle carriers can do to improve as they ascend from a good company to a great company. Technolog...

What is Continuous Driver Monitoring?

Other than maybe an office party on your last day before retirement, you don’t want any surprises as a motor carrier Safety Director.

Say Goodbye to Repetitive Data Entry: Introducing AvatarFleet's ELDT TPR Integration

Repetitive data entry is the bane of any modern worker’s existence. It’s a waste of time. It’s tedious. It creates room for error. Overall, it’s costl...

The Core 4 Metrics Safety Directors Should Be Looking At Each Week

You know the old saying: “You can’t manage what you don’t measure?”

Top 5 Reasons AvatarFleet Won't Work for You (And What To Do About It)

Everyone knows time is money, and nobody in the transportation industry likes to waste either one.

The Top Problems New AvatarFleet Customers Face (And How to Avoid Them)

Congratulations! You’ve taken the first two steps toward becoming much more effective in your job as a Safety Director.

3 Things Safety Directors Should Know About AvatarFleet

As a Safety Director, you spend a lot of your day as the Chief Firefighter. You have to grow the fleet, reduce accidents and remain DOT compliant, amo...

LJ Rogers Increases Hires 112% With AvatarFleet's Driver Marketing Agency

Challenge Faced LJ Rogers was grappling with inefficient spending on job sourcing with minimal return on investment, specifically from Tenstreet's Job...

George Hildebrandt Decreases Cost Per Hire by 83% with AvatarFleet's Driver Marketing Agency

Challenge Faced Before partnering with AvatarFleet, George Hildebrandt Inc. faced significant challenges in their driver recruitment efforts. The comp...

ATCO Doubles Hires While Reducing Accidents/Million Miles to Zero

Challenge Faced ATCO Hauling, a woman-owned, tractor-trailer, and dump truck company, found itself submerged under the weight of paperwork and manual ...

Puryear Grows Fleet 122% While Reducing Accidents/Million Miles by 32%

Challenge Faced Puryear Tank Lines, a third-generation, family-operated logistics firm, faced significant organizational and operational challenges wi...

How Brisk Clients Use LLLC to Reduce Risk and Prevent Incidents

Brisk Management Services was formed in 2013 to provide risk financing and risk management solutions to mid-cap trucking companies. Their flagship cap...

ATC Driveaway Doubles Hires, Improves Speed-to-Hire With DriverHub

ATC Driveaway Transportation Services offers commercial truck manufacturers, work truck builders, and fleet management companies reliable, on-time, pr...

Simplifying Compliance with New York's Article 19-A Forms

For the passenger motor carriers who run in the state of New York, Article 19-A is a pain to manage. There is a lot of redundancy to the FMCSA Driver ...

What Are FMCSRs?

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) are a set of rules and guidelines established by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration...

Safety Tips to Prevent Bus Driver Accidents

When you google “Top reasons for bus accidents,” you don’t see statistics, accident types, or studies on risky behaviors. You see over 100 articles fr...

How JMS Transport Redefined Its Recruiting & Compliance Department with AvatarFleet's Software and Services

JMS Transportation's partnership with AvatarFleet has boosted recruiting, compliance, and operational efficiency. JMS overcame the small business hurd...

GO Riteway Passes DOT Audit With Ease Using DriverHub

AvatarFleet's DriverHub proved to be a game-changer for GO Riteway during a recent Department of Transportation (DOT) audit. Despite receiving short n...

Unlocking Efficiency: How to Find the Perfect Candidates Every Time

Do you find yourself saying “I don’t need more candidates, I need more of the right candidates”? We encounter many driver recruiters feeling frustrate...

5 Tips For Getting Bus Drivers to Engage in Safety Training

You’re sick of dealing with accidents, cost of loss, inefficiencies in operation, passenger complaints, and your operators getting hurt. So, you imple...

How Much Does Driver Recruiting Software Cost?

Summary: The cost of driver recruiting software can range between $129-$6,000 per month, or $1,548-$72,000 annually, based on your fleet size. This do...

Spend Less Money on Job Boards with AvatarFleet's Driver Influencer Program

Would you rather give your recruiting money to Job Boards or your drivers?

How Much Does Driver Compliance Software Cost?

Summary: The cost of driver compliance software can range between $150-$1,200 per month, or $1,800-$14,000 annually. This does not include the cost of...

Top 4 Mistakes Companies Make When Choosing a Bus Driver Safety Program

If you’re a busing operation in need of safety training, you might be wondering where to begin. Do you make your own? Do you go for the cheapest optio...

How Do You Know If Your Bus Operator Training is Working?

Training your bus operators costs you thousands of dollars per trainee. You probably want to know if what you’re doing is worthwhile.

What Should You Use to Teach Online Bus Operator Training?

You’re probably reading this because you’re tired of planning bus operator training.

The 11-Step Guide for Switching to DriverHub

Transitioning your DQ Files from paper or a local drive to software may seem like a daunting leap. It’s a common feeling if you're not tech-savvy or h...

Introducing AvatarFleet's New Candidate Landing Page

You want the best drivers lining up to work for you. And, you want to spend less time sorting through leads so you can build your fleet of all-stars.

The Triple-Threat Formula Proven to Reduce Driver Turnover By 40%

Managing your trucking company is complicated and stressful - no matter the size of your operation. You have to recruit new drivers, ensure your compl...

How to Develop a Custom CDL Driver Training Program

Many transportation companies can greatly benefit from an off-the-shelf or “plug-and-play” CDL driver training program. Programs like our Bus Safety C...

Overcoming Common Challenges of Truck Driver Training

When done well, training your CDL A truck drivers results in reduced accidents, a more efficient operation, lower cost of loss, and saved lives.

Strategies to Avoid OSHA Violations

OSHA violations cost light-duty fleets hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. Worse yet, these violations lead to accidents, injuries, and even ...

Make Every Week Driver Appreciation Week

When was the last time you showed your drivers how valuable they are to your company? Are you waiting for driver appreciation week?

4 Reasons to Consider a Mobile Training App for CDL Drivers

Training CDL drivers often comes with wasted time, big budgets, and mixed results. Of course, not providing adequate training is an even worse option....

Truck Driver Appreciation Week: Be Thoughtful and Practical

Truck Driver Appreciation Week is almost upon us, so if you aren’t yet prepared, it is time to figure out how to show your thanks to your drivers and ...

What You Need to Know About ELDT for Bus Drivers

Entry-Level Driver Training is necessary for every new bus operator you train to qualify for their CDL. ELDT went into effect in February of 2022. Thi...

How to Use Bus Driver Training to Create a Culture of Safety & Compliance

Your bus or motorcoach company can reduce accidents and save money when you create a workplace culture focused on safety.

Honoring The Heroes Who Serve Behind The Wheel & On The Battlefield with Ron Patterson of Puryear Tank Lines

Whether it's on the highways or in the military, heroes are among us, selflessly dedicating their lives to serving our country. Among these heroes is ...

What’s Included in an Effective Bus Driver Training Program?

If you own a fleet of transit buses or motorcoaches, you’re legally obligated to train them. However, that is NOT the main reason to train your bus op...

The Time Has Come For Topgrading in Trucking

The gift a freight recession gives you is the opportunity to be pickier with drivers.

How Much Does It Cost To Hire A Truck Driver?

It depends on who you ask, but most folks throughout the industry say it costs $5,000 to hire one professional driver. Other clients say it’s north of...

Truly Solve Your Driver Problem With AvatarFleet's Improved Platform

Driver Recruiters: you've been lied to.

How to Implement a Driver Safety Training Program

An effective driver training program will drastically reduce your accidents and injuries. In fact, your driver training program should save you more m...

How to Recruit Recent CDL Graduates

If you’re a trucking company in America, you’re likely suffering from the driver problem. Driver turnover/churn is almost 90%. Worse yet, the trucking...

Proper Lifting Techniques for Fleet Drivers

Accidents cost you time and money. However, we aren’t just talking about driving accidents. We’re also talking about accidents that lead to personal i...

How to Prevent Distracted Driving

If you put employees behind the wheel, their most important job is to be defensive drivers who prevent accidents. This makes you a more efficient oper...

Recruiting Truck Drivers Using Social Media

Are you struggling to fill empty seats with the right drivers? Like you, we used to wonder where all the good drivers are hiding. Your driver problem ...

Trends in the Driver Market for 2023

We’re over a month into 2023, so it’s time to take the pulse of the trucking industry. Unfortunately, it appears that the industry’s crystal ball is f...

Ideas to Improve Truck Driver Onboarding

The first week after you hire a new truck driver is make or break. It can be the difference between drivers sticking with you for years to come or lea...

How To Create Compelling Driver Recruiting Ads

Editors Note: We're giving away our driver recruiting secrets! Check out our free video series to double your hires without spending more on ads: [Vid...

The Best Places to Advertise & Find Truck Drivers

When people find out about the success we've had recruiting drivers, they always ask “where are the best places to advertise for truck drivers?” Unfor...

Replacing PEV Drug & Alcohol Inquiries with the Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse Query in 2023

The FMCSA is making changes to 49 CFR 391.23 which outlines the requirements for Previous Employer Verifications.

Truck Driver Recruiting & Retention Strategies for 2025

The truck driver shortage isn’t getting any easier to solve. With experienced drivers retiring and fewer young people entering the profession, truckin...

What Truck Drivers Want

The trucking industry is facing an existential crisis. Companies have freight collecting dust. They have empty seats they can’t fill. And they have ju...

3 Ways Municipal Fleets Can Save Money with Safety Training

Accidents are costing your municipal fleet time and money. Worse yet, they’re common.

Top 5 Reasons Why Truck Drivers Quit Your Company

As a carrier, your business cannot exist without truck drivers. This seems obvious, yet the industry faces an existential crisis: clogged shipping doc...

Stop Plaintiff Attorneys Before They Take Your Fleet to Court

How to Keep Your Pest Control Fleets & Drivers Safe

Pest control fleet drivers are at risk for injury and illness from workplace hazards, chemicals, and sprays. The good news is, these risks are top of ...

FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse: Answers to Common Questions

In the first week of operation, the FMCSA Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse identified nearly 8,000 substance abuse violations in professional drivers. T...

The 5 Most Common OSHA Violations for Light Duty Fleets

Your light-duty vehicle drivers are at risk of serious accidents and injuries due to OSHA violations. This also means that your company is at risk.

The First Step To Driver Retention: How You Recruit Drivers

If you’ve read our articles before, you’ve heard this one many times: there’s no silver bullet to solving your driver problem. You struggle to find, r...

Transitioning From PDF Applications to Digital Files: A How-To Guide

Excel spreadsheets, downloadable PDFs, and website form captures aren’t the industry standard anymore. These processes are cumbersome, take a lot of e...

New DOT Physical Requirements for 2022

The DOT driver physical is an important part of keeping America’s roads and highways safe. That being said, it can be a hurdle for companies and drive...

Delivery Driver Accidents On The Rise - How Can You Protect Your Drivers?

If you have delivery drivers, you’re at risk of losing tens of thousands of dollars in cost of loss per year. Perhaps you’re at risk of losing million...

7 Great Ideas for Truck Driver Appreciation Week

Next week is National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, so hopefully, you’ve been thinking of ways to show your gratitude to the hardworking people who ...

Hiring Drivers With No Experience: What Should You Do?

Here’s one of the most popular search terms from motor carriers: how to hire drivers.

Tips for Fleets to Avoid Bloodborne Pathogen OSHA Violations

As a fleet owner or manager, bloodborne pathogens are likely not high on your list of concerns. That doesn’t mean they don’t present a risk to your dr...

Brake Safety Week: A Focus on Safe Braking for Fleet Drivers

Brake Safety Week runs from August 21st through August 27th. This initiative is put in place by the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) with the...

Recruiting and Marketing Tips for CDL Drivers with Ron Yazzetti from Work4

In July 2022, AvatarFleet president Scott Rea discussed recruiting and marketing to truck drivers with Ron Yazzetti from Work4.

How Your Fleet Can Prevent Slips, Trips, And Falls

Slips, trips, and falls are the most common OSHA injury. This means you need to take action to prevent them for your fleet drivers.

Go Beyond Compliance to Combat Runaway Nuclear Verdicts

For the most recent episode of Solving the Driver Problem, Scott Rea met with Bluewire’s CEO, Steve Bryan.

Highway Accident Results in Explosion - Could it Have Been Prevented?

In May of 2022, an ODOT vehicle and a dump truck were involved in a serious accident on I-77 that resulted in an explosion. Luckily, no one was killed...

What You Missed at The AvatarFleet/Bluewire Connect Event

On June 22nd, 2022, AvatarFleet leaders Scott Rea and Mark G. Gardner discussed recruiting, compliance, training, and nuclear verdicts with Bluewire.

The ABC’s of Defensive Driving

This blog was updated on December 15, 2021.

How a Smooth Candidate Journey Can Help You Hire Drivers Faster

You’re spending loads of money to find, attract, select, and hire drivers. That makes it all the more painful when they disappear on you and go with a...

3 Fleet Safety Tips for Utility Fleets

Your utility workers are at risk for serious accidents and injuries every day. However, their biggest risk doesn’t come from fixing downed lines, clim...

Safety and Compliance: Beat Nuclear Verdicts and Your Competition

It has never been more important to be safe and compliant. Such was the message driving Transport Topics’s webinar on nuclear verdicts and tort reform...

Why Safety Training Is Essential for Fleet Management Professionals

The goal of fleet safety training is to protect employees, reduce accidents, save the company money, and save everyone time and headaches dealing with...

Night Driving Safety Tips for Fleet Drivers

If your company puts people out on the road for work - whether it’s delivering goods, providing services, or visiting job sites - you’re at risk of ma...

What to Do If You Can’t Get a Candidate’s Employment Verification

Hiring enough drivers to keep up with demand isn’t easy. It feels impossible most days. That’s why it’s all the more frustrating when you’re ready to ...

3 Ways to Reduce Accidents for Tow Truck Drivers And Save Money

Tow truck drivers face the risk of accidents and injuries. The fact is, it’s a dangerous job. As the owner/manager of a tow truck company, that risk i...

How to Use Landing Pages to Hire More Drivers

What are your driver recruitment goals? Whatever they are, they’re tied directly to your success as a business. However, the more important question i...

FMCSA Eliminates Annual Record of Violations Requirement

There are major changes to the Annual Record of Violations Requirement. What does it mean for the transportation industry and companies like you?

Creating a Career Path for CDL Truck Drivers

Do you have enough quality drivers in your fleet? That’s a rhetorical question because we know the answer is no. What if you could reduce accidents, l...

Why Driver Fatigue is Dangerous for Fleets and How to Avoid It

What does an accident cost your company? Probably more than you think. A single accident can cost a company with work truck, van, sedan, or truck driv...

3 Takeaways from the SambaSafety + AvatarFleet Webinar You Should Know About

Trucking companies face massive risk from aggressive plaintiff attorneys and nuclear verdicts. The FMCSA isn’t the main boogie-man anymore. It’s lawye...

How to Reduce Accidents and Injuries for Construction Fleets

When your construction workers have accidents, it costs you money. You lose out on workers’ compensation, rising insurance costs, lost time, vehicle r...

How to Use Compliance Software to Prepare for a DOT Audit

No one has ever accused the government of being cutting-edge technology adopters. Without a literal act of Congress, the FMCSA will have to audit your...

The 3 Biggest Mistakes Driver Trainers Make

Think back to your elementary school classroom. Was it a peaceful, controlled, and relaxed environment? Much to the chagrin of your teacher, probably ...

5 Topics To Be Teaching in Your Truck Driver Safety Training

I got a call the other day from a client who’s worked with us for many years. We first met him back in 1999. At the time he was senior vice president ...

What Are The DOT Requirements For Non-CDL Drivers’ DQF?

Did you know that you may be required to keep driver qualification files for non-CDL drivers?

Manage Your PEVs From One Screen with DriverHub's Latest Update

AvatarFleet released an upgrade to help you manage your Previous Employment Verifications (PEV). The DriverHub PEV Manager has received some handy upg...

Ultimate Guide to Preparing for a DOT Audit

The audit is a fact of life. The Department of Transportation (DOT) takes its role as federal regulations arbiter very seriously and conducts its nece...

Safety Measures to Prevent Injuries to Your Fleet Truck Drivers

Light-duty fleet truck drivers face the risk of serious accidents and injuries while on the job. The legal and financial risk is transferred to the co...

Easily Monitor Drivers with the AvatarFleet/SambaSafety Integration

Accessing motor vehicle reports can be expensive and time-consuming. Worse yet, if you fail to keep up to date with them, defense attorneys will sniff...

Preparing for the 2022 International Roadcheck

The 2022 International Roadcheck is scheduled for May 17th - 19th. This year’s focus will be on wheel-end components. If you want to avoid costly fine...

How to Get Fleet Safety Buy-In

Accidents are costing you time, money, and resources. Worse yet, they’re hurting your people. The solution, of course, is to invest in a fleet safety ...

Understanding Inefficiencies That Increase Risk at Your Fleet featuring SambaSafety

How confident are you that your drivers report every violation they have in a timely manner? Any accident that happens between a violation or an expir...

How HVAC Companies Improve Profits With Fleet Safety Training

You and your HVAC technicians face immense exposure to risk and cost of loss. Where does the risk come from? On-the-job injuries like strains and spra...

AvatarFleet Welcomes Three New Team Members

Cleveland, OH - AvatarFleet, the software provider that helps transportation companies fill empty seats, pass every audit, and bring 'em home safely, ...

How to Improve Your Driver Safety Policy

The goal of having driver safety policies is to prevent accidents and injuries while reducing your liability. You likely already have some safety poli...

Get High-Intent Candidates with DriverHub's EZApp Update

Ready to fill your empty seats? DriverHub’s newest update to EZApp is one more tool to help.

ELDT Mandate Updates with Mark G. Gardner from AvatarFleet

On this episode of Solving The Driver Problem, Scott Rea gets together with AvatarFleet CEO and Founder Mark G. Gardner. The two discuss ELDT, what it...

Safe Following Distance for Light-Duty Truck Drivers

Accidents lead to lost time, injuries, and rising costs. This holds true for an accident of any severity. So, what’s the most common cause of vehicula...

Avoid Failing a DOT Audit with Driver Notifications in DriverHub

How hard is it today to track down a driver for a new license or to coordinate with dispatch a time to swing by your office to sign the Certificate of...

The Most Common Driver File Violations

When you have an accident, the last thing you need is a plaintiff attorney named The Hammer knocking on your door and sniffing around your Driver Qual...

Developing a Fleet Accident Response Plan

Accidents cost you money. Worse yet, they get people hurt or even killed. Your best bet is to work to prevent accidents from happening. But what’s you...

How Light-Duty Fleets Can Reduce Employer Liability

Your non-CDL or light-duty drivers face risks out on the road. They face the risk of accidents, injuries, or even fatal collisions. However, the risk ...

How to Ensure Your Fleet Passes Cargo Securement Tests

Failure to properly secure cargo/loads can result in hefty fines. Worse yet, improper securement can cause serious accidents and injuries. It can even...

How to Evaluate and Select Light-Duty Vehicle Drivers

You need light-duty vehicle drivers who will avoid accidents, reduce risk, and get the job done without incident. In short, you need safe and reliable...

Do You Need a Fleet Compliance Manager?

The biggest fear for most fleets is a massive DOT violation. There’s an issue with your drug & alcohol testing policy, a driver who is out of comp...

4 Safety Policies Every Fleet Safety Program Should Have

Rules, policies, and procedures are not “safety.” Safety and accidents come down to human behaviors. After all, rules won’t always stop your drivers f...

A Comprehensive List of CSA Violations for Fleets

CSA violations are one of many things that can keep a fleet manager up at night. They range from burdensome all the way to crippling. They could even ...

What to Know About the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse in 2022

In order to avoid hefty fines and stay in compliance, you need to stay informed on the DOT Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse going into 2022. We’ll help ...

Top Job Hazards Currently Facing Fleet Operations

Your non-CDL driver accidents and injuries are costing you money. Worse yet, they result in pain and suffering. If you want to reduce accidents, injur...

What is Fleet Accident Management and Why Should You Consider It?

Accidents cost non-CDL fleets money, plain and simple. They cost you fines, repairs to vehicles, lost time from employees, and much, much more. Even w...

What Does It Mean to Be 'Fleet Safety Certified'?

Most light-duty fleets are not regulated by the Department of Transportation. Thus, there is no specific “fleet safety certification” or demarcation f...

What is a Fleet Audit?

Like most people in the trucking industry, the idea of an audit probably makes your skin crawl. However, we’re not talking about the DOT. We’re talkin...

Fleet Vehicle Maintenance and Repair Tips to Keep Your Drivers Safe

You need simple solutions to reduce your fleet’s cost of loss. One way to do so is to focus on fleet vehicle maintenance and repairs.

The 5-Step Action Plan HR and Safety Need to Be Aligned

Creating a world-class safety training program requires your HR and Safety departments to be aligned.

Tech and Techniques to Increase Safety: Recap from the Fleet Safety Experience Event

Are you experiencing high accident numbers for your light-duty vehicle fleet? Do you have little to no budget or time to solve your safety problem? Th...

Sync Indeed Applications to A-Suite Instantly With Our Newest Integration

At AvatarFleet, we understand that recruiters are often forced to source candidates across dozens of channels every day.

How to Host Safety Training Online

Traditional safety and driver training happens in the classroom, or behind the wheel, and is led by an instructor. These are both important aspects of...

Updated Entry-Level Driver Training Regulations

The FMCSA will roll out new Entry Level Driver Training (ELDT) regulations that take effect on February 7, 2022. What does this mean for your company?

5 Learning Management Features That Will Help Your Non-CDL Drivers Avoid Accidents

Moving your non-CDL driver training online saves you time, money, and headaches. Best of all, it’s easier than you might think. You just need one simp...

Speed Up Your Application Process With EZApp

Did you know 60% of job seekers quit in the middle of filling out online job applications because of their length or complexity?

Essential Strategies For Preventing Non-CDL Accidents - The Fleet Safety Experience

Accidents cost you lost time, rising insurance premiums, and perhaps even court fees. The good news is, accidents don’t have to happen. Attend The Fle...

Nuclear Verdicts: Are You Running Naked With Scissors?

What would happen to your company if you were handed a $1 billion verdict in a court case? It sounds far-fetched, but today it’s a reality. A Florida ...

How to Convert Drivers Using Targeted Landing Pages

Are you struggling to keep up with the recruiting demands of your company? Are you watching your advertising budget skyrocket? Would you love to upgra...

Why Qualified Drivers Aren't Replying to Your Ads

Are you fishing with a net or a spear?

4 Driver Safety Training Courses You Must Be Teaching to Inexperienced Drivers

Every driver you hire, you take on risk. You put them behind the wheel for your company and entrust them with your goods, services, vehicles, customer...

High Driver Turnover Highlighted in HireRight's 2021 Benchmark Report

Looking for industry news on essential recruiting and retention trends? Look no further. HireRight® released its Global Benchmark report this summer c...

How to Calculate Driver Training ROI

Are the time, money, and resources you pour into driver training worth it? Or are you working up a sweat to get mediocre results? When implemented cor...

How to Boost Driver Training Results with a Learning Management System

You should be spending less time and resources on driver training while getting better results. Many companies with a fleet of non-CDL drivers pour th...

How to Make Your Non-CDL Drivers Safer

If your employees need to drive to perform essential job duties, they’re professional drivers. Pest control specialists, delivery drivers, and utility...

Earn NATMI Certification Renewal Points for Training We Offer

Earn points towards NATMI certification renewal with AvatarFleet’s professional safe driving training programs.

Why It's So Important To Train Your Drivers Right Now

Dealing with a worker shortage in your light-duty vocational fleet? You’re not alone. America is suffering from a surplus of jobs and a shortage of ap...

Fleet Owner Fined for Falsifying Compliance Docs

We all know what happens when we’re not ready for the DOT audit. Fines, court dates, or even worse - prison time - can happen when we’re not in compli...

How to Share Fleet Safety Tips Through Newsletters

If you want meaningful and permanent reductions to your accident numbers, it isn’t enough to just train your new hires. You need to consistently educa...

Why Do Accidents Occur?

When you train your light-duty and non-CDL vehicle drivers to prevent accidents, you save money, become a more efficient company, and protect your peo...

Should You Check Mobile Phone Records After a Light-Duty Vehicle Accident?

You need safe, defensive drivers in your fleet of non-CDL vehicles. When your employees focus on preventing accidents, you’ll enjoy lower cost of loss...

How to Know if Your Drivers Need a CDL

In order to protect your company from hefty fines, it’s essential to understand whether or not your drivers need a commercial driver’s license.

Understanding the PRO Act and How it Affects Truckers

This blog was written by John Kuder with consultation from Jordan Call and Marc Blubaugh from Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP. The Unit...

5 Ways to Improve Fleet Safety For Non-CDL Drivers

Your fleet safety training program should actually be saving you time and money. It doesn’t need to be a burden on your company.

Safety KPIs: How to Set Achievable Goals

You want to reduce your company’s accidents with your non-CDL drivers, but if you don’t have a goal in mind, you won’t get anywhere. That’s why you ne...

Are You Posting a Job or an Opportunity for a Career?

If you want to hire more qualified drivers, your job postings need to stand-out from your competition.

4 Safety Concerns Utility Drivers Commonly Overlook

What’s the most dangerous part of a utility worker’s job? Climbing a telephone pole? Dealing with a downed wire? While those are both high-risk activi...

How to Make Safety Meetings Fun

Are your safety meetings engaging, educational, and productive? Or are they a painful experience for your non-CDL drivers?

What To Do if Your Non-CDL Driver Gets in an Accident

The most important part of your drivers’ job is preventing accidents. That means you should do everything you can to reduce accidents and injuries in ...

What is a DOT Physical?

Being a truck driver isn’t easy.

Direct and Indirect Costs for Fleet Accidents

What’s the cost of fleet accidents for your company? Probably higher than you think.

3 Safe Driving Habits Your Non-CDL Drivers Need

Your light duty, non-CDL drivers face as much risk behind the wheel as a truck driver.

Are Your Non-CDL Drivers Following These Steps Before Driving to a Job?

Your non-CDL light-duty vehicle drivers face tremendous risk out on the road. Other people, road conditions, and weather all create chances for seriou...

How to Run Effective Fleet Safety Training Across Multiple Locations

Managing fleet safety training across multiple locations can be a cumbersome, costly, and painful process.

Why Your Driver's Voice is Critical to Recruiting & Retention

You have a powerful driver recruiting and retention resource sitting at your fingertips: your current drivers.

Voice of the Driver: What We Learned from the 2020 OTA Driver of the Year Nominees

The Ultimate Guide to Light-Duty Vehicle Safety Training

Accidents are a common and costly part of your business. They cost lost-time, a large chunk of your budget, and paid worker’s compensation. Worse yet,...

2021 First Quarter Features Recap

Opting In/Out of Mass Emails and Texts Your leads, candidates, and team members have the option to opt out of mass communications emails and text mess...

Like it or Not - Your Light Duty Vehicle Drivers Need Safety Training

If your employees drive in order to complete vital job duties, they’re professional drivers. And without the proper training, they’re putting themselv...

Warning Signs That You Need Light-Duty Vehicle Safety Training

According to OSHA, the average car accident will cost a company around $16,500. However, an on-the-job crash that results in an injury can cost nearly...

How Often Should You Do Safety Training?

If you want to get in shape and stay in shape, it’s not enough to spend a week lifting weights and running. You need to keep-up with an exercise routi...

Why Your Company Needs Monthly Safety Meetings

It isn’t enough to train your drivers when you first hire them. They need to be re-trained, re-trained again, and then re-trained some more. And here’...

Preventing a Nuclear Verdict: Interviews With Our Expert Panelists

Watch AvatarFleet President Scott Rea interview some of our panelists about the upcoming webinars.

The Importance of an LMS For Your Safety Training

Traditionally, training takes up a lot of time, money, and resources. You need to gather everyone together, pay a trainer to flip through a powerpoint...

7 Things Owner/Operators Should Know Before Buying Health Insurance

As an Owner/Operator, you are tasked with operating a business and driving professionally. That is two full time jobs and we know it’s just the beginn...

6 Strategies For Effective Online Defensive Driving Training

Training your employees in defensive driving today isn’t the same as it was a year ago. What can you do to continue keeping your drivers safe in all t...

How to Build Safety Training into Your New Hire Orientation

Do you trust your new-hires to get behind the wheel? Do you trust them to avoid risk and prevent accidents on the job site? Or, are you holding your b...

How to Use Driver Mentors For Safety Training

One of the best ways to reduce your accident rates is to give your employees essential safety training right from the time of hire. However, it can be...

How to Create a Safety-Centric Culture

How can you influence your employees to care about safety as much as you do? What will it take to get your employees to think, breathe, and dream abou...

Why Driver's Ed Isn't Enough: The Importance of Professional Driver Training

Do your employees drive in order to fulfill vital job duties? If the answer’s yes, you have professional drivers.

2020 Fourth Quarter Features Recap

A-Suite Term Changes We have adjusted some of the terms used within A-Suite.

How to Build a Safety Training Program in One Month

Maybe you’ve just been tasked with quickly developing a safety training program for your organization. Or, in the most unfortunate of circumstances, m...

Where Should We Post Our Driver Jobs?

Just like the rest of the industry, you have empty seats and you need to fill them yesterday. Where do you start?

When Does It Make Sense to Outsource Safety Training?

Do you spend time and energy creating your own in-house driver safety training materials? Or have you outsourced safety training?

Why Digital DQ Files Are Better Than Paper

If you’re not tech savvy, the transition from paper driver qualification files to electronic storage can feel like a giant leap to make. There’s comfo...

Light-Duty Fleet Safety Tips: What Your Drivers Should Know

Driving is the riskiest thing your employees do.

DOT Clearinghouse Deadline Approaching: Are You Ready?

It’s been nearly a year since the foundation of the DOT Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse as the new primary database for driver histories of drug and al...

Why You Need an LMS for Your In-House Safety Training

How many hours out of your week does your in-house safety training program eat-up?

Why You Should Provide Online Driver Training

You care about the safety of your employees. It’s why you host safety meetings, correct your employees’ unsafe behaviors, and read our blog posts. How...

Creating A Culture Millennials Want To Join In Trucking

Professional driving, especially trucking, has always been an older folks’ game. Figures constantly come out with worrying trends about the increasing...

Lessons Learned from Canadians Crossing The US Border

This story will give you five million reasons to be 100% certain you are compliant with U.S. law. There was a Canadian driver who broke down in Michig...

Do Your Driver Recruiting Ads Pass The Google Test?

3 Defensive Driving Courses You Should Teach at Your Safety Meetings

Driving is the riskiest thing your employees do.

3 Ways Transportation Companies Can Buffer COVID’s Impacts

On September 24th 2020, AvatarFleet President Scott Rea was the presenter for a webinar on how to manage recruiting, compliance, and safety in the COV...

What to Look For In Your Fleet Management Software

Time is precious and in short supply for both you and your drivers, so you need to save it where you can. On top of that, you don’t need the added fin...

Introducing LLLC Remote

Online defensive driving training used to be watching a video to check the box. The goal was to prove in court that you tried. We always thought it wa...

Step 1 to Preventing the Nuclear Verdict: Proper DQ File Management

Accidents are every fleet’s nightmare. Accidents cost lives, money, and trust, none of which are easily replaced. A worst case scenario is one known a...

Why Time to Respond Is so Critical in Driver Lead Generation

Managing Your Online Reputation with Author Joel Mandelbaum

The most recent episode of our podcast “Solving the Driver Problem” features Joel Mandelbaum, author of the best-selling book Winning Online: Increase...

Recruiting Drivers on Social Media with Jeremiah Guappone

Advice for Managing DOT Compliance with Irwin Shires

The most recent episode of our podcast “Solving the Driver Problem” features Irwin Shires, a longtime driver and safety expert, who works as Vice-Pres...

Advice From Ohio's Top Drivers at the 2019 OTA Driver of the Year Awards

Updates To The Hours Of Service Regulations

In May, Congress elected to make changes to the existing hours of service rules in order to give truckers more flexibility in their work that will go ...

The New Recruiting Funnel

The professional driver recruiting funnel isn’t what it was five years ago. Jason Kent Crowell continues to accurately document the evolution of recru...

Virtual Driver Orientation with DriverHub's Newest Integrations

Welcome to the new age of driver training, onboarding, and orientation.

Solving The Driver Problem, Episode 7: John Liberatore

John Liberatore from Primacy Risk Services sits down with Scott to talk about how companies can protect their drivers and themselves from lawsuits bro...

Webinar Recap: How To Manage Recruiting, Compliance, and Training in the COVID-19 World

On June 9th, AvatarFleet President Scott Rea was featured on a webinar hosted by the Ohio Trucking Association on the topic How To Manage Recruiting, ...

Why Health Insurance Captives Are a Better Health Option for Your Fleet

Scott Rea sat down with Brisk Management Services founder Bob Bernatchez about insurance captives, a growing alternative to traditional insurance for ...

Navigating FMCSA Regulations featuring Clay Merches

In episode 5 of Solving the Driver Problem, Scott talks safety and compliance with safety guru Clay Merches. Clay is the president of Leading Edge Con...

FMCSA Remote Audits Increase

FMCSA is going digital. That’s right, your government is joining the 21st century. As a means of continuing their usual responsibilities of maintainin...

How to Manage Recruiting, Compliance, and Training in the COVID-19 World

Motorcoach Rolling Rally Gets Congress' Attention

A logistical marvel during a time of crisis, motorcoach operators across America gathered in Washington D.C. on May 13th to stage a “rolling rally” ou...

The Origins of the Driver Problem featuring Mark Gardner of AvatarFleet

Scott sits down for a chat with AvatarFleet CEO Mark Gardner to talk about his experiences and knowledge that he's gained over a 30 year career in the...

Driver Retention Re-Invention

Why Does Driver Retention Matter? Before COVID-19, unemployment rates were at record lows - drivers had the leverage in the supply and demand equation...

How COVID 19 is Affecting Truck Drivers And What You Can Do

During COVID-19, we’re all counting on drivers to keep the stores stocked with the essentials. Consumers rely on them, the economy relies on them, and...

Alfred E. Neuman & COVID-19

MAD Magazine came out in 1952 and, for the next 57 years, successfully lampooned just about everyone and everything in the world. The magazine’s carto...

Preventing Your Nuclear Verdict

Foster v. Landstar Ranger is an infamous case in the trucking industry. The 2011 case was filed by a Georgia woman in 2007 who was looking to hold a t...

How to Take Advantage of COVID-19 in Transportation

How are you running your business when the world is full of uncertainty? The Marines would call this a

Packaging Driver Recruiting, Retention, and Safety featuring Chris Harris of Safety Dawg

This week on Solving The Driver Problem, Scott talks with Chris Harris, a.k.a. The Safety Dawg, who works with trucking companies on recruiting, train...

How To Stop Making Cliche Driver Marketing Ads featuring Chad Hendricks of Brand Outcomes

In our second episode, Scott talks with Chad Hendricks, host of the Recruit & Retain: Trucking Edition podcast and president of Brand Outcomes, In...

Fighting Human Trafficking in Trucking with Laura Cyrus

Professional drivers are a cornerstone of our daily lives. Some make sure that there’s food and medicine at the store. Some make sure there’s fuel at ...

Leadership in Transportation During Times of Crisis featuring Kim Richardson of KRTS

In our first edition of the Solving The Driver Problem podcast, host Scott Rea talks with KRTS's Kim Richardson on the subject Leadership In Transport...

1st Quarter 2020 A-Suite Features Wrap-Up

Our team is always working hard to make A-Suite the best it can be for our customers with fixes, updates, and new features. In this article, we recap ...

Professional Driver Safety is a Way of Life

Brian Fielkow wrote a terrific article on the rising cost of liability insurance and the negative impact it’s having on the trucking industry. Fielkow...

FMCSA Grants Limited Exemptions for Expired CDLs, Medical Card

Digital Playbook For Trucking Schools And Carriers, Part III

In February of 2020, Avatar Fleet president Scott Rea presented at the 5th annual Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario (TTSAO) Conference. Re...

Digital Advertising Playbook For Trucking Schools And Carriers, Part II

In February of 2020, Avatar Fleet president Scott Rea presented at the 5th annual Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario (TTSAO) Conference. Re...

Digital Playbook | Trucking Schools & Carriers, Part I

AvatarFleet President Scott Rea recently presented at the Truck Training Schools Association of Ontario (TTSAO) 5th Annual Conference. The conference ...

Tax Credit for CDL Training Expenses

Finally, a tax break for the trucking industry! This is big. Unlike the old joke that begins with, “Hi I’m from the government and I’m here to help yo...

6 Resources To Follow to Better Yourself as a Driver Recruiter

Keeping pace with the ever-changing landscape of recruiting can be a daunting task for any transportation specialist. As new technology emerges and dr...

Can I Keep My DQ Files at Different Terminal Locations?

If you have more than one terminal, can you keep your Driver Qualification Files at multiple physical locations? It may seem like a simple question, b...

How to Project a Forecast for your Driver Recruiting Funnel

Driver recruiting is a non-stop process that requires time and resources to find the right people. It makes the most sense, then, to try and do it eff...

Solving The Driver Problem With Recruiting & Retaining Part 3

In December of 2019, Avatar Fleet president Scott Rea guest-starred on the podcast Recruit & Retain: Trucking Edition. The episode discussed Avata...

Recruiting and Retention Tips From The Best

Chad Hendricks hosted "the Dr. Phil of Trucking" on his “Recruit and Retain” podcast, who had five great points worth sharing with our readers. Charle...

Solving The Driver Problem With Recruiting & Retaining Part 2

In December of 2019, AvatarFleet President Scott Rea joined podcast host Chad Hendricks on an episode of Recruit & Retain: Trucking Edition. The e...

Recruit & Retain: New Ideas To Solve Your Driver Problem

High driver turnover often snowballs for trucking companies. You suffer from high turnover and need more drivers. However, you have a hard time findin...

A-Suite Can Help Solve Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse Headaches

A Summary of The Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse The Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse is waiting for you on January 6, 2020 so we’ve created a summary to...

Better Dispatchers Lead to Better Retention

Your dispatchers could be causing you turnover. Of course, they don’t mean to, but we hear it from drivers time and time again. Drivers often quit bas...

Top 5 Driver Recruiting Trends You Should Follow in 2020

2020 is right around the corner. The driver recruiting game is getting more sophisticated and you need tools to keep up. To start January with a bang ...

5 Things to Know about The Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse

There have been rumblings about the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) new Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse for years, and it appears that it is final...

CDL Finishing School Achieves Prestigious PTDI Certification

MACEDONIA, OH - AvatarFleet, LLC is excited to announce its strategic partnership with the Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI). AvatarFleet is ...

Driver Shortage Tops ATRI, It Should Not Be an Issue for You

AvatarFleet President Scott Featured in FreightWaves Video

Why Your Downloadable PDF Application Isn't Cutting It

We hope you don’t take offense to the article title. We aren’t here to rag on you. In fact, just the opposite, we’d like to congratulate you on a soli...

Building A Safety Culture Builds Safe Drivers | AvatarFleet

This blog post was updated on March 31, 2021.

Why Downloading PDFs Is No Good

Last year, 90 percent of CDL holders applied for a job using a mobile device. The future is here! Unfortunately, this means that these applicants are ...

Rethinking Your Recruiting Budget

Now more than ever, you need an efficient way to recruit more drivers. If your turnover rate is near the national average, still well over 70% for car...

Retention Re-Invention: Solve Your Drivers' Problems

The OTA Annual Conference took place in Cleveland, OH September 16th and 17th. Held by the Ohio Trucking Association and the Ohio Association of Mover...

AvatarFleet Hosts LLLC Certification with OTA on October 15

Retention Re-Invention 2: Building a Driver-Centric Culture

On September 16th and 17th, leaders in the transportation industry will gather in Cleveland, OH for The OTA Annual Conference. Held by the Ohio Trucki...

Why Should You Care About Driver Retention? | AvatarFleet

Mark your calendars: The OTA Annual Conference, held by the Ohio Trucking Association and the Ohio Association of Movers, is taking place September 16...

Why Rehires Are Your Best Lead Source

This blog post was updated on March 26, 2021.

Telematics - Where To Look For ROI

How to Improve Driver Retention with Mentorship Systems

Think back to the first job you ever had. Picture yourself walking through the door on your very first day. You may have been excited, but you were al...

How to Plan and Execute Your Driver Recruiting Process

Recruiting professional drivers is no easy job. A recruiter often has to do the job of four or five people, spending their day contacting drivers by p...

Time to Switch to Electronic Verification

In order to hire new drivers, all transportation companies have to run Previous Employment Verifications (PEV) under DOT regulations. The PEV has hist...

Why You Should Use Social Media to Recruit Drivers

The driver problem requires some new thinking. If you’ve been following along with us for some time, we’ve shared numerous strategies that can help yo...

How to Influence Your Drivers to Stay

One of our clients was telling us a story that we hear a version of all the time. This particular story was about a top performing driver named Nancy....

How to Train Your Drivers to Avoid Distractions

Distracted driving is, simply put, risky. By definition, risk is the possibility of suffering harm or loss. You risk a lot when you drive distracted. ...

Retain More Drivers: Treat Them Like People

Do you know the top 5 reasons drivers quit a company? Some are obvious, like inadequate pay or not enough hometime. Others however, you might not expe...

Why You Should Move On From Paper DQF Files

Driver Qualification Files are a necessary part of life for transportation companies. The consequences of expired or missing paperwork can result in a...

Prevent Distracted Driving and Save More Lives

Summer is here and with so much sunshine, driving has suddenly become enjoyable. The grey skies and wintery conditions are gone. Everyone is rolling d...

3 Reasons Why You Need an ATS to Recruit Professional Drivers

Why Is Driver Turnover So High?

Follow the Data Last month, I read an interesting article in the NATMI monthly newsletter. It was written back in September 2018 by Stephen V. Burks a...

Introducing The New A-Suite Recruit Applications List

We're excited to announce the latest version of A-Suite Recruit's Application List for users today! The new Application List offers more clarity, orga...

How to Optimize New Driver Orientation

How frustrating is it when you have orientation no-shows? You’ve spent time, money, and resources working with someone and then, last minute, they dit...

Scott Woodrome Brings Home a TDC Threepeat

Scott Woodrome of FedEx freight continued his dominant run at the Ohio Trucking Association Truck Driving Championships, winning the Grand Champion ea...

Build Your Recruiting Funnel By Understanding These Key Terms

Recruiting is an everyday job. It can be a lot to track, email, and call drivers day to day. So it might be helpful to be able to step back and look a...

How Efficient is Your Lead-to-Hire Process?

Hire More Drivers with a Faster Onboarding Process One of your biggest challenges in hiring quality drivers is that your competitors are vying for the...

Grand Champion, Ralph Hamilton, Headed Back to Nationals

Ralph Hamilton won the South Carolina Truck Driving Championships on May 5 in Columbia, South Carolina. The Grand Champion will be headed to Pittsburg...

Recap of TransRep National Recruiting & Retention Symposium

On April 27, 2019, TransRep hosted the first annual National Recruiting and Retention Symposium in Mississauga, Ontario, featuring various industry an...

Creative Solutions to Driver Compensation Problems

If your driver retention numbers are as bad as the industry average, you can change that! It should be no surprise that pay is one of the most common ...

Use Texting to Hire More Drivers and Achieve DOT Compliance

In 2006, we lived in a world without smartphones. In 2017, it was found that American’s check their phones an average of 80 times a day. The average A...

CDL Finishing School Is a Necessity

The average age of an over the road truck driver is 55 years old. Swapping 55-year-olds from company to company in an endless shell game will get you ...

How to Hire Your Next All-Star Driver: Lessons From OTA

The Ohio Trucking Association (OTA) recently celebrated the 2019 Driver of the Year Award. Twelve professional truck drivers were recognized for their...

Truck Driver Shortage Argument R.I.P. | AvatarFleet

Well it’s finally happened. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics just published a lengthy report suggesting that there is no evidence of a driver sh...

AvatarFleet Releases Background Screening Integration

AvatarFleet's driver recruiting and compliance management software, The A-Suite, has integrated with Accurate Background, a leading provider of automa...

3 Ways To Improve the Driver Candidate Experience

Improving the candidate experience for potential drivers is an important on-boarding aspect that often gets overlooked. Use these tips to enhance the ...

3 Easy Ways to Improve Driver Retention

Between advertising, recruiting, on-boarding, and training, it costs you thousands of dollars to hire just one driver. So it hurts all the more to see...

Could Technology Bring In More Truck Drivers?

How To Target the Right Drivers

If you’re like most transportation companies in North America, you have more customer demand than you have a supply of drivers. Simply put: you turn d...

Creating a Driver Career Path & Improving On-Boarding Process

Our conversation continues with Kim Richardson of KRTS to talk about the importance of creating career paths for your drivers and the role orientation...

How A Compliance Tracking System Works

The digital age has forced trucking into the 21st century. It’s no longer just an advantage, but an absolute necessity to use technology in profession...

How To Create Millenial Truck Drivers

Millennials became the largest generation in the workforce in 2016. Even so, most trucking companies fail to effectively recruit and retain millennial...

For The Love of Drivers: Establishing the Voice of the Driver

We recently sat down with our friend Kim Richardson of KRTS to talk about some of trucking's hottest topics. We came away with a few recruiting and re...

One Solution to the Driver Problem: CDL Finishing School

The New York Times published an article this past summer on the changing demographics of American truck drivers. Fleets no longer consist only of midd...

Restaurants and Driver Retention

What if you ran your trucking company like a restaurant? What if you treated your drivers like customers? Sound like a strange comparison? Maybe, but ...

Truck Drivers Stop The Insanity! | AvatarFleet

I apologize if this title is politically incorrect. However, it comes from none other than Albert Einstein who defined insanity as “doing the same thi...

How To Be A Successful Driver Recruiter

Being a driver recruiter is no walk in the park. You hustle and dedicate yourself every day to hiring the best of the best. Even so, the big boss remi...

How to Choose Driver Recruiting Software

How To Prevent Technological Distractions

If you’ve been in the transportation industry for a long time, you know as well as anyone that things have changed a lot. The days of paper logs, road...

The Wage War Is On In Professional Driving

How to Combat the Wage War in Professional Driving Trucking companies are desperate for more drivers and are pulling out all the stops to find them. A...

Now's The Time To Invest in A Compliance Tracking System

This blog post has been updated on January 27, 2021.

6 Ways to Measure Driver Recruiting Success

How to Quickly Grow Your Semi Truck Driver Pool | AvatarFleet

On November 8th, I sat in on a driver recruitment panel at the second annual Ohio Trucking Association Technology Conference. The focus of the panel w...

ATRI Survey Explores How to Solve the Driver Problem

Positive Employer Branding Grows Your Fleet

We’re continuing our recap of the important takeaways on recruiting drivers from the second annual Technology Conference presented by the Ohio Truckin...

What's the Best Way to Recruit Truck Drivers?

How Do I Retain My Best Truck Drivers?

Trucking is a relationship business. Drivers are people and their issues are your issues. Driver retention is all about establishing clear expectation...

Recruitment & Branding in Trucking | OTA's Tech Conference

On November 8th, the Ohio Trucking Association held its second annual Technology Conference. The conference covered topics focused on how to use techn...

Safety Leadership: Can Do / Will Do

How to Find Good Truck Drivers

Everyone asks us for the silver bullet when it comes to hiring good truck drivers. Where's the best place to advertise? Should I go with Craigslist or...

Safety Leadership: Behaviorism

How to Prevent Accidents at Your Terminal

At AvatarFleet, we love safe drivers. That’s why we always have our ear to the ground when it comes to accident data. It’s also why we hate to see FMC...

Safety Leadership: Management and Safety

5 Ways to Attract (and Keep) Good Millennial Drivers

Recruiting Ideas to Hire More Drivers

Are you feeling the pain of driver shortage? Trick question - there is no driver shortage. You’re feeling the pain of the driver problem, which is a m...

3 Lessons on Solving the Driver Problem | OTA Conference

Safety Leadership: Norms and Safety

Vehicle Inspections Are Part of Safe Driving

Safety Leadership: Rules and Safety

This is a continuation of our blog series on Safety Leadership. In the last article, we explained Avatar’s five-step risk management model and said mo...

5 Ways to Show Your Drivers You Care

Safety Leadership: The Risk Management Model

This is a continuation of our blog series on Safety Leadership. In the first blog, we defined safety as “Freedom from risk.” And, based on that defini...

Safety Leadership: What We Can Learn From Accidents

Participating in The Driver Shortage: It’s Your Choice

The American Trucking Association and many other trucking organizations continue to pump out reports that we’re currently short 63,000 drivers, and fo...

Safety Leadership: You Break It, You Buy It

Creating Viable Career Paths for Truck Drivers

Driving a truck can be a stable lifelong career but the lifestyle has contributed to the driver problem in America today. More than any other element,...

Why DOT Compliance Software Pays For Itself

This blog post was updated on March 16, 2021.

Safety Leadership: Getting Started

For several months my team has been asking me to write an ebook on Safety Leadership. At first, this would seem to be an easy task. After all, we’ve c...

How to Choose a Driver Training Program: Typical Challenges

This article serves as Part 3 of 3 in a series on Choosing a Driver Training Program

9 Keys To Safe Professional Driving

Professional driving is a tough gig. It’s also one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. That’s because driving any kind of vehicle is a dangerous ...

How to Choose a Driver Training Program: Desired Outcomes

This article serves as Part 2 of 3 in a series on Choosing a Driver Training Program

How to Choose a Driver Training Program: Learning Domains

This article serves as Part 1 of 3 in a series on Choosing a Driver Training Program

Help Make Trucking A Good Job To Have

Driver First, Customers Second

Why You Need Driver Finishing School

Creating a Career Path for Drivers: Why It's Important

Distracted Driving - Why I Chose to Die | AvatarFleet

The Driver Problem Requires New Thinking

Online Driver Safety Training: What You Need to Know

If you want quality, outcome-based online driver safety training, you need to understand what goes into creating a successful design. It’s all about y...

What is Defensive Driving? And How We Teach It

During the past 27 years we've developed professional driver education and training for dozens of leading transportation companies. Most of the curric...

What is Behind-the-Wheel Training?

The Truck Driving Championships: A Great Driver Retention Tool

The Annual CVSA International Roadcheck: June 5-7, 2018

Invest In A Driver-Centric Brand

3 Steps to Enhance Your Safety Culture

Where Does Truck Driver Safety Start? | AvatarFleet

Three Lessons from the Titans in the Trucking Industry

Why Do People Do Dumb Things When They Drive?

For as long as cars have existed, people have driven without complete attention. Back in the 1930s, radios were first put in luxury vehicles and peopl...

Recruit More Drivers With a Better Screening Process

This blog post was updated on March 31, 2021.

How Build a Culture of Safety Leadership

Bad Bosses Cause Driver Turnover

Why Structured Interviews Reduce Driver Turnover

Improving Driver Retention starts with hiring the right drivers for the jobs you have to offer. You make a heavy investment in drivers before they wor...

Being "Better" In Trucking Means Change

Three Driver Recruiting Metrics You Should Be Tracking

Invest in Your Drivers to Reduce Turnover

Money can’t buy happiness or your driver’s loyalty. But you need to provide enough of a consistent salary, so they don’t have to worry about making th...

Four Best Practices To Improve Driver On-Boarding

When it comes to professional driving, the first 90 days are your critical period for retention. These first three months are pivotal for a driver dec...

Steps To Develop Your Driver Brand Statement

The Driver Shortage Is For Your Competition Take the term Driver Shortage out of your vocabulary. It’s an excuse not to grow your fleet. There is a Dr...

Broken Windows and Driver Safety

In 1993, Rudy Giuliani was elected Mayor of New York City based, in part, on a “get-tough-on-crime” platform. Although he was a controversial characte...

You Don’t Have to Have a Driver Shortage

American Trucking Associations has, once again, updated its numbers and they confirm what we read and hear about nearly every day; the driver shortage...

Similarities Between Marriage and Truck Safety | AvatarFleet

Are you married? Odds are, yes. Currently in America, 52 percent of all adults are married. That means at least 121,600,505 of them chose to say “I do...

Millennial Drivers: A How-To Guide

You’ve read everywhere about how the trucking industry needs younger drivers. Luring them into professional driving still proves to be a challenge. Th...

Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers And Truck Safety

AvatarFleet exists to make the world a safer place. It’s in our DNA. It’s the fire in our belly when we come to work each morning. But what does it me...

Managing Organizational Change

Organizational change is usually conceived as logical, rational, orderly, and completed on a predictable time-frame. In reality, it is usually messy, ...

Product Updates January 25th, 2018

ApplicantCare

Recruit More Drivers with Your Purple Cow

The days of simply posting a job online and landing qualified applicants are long gone. Today, you have to “pay-to-play.” But tomorrow, you’ll have to...

The Only Acceptable Goal is ZERO Accidents | AvatarFleet

Professional driving is a dangerous business. By the simple fact that professional drivers spend eight to twelve hours on the road each day, they find...

An Efficient Hiring Process Removes Driver Problem

You’re Still Not Wearing a Seat Belt? C’mon Man!

6 Tips To Keep in Mind When Backing Up Your Semi | AvatarFleet

We have a saying here at AvatarFleet: Parked cars don’t have accidents, people do. If you back into something, it’s your fault and yours alone (not to...

Product Updates December 14th 2017

We're proud to announce a handful of software updates as we close out 2017. Highlighting the release are the following updates: New features to report...

Use A Culture Contract to Improve Driver Retention

Driver retention depends heavily on company culture. In an article from Heavy Duty Trucking’s online magazine, Deborah Lockridge, Editor-in-Chief wrot...

How to Conduct a Successful Safety Meeting

Safety meetings can be a powerful asset in your toolbox for a strong safety campaign. In trucking however, it’s difficult to get everyone in the same ...

Driving in Adverse Weather Conditions

In Northeast Ohio, we make small talk over weather because it changes like a playlist on shuffle. We know what we’re going to get, but we don’t know w...

What Truckers Think Will Help You Find More Drivers

You can’t understand a driver’s experience working for your company if you don’t ask them. You have drivers that come to work everyday and enjoy worki...

Driver Market: Tight Getting Tighter

With the holidays fast approaching, many companies have found themselves once again scrambling for extra help as shipping increases with the season. A...

Live From OTA Part 4: Implementing Driver Finishing School

Great Driver Marketing - Examples from the Real World | OTA

Live From OTA Part 2: The Millennial Problem

Is Permanent Trailer Registration Worth It?

In the past couple of years, Ohio has made the move to allowing commercial carriers to register trailers permanently in the state for a one-time fee. ...

3 Safest Truck Drivers on the Biggest Subjects in Trucking

Safe Driving Begins With Behavior, Not Technology

What To Think of Self-Driving Trucks

One of the hottest topics in trucking the past couple of years has been the self-driving truck. We’ve all heard or read about beer trucks driving them...

5 Reasons To Road Test New Drivers

It’s one of the most common things that happens when you hire a new driver. A driver used to drive for the company down the road. He or she decided th...

Increase Driver Retention by Reducing Stress

There are many ideas to try to cut turnover for truck drivers and keep retention at a high level. But one area driver retention efforts often overlook...

Ten Things Truck Drivers Get Pulled Over For

Join The Push For Better Driver Safety

Refocus on Safety During High Accident Periods

How To Do A Successful Driver Rehire Campaign

Get Ready For Truck Driver Appreciation Week

CCJ Survey Proves That Driver Shortage Doesn't Exist

The good people at Commercial Carrier Journal (CCJ) released their latest “market pulse” survey at the beginning of the month to take the temperature ...

Verified First & AvatarFleet Join Forces To Better Trucking

Verified First and AvatarFleet have partnered to streamline the hiring process through integration of background screening tools with AvatarFleet’s A-...

4 Keys to a Safer Trucking Company

Our friend Brian Fielkow published this great article on tips to build a strong safety culture for Inbound Logistics. The article makes several points...

Recruit Truck Drivers for Retention

A trucking company always wants to keep the truck drivers they recruit. That’s pretty obvious; you always want to retain everyone you hire. Unfortunat...

Recruit Drivers By Asking The Right Questions

Recruiting is a daily challenge in trucking. It takes a lot of effort and vigilance to fill your driver needs, especially when you have to deal with d...

Safety Requires Insurance

You will never be 100% safe at your company. It’s a harsh thing to say, but it is a fact of life. Even if you have the best safety team in the world, ...

Improve Driver Retention

You may have heard that driver retention numbers have improved slightly in the trucking industry in the past few years. ATA reported that turnover upt...

Retain More Drivers With Great Dispatchers

A major reason for driver turnover that comes up time and time again is that drivers leave based on the way they are dispatched or a lack of assistanc...

Confident Drivers Are Safe Drivers 

You have a group of drivers beginning their orientation this week. They have all passed their written tests and have been cleared to get started. Some...

Solve Driver Turnover By Teaching Your Team Problem Solving 

By now, this blog has taught you that to solve driver turnover takes practice, effort and time. One answer isn’t going to cut it for every trucking co...

Tracking New Driver Progress

Few things are more critical to driver retention than communication. It is so important that you establish effective communication with your new drive...

Recruit Young Drivers By Meeting Them At Their Level

You will try almost anything to find truck drivers. If you had a guaranteed strategy on how to find truck drivers that always worked, you wouldn’t nee...

Train Your Drivers To Help Other Drivers

Trucking companies have taken great pains to help new drivers get used to their jobs. They have upped bonuses, splurged on extra training, maybe even ...

Compliance Is Not Safety: Learn the Difference

You can’t run your business in trucking if you aren’t in compliance with federal regulations. This fact can often cost your company a bunch of time an...

Your Applications Could Be Costing You Hires

This blog post has been updated on January 27, 2021.

Driver Voices Matter

When it comes to reducing driver turnover, there is no magic formula. No matter how effective management is at your company, there’s no way to ensure ...

How To Stay Cool Truck Driving In The Summer | AvatarFleet

Summer means your drivers will be out on the long, hot road. While some people prefer the heat to the bitter cold of winter, summer can be just as dan...

Celebrating Those Who Sacrifice

At AvatarFleet, we love safe drivers. The Ohio Trucking Association’s (OTA) Truck Driving Championships and Technician Competition in Sandusky are tou...

Help Your Managers Solve Driver Conflict 

An inevitable part of trucking is conflict. Conflict can come from almost anywhere and is never pleasant. Sometimes conflict can even lead to driver t...

What Your Drivers Need To Know From Other Drivers 

We told you in last week’s post that it’s critical to have your experienced drivers explain to your new ones the way things are at your company. We’re...

Recruit and Retain Drivers Better by Going to WFBCON!

By now you’ve probably come to realize that the best way to find recruiting strategies that work for you is to try different things. One of the best p...

Retain More Drivers with Clear Expectations

The New York Times published a recent piece on the life of a long-haul trucker. The article not only calls attention to some of the issues that driver...

Retain Truck Drivers By Keeping Them Active

We've mentioned that hiring truck drivers requires some imagination. The same is true in truck driver employment retention. Once you have your drivers...

What Should Be on Your DOT Compliance Checklist

One of the easiest ways to make sure you are playing by the DOT’s rules in trucking is to develop your own DOT compliance checklist. DOT regulations s...

Keep Your Drivers Without Breaking Routine

Truck driver retention continues to be one of the biggest challenges you face on a day to day basis. If you have read our other blogs on retention, yo...

Why You Should Get DOT Compliance Software

You run a trucking company the best that you can. You’ve hired and trained qualified safety personnel to deal with DOT regulations and nonsense. You t...

The Top Three Qualities of Ohio’s Best Truck Drivers 

The Ohio Trucking Association celebrated the top 12 professional truck drivers in the state and announced Mark Spencer, YRC Freight, as the 2016 Drive...

Why Your Driver Recruiting Needs To Be Mobile and Social  

There are truck drivers looking for jobs and no one is reaching them. But you can. The world has gone mobile and lives on social media. Hey trucking: ...

Truck Driver Compliance In Real English

You know what truck driver compliance is. You and your safety team have a painfully instilled working knowledge of the DOT and their guidelines and re...

You Need Millennial Truck Drivers 

In your search to find truck drivers for your fleet, there are a ton of strategies you can employ for recruiting and retaining drivers. But in spite o...

Get The Most Out of DOT Compliance Software 

This blog post was updated on January 15, 2021.

Trucking Accidents What Are They & How To Prevent Them

There are too many trucking accidents out on the road. According to the most recent data from the FMSCA, there were 97,000 truck/bus injury collisions...

How the Trucking Industry’s Turnover Rate Impacts Safety 

This blog post was updated on March 3, 2021.

Four Items For Your DOT Audit Checklist 

No one in trucking looks forward to a DOT audit. An auditor can cause a great deal of stress with the power to slap your company with costly fines. Mo...

Truck Driver Training

Is truck driver training old school? Is it no longer relevant in 2017? Hardly, but some trucking companies seem to treat it that way. In the never-end...

Five Benefits of DOT Compliance Software 

This blog post was updated on February 23, 2021.

Truck Driving Is Dangerous, Learn How To Decrease The Risk

The National Safety Council recently issued a report that traffic fatalities were up 9 percent in the first half of last year. The numbers show nearly...

Stopping Driver Turnover During The First Six Months 

Most of the trucking companies we work with have a solid core of veteran drivers who have been with them for years, but almost everyone seems to suffe...

Driver Turnover: Death by a Thousand Cuts 

The trucking industry has struggled with excessive driver turnover for years and has made very little progress solving the problem, but everyone is lo...

Driver Retention and Communication 

Excessive driver turnover has nagged the trucking industry for decades. There are several reasons retention proves challenging, but some of these are ...

How To Improve Truck Driver Compliance  | AvatarFleet

Truck driver compliance and turnover are related. Compliance can be irritating, confusing and ever-changing, but it’s an essential piece of the turnov...

How To Build a Driver-Centric Culture

If you truly love your safe drivers, you’ve invested in building a driver-centric culture. A driver-centric culture put your drivers first in every de...

The High Cost of Driver Turnover

Andy wanted to spend more on driver retention, but first he had to justify the extra spending to his uncle, so he decided to do a study on the high co...

What Is Driver Turnover? And How to Avoid It | AvatarFleet

Our recent webinar with the Ohio Trucking Association discussing driver retention has had a lot of people asking us just what is driver turnover and w...

Highway Deaths Spiked! This Should Impact Your Fleet Training 

Despite efforts by the government and safety agencies, highway deaths continue to rise, reversing positive trends from past decades. No extra rules or...

The Top Ten Reasons Why Drivers Quit and How To Fix It 

The Ohio Trucking Association recently asked us to present our research findings on the Top Ten Reasons Drivers Quit and How to Fix It. Our blog forma...

Find Truckers Looking for Work, By Serving Current Drivers 

The Over-The-Road trucking industry is waking up and not accepting 100% driver turnover as a cost of doing business. Everyone searches for available t...

Improve Truck Driver Recruiting & Retention | AvatarFleet

Truck Driver Retention Strategies   

Andy started in operations his family’s trucking business right out of school, but he was quickly promoted to Director of Recruiting and Retention. Hi...

The Real Job Title of Safety Director: Director of Impossible 

Mark had enjoyed a meteoric career, quickly rising through the ranks of terminal operations. He’d set records for productivity, load average and on-ti...

What To Do About Increasing Truck Driver Turnover Rates 

A recent CCJ Article featuring the results from the MarketPulse Survey confirms what we already know: truck driver turnover rates rank as the industry...

Truck Driver Training Saves Lives 

We’re passionate about driver safety. We live to reduce the frequency of accidents and injuries for our client trucking companies. That’s why we produ...

The Answer to the Driver Problem (Shortage) 

Is it Otto, or Auto?

The Best Time To Prevent a Driving Accident 

Have you ever wondered when is the best time to discuss an accident? I wanted to do just that a number of years ago. I wanted to dig into the details ...

Recruit and Retain Younger Drivers Without Spending More Money

The average age of your driver population is going through the roof and you desperately need a game plan to bring the next generation into your trucki...

Benefits for Truck Drivers: The Secret Weapon for Retention

Driving trucks is more than a job. It's a lifestyle. And it's a lifestyle that's not for everyone. Drivers frequently work in the middle of the night....

Don't Be A Victim of Safety Fatigue

There is such a thing as "safety fatigue".

How To Create a Driver Brand: Build a Driver Centric Culture 

If you constantly recruit, hire and then lose drivers, you need to work on your driver brand. Earlier this week, we answered the unanswered questions ...

How To Create a Driver Brand: Recruiting & Social Media 

If you experience constant driver turnover, you need to work on your driver brand. Earlier this week, we outlined How to Create a Driver Brand to summ...

Truck Driver Shortage: Fact or Myth?

You’ve seen the headlines since deregulation in 1980 about the truck driver shortage in America: it’s bad and getting worse.

How to Create a Driver Brand

When trucking companies hear about our success recruiting drivers, they always ask us for our secret sources. Advertising where your prospective drive...

Technology Can’t Prevent 94% of Accidents 

Our loyal readers know that safety is freedom from risk, which means you’re never completely safe. Putting trucks on the road means your company is al...

The Safety Professional’s Paradox: Rules Versus Risk 

We have written extensively on safety and risk management, and the impotence of federal regulations on highway safety. You read that right: impotence,...

You’re Upside Down – Put Drivers On Top of Your Org Chart

Reduce New Hire Driver Turnover By Setting Expectations 

I was waiting for a flight at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport the other day, when I decided to take a pre-emptive strike at the restroom. The airport was bu...

How to Train for Winter Driving Safety

A belly full of turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes means that winter is right around the corner. Already, we’ve started to see winter-like weather ...

Learn How To Develop A Long Term Driver Brand | AvatarFleet

Focus on Behaviorally-Based Driver Training

There is no substitute for effective truck driver safety training. You can add all the technology in the world to your trucks, but in the end, you’ll ...

How To Increase Driver Pay Without Paying More Cents Per Mile

This blog post was updated on May 26, 2021.

Simple Tips for a Great Start: Make Paperwork Suck Less

The Majority of Driver Turnover Happens in the First 90 Days Trucking companies know that the majority of their turnover occurs in the first 90 days o...

Quantify Your Driver Pay & Benefits

Pay is always a top concern for drivers yet trucking companies can’t precisely tell a driver how much he or she will make in a year. Drivers tend to t...

How To Reduce New Hire Driver Turnover

According to a Commercial Carriers Journal survey involving 423 fleet management subscribers, fleets are primarily focused on managing job expectation...

How Low Unemployment Affects Recruiting & Retaining Drivers 

Record Low Unemployment

Use Treatment, Transparency and Trust to Cut Driver Turnover

An Unengaged Workforce A Gallup study from 2015 stated that 70 percent of American workers hate their job or are completely disengaged. You can’t run ...

Top 10 Reasons Truck Drivers Leave Companies | AvatarFleet

In January 2008, Deborah Lockridge, published an article in Heavy Duty Trucking listing the top ten reasons drivers quit one company only to go to ano...

How to Build a Safety Culture Through Safety Leadership

This blog post was updated on February 10, 2021.

6 Communication Tips to Help Driver Retention

This blog post was updated on February 4, 2021.

Truck Driver Recruiting: Never Stop Learning About Your Competitors

Competition for truck drivers is a much bigger marketplace than your competition for hauling freight. Your competitors include any other transportatio...

7 Principles of Truck Driving Safety | AvatarFleet

Brian Fielkow presented his seven principles of safety that he has implemented at JetCo Delivery over the last 10 years to achieve a world-class safet...

New Med Cards: What You Need to Know

The DOT makes changes to required paperwork as often as the sun shines. The changes may seem arbitrary to drivers or managers busy with a plateful of ...

3 Traits that All Driver of the Year Candidates Share

AvatarFleet proudly sponsored the Ohio Trucking Association 2015 Driver of the Year, hoping to shine a bigger spot light on Ohio's best professional d...

Driver/Technician Shortages: Count Only on Yourself

The latest news is that not only is the driver shortage not getting any better (hint: it’s getting worse) but the technician shortage won’t get better...

Ideas to Improve Truck Driver Onboarding: Part 4

Embed Safety Everyone agrees that focusing on safety has to be part of a good onboarding or orientation program. But the best ways to incorporate safe...

Ideas to Improve Truck Driver Onboarding: Part 3

Humanize Paperwork This is the third installment in a series on improving orientation for new drivers. (See Part 1 and Part 2) Getting new drivers sta...

Ideas to Improve Truck Driver Onboarding: Part 2

Think People, Not Process Last week we provided ideas how good driver orientation and on-boarding integrates the new driver into your company. It sets...

Vetting Professional Drivers in 2016

Here at AvatarFleet, we’ve often wondered how Uber and Lyft were allowed to come into existence. We’re not quite sure how they have thus far escaped t...

Are Truck Drivers Really Different?

Would you drive a truck for your fleet?

THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW: DISTRACTED DRIVING

Like most kids growing up in the sixties, I read the newspaper funnies every night with my dad after he was done with the sports section. In those day...

Benesch Named Top Law Firm in Transportation

U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers, has named AvatarFleet partner Benesch Law the top law firm in transportation law.

Treating Drivers Well Pays—Turnover Punishes

When you treat drivers well, they will appreciate it and be more likely to stay and do a good job. When you don’t, it’s a source of turnover.

Retaining Drivers Via Health Programs

In these days of driver shortage, retaining drivers is extremely important.

How to Recruit More Women Drivers

As cited by the American Trucking Associations’ report, woman are an underutilized segment of potential drivers.

Best Ways to Vet Drivers: What You Don’t Know Will Hurt You

Bad drivers are bad news. Most trucking firms know that the consequences of hiring bad drivers is even worse than the pain of having a truck sit idle ...

GOOD INTENTIONS - WRONG ASSUMPTION

The Truck Safety Coalition is arguing against the current transportation bill that would eliminate an ancient old rule that has been outdated for deca...

Truck Driving Would be a Great Job if You Got Paid

Truck Driving Would be a Great Job if You Got Paid Fleet Owner

BUILD A SUCCESSFUL TEAM IN TRUCKING

What an incredible article in Wired Magazine on the right way to build a successful team. https://www.wired.com/2015/04/hire-like-google/

Young Drivers Wanted | ATA Working to Change Age Requirements

Once again, we see the trucking industry, through its chief lobbyist, the American Trucking Associations (ATA), attempt to influence the federal gover...

RISK OF DEATH DOESN’T SEEM TO FAZE TODAY'S DRIVERS LEARN WHY

Fleet Owner

How To Find Drivers In A Tight Labor Pool

HireRight® is hosting a free webinar on this important topic on November 12th and we’re excited to be part of it. By all indications, we’re going to s...

There Are Still Self-disciplined Millennials | AvatarFleet

A talented safety professional and friend of mine, David Guess, posted an article on this month’s NATMI newsletter. He’s a smart guy, good writer, Exe...

Protect Your Company From Negligent Hiring

Two Steps to Protect Your Company From Negligent Hiring and Retention Claims

Safety begins and ends with leadership

SOMEONE GETS IT! Safety begins and ends with leadership.

Prevent tragedies by reducing or eliminating risk

Common sense might just be another term for regulations. Instead, the transportation industry could prevent tragedies by reducing or eliminating risk....

OTA Announces The Next Truck Driver of the Year | AvatarFleet

The Ohio Trucking Association recently honored the best drivers in Ohio. Lew Eaton, from Ross Transportation, was named Driver of the Year. He has two...

National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners Webinar

What does the new National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners mean to you and your drivers? Are you prepared for the launch of FMCSA’s new Nation...

Swift Kick in the Pants, Class Action Lawsuit | AvatarFleet

Swift Transportation has agreed to pay $4.4 million to settle a federal driver class action lawsuit over claims it failed to inform prospective driver...

Distracted Driving Awareness Month

April Is Distracted Driving Awareness Month

Distracted Driving PSA From A Crash Victim | AvatarFleet

Last week, I celebrated my 24th anniversary of surviving a near fatal head on collision. I suppose I could feel sorry for myself, but instead, I treat...

March Madness Comes To Trucking

By now, you've trashed your NCAA tournament bracket. And, your dreams of winning one billion Dollars of Warren Buffet’s money are toast. Millions of p...

HireRight Webinar on Transportation Employment

Our friend and partner, HireRight, has some excellent learning content scheduled for next week! Their webinar on April 9 will highlight details of dat...

TCA Annual Convention Wrap-up 2014 | AvatarFleet

In partnership with Benesch, Attorneys At Law, we recently presented, “How to Stay Legal & Avoid Risky Drivers,” at the National Truckload Carrier...

What Are Advantages of Assessments To Select CDL Drivers?

Finding good CDL drivers is very tricky. Keeping them is even trickier.

Where In the World Is Avatar Teaching Safe Driving?

Avatar is spanning the globe to make the world a better place through safe driving.

Debating Contradictory Reports on CSA Value–Trucking Tales Ep15

Teach Your Truck Driver Risk Avoidance | AvatarFleet

Truck driver risk was in full view of the nation as thousands of cars were stuck in Atlanta during a two-inch snowfall. There were over 1200 accidents...

Are Driver Health Problems Overstated? Take the On-Line Survey

Recently there’s been a rash of articles about big rig drivers and the poor state of driver health. In addition to the physical toll on drivers, these...

No One Wins But You Don’t Have To Lose | Part 2 | AvatarFleet

Some carriers have policies that ban any applicant, including drivers, with a criminal background. Based on EEOC guidance, this can create serious leg...

Do CSA Scores Matter? Shippers Say They Do! | AvatarFleet

CSA scores DO matter.

ApplicantCare / HireRight Integration - Speeding Driver Hiring Process

AvatarFleet and HireRight team up to improve hiring quality and driver retention for the transportation industry. Press Release AvatarFleet has a new ...

Pushing For Mandatory Training For Ontario Truck Drivers

There is a push for Ontario government to introduce mandatory entry level training for commercial truck drivers. The Ontario Trucking Association, ins...

Santafest Benefits Children With Donated Toys From Everyone

Part of the mountain of toys donated to Summit County Children's Services at Santafest.

Highway Safety: Are We Winning the Battle?

Highway safety is improving-- or is it?

4 Common Mistakes When Training Employees + 4 Best Practices

Part of being a hiring manager or supervisor is training employees. Too often, though, training employees fall short of expectations. Trainers are dis...

Driver Shortage: Is It the Number One Problem?

Driver shortage, turnover, churn, and the heavy hand of the government with programs like CSA and HOS were conspicuous topics at this year’s ATA Confe...

Getting A Positive Return On Driver Training

This month, CRST announced that in addition to its biggest increase in driver pay ever, it’s also spending $25 million to train drivers. That’s a huge...

Superior Selection or Excellent OTR Training?

Do you build a high performing team through superior selection or excellent OTR training? Remember the old proverb: you can teach a squirrel to fly bu...

CVSA Sponsors Brake Inspection Blitz | AvatarFleet

The Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, the folks that bring Operation Roadcheck to you every June, is sponsoring the North America-wide Brake Inspect...

Best Professional Driving Course Ever Conceived

Professional Safe Driver Course

Fantasy Football Parallels Driver Selection

What can you learn about driver selection and CSA from fantasy football?

Lawyers Exploit CSA Data to Target Trucking--Trucking Tales Ep14

How lawyers exploit CSA and PSP data was the topic as Bright Mountain Trucking managers ate lunch at their outside picnic table.

Axing Paperwork and Unintended Consequences

Double-edged sword. Cuts both ways. Mixed blessing. Unintended consequences. These contrast-evoking expressions come to mind when I read about the int...

Final Ruling on HOS Challenges

The United States Court of Appeals ruled today that the new HOS rules will stand, with one very inconsequential exception. Short haul drivers do not h...

Nine “Reasonable” Years–Trucking Tales Ep13

The changing nature of laws and compliance is once again a topic at Bright Mountain Trucking’s monthly staff meeting.

Don't Fall Victim to Zombie Recruiting

Operation Roadcheck Begins Today

Starting June 4 and running 72 hours straight, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) and its members across the United States, Canada and Mexi...

Strengthen Your On-line Presence to Win the Driver Recruiting Game: Part 2

In our last Blog, we discussed how bemoaning the circumstances arrayed against the trucking community is not very productive. What is productive is co...

Strengthen Your Online Presence to Win Driver Recruiting

Actions that the government takes in the interest of trucking safety (CSA, HOS) seem (and often are) incomprehensible, counter-intuitive and, well, cr...

HOS Changes Hard To Digest–Trucking Tales Ep12

"Look, all we gotta' do is make sure the drivers record their detention time as off-duty and the new half-hour-break thing is no big deal," said Bud.

Oil and Gas Boom: What It Means For Trucking

Recently our partners at Benesch issued a white paper entitled:

How Not To Treat Truck Driving Customers | AvatarFleet

Despite the general craziness of the world we live in, it’s always seemed that there are some givens.

Ten Safety Lessons: #10 Take a Look In the Mirror

For some carriers, to call their safety strategy “fatally flawed” is a huge complement. For some, it’s not even that good. That’s because they have no...

Ten Safety Lessons: #9 Use Root Cause Analysis

When things go wrong, what was the real cause? You can ask “Why” five times and go back to the source of the problem. That’s the type of thinking that...

Ten Safety Lessons: #8 Grasp Six Truths About Safety

Truth One Safety is freedom from risk. Accept this truth: you will never be safe. The best you will ever do is reduce risk. "Safety" is relative, not ...

Ten Safety Lessons #7: Treat Distracted Driving As a Canary in the Coal Mine

Hot topics in transportation rise and fall. One of the hottest issues for trucking companies today is how they deal with distracted driving. Distracte...

Ten Safety Lessons: #6 Make Change Management Work For You

Every executive wants to get better results. After all, better is better. Producing “better” is part of the job description. In many ways, the busines...

Ten Safety Lessons: #5 Understand Risk Compensation

In 1982 John Adams of University College, London, published a paper called The Efficacy of Seatbelt Legislation: A Comparative Study of Road Accident ...

Ten Safety Lessons: #4 Hire the Right Drivers

Safety pioneer H.W. Heinrich introduced his domino theory of accident causation in 1932 in his breakthrough paper, Industrial Accident Prevention. The...

Ten Safety Lessons: #3 Install a Safety Resource Center

You need a place for all things safety. This home makes it clear that you are serious about the durability of the safety initiative. It’s a process no...

Ten Safety Lessons: #2 Post No Bills

In the old days, a big part of communication was via posters. That’s how Billboard, the company that ranks top music hits in a plethora of categories,...

Ten Safety Lessons For The Trucking Industry

1. Be Solid, Look Solid Let’s say that a group of investors and entrepreneurs opened a bank on a busy street corner but rather than a stately, columne...

Our Business On Hold?-Trucking Tales Ep11

The deadline for finalizing yearly budgets for Bright Mountain Trucking has come and gone yet little progress has been made.

A Cosa Nostra Pundit Explains CSA–Trucking Tales Ep10

Fritz ate a late dinner with his wife, Mollie, after spending all day at a CSA conference and driving home for two hours. Watching an old Godfather re...

Great Conference – Great People

Wow! Just got back from the ATA Management Conference and Exhibition in Las Vegas and it was nothing if not impressive.

Lower Standards to Meet The Driver Shortage?–Trucking Tales Ep9

Hiring and retaining drivers has become much easier for Bright Mountain Trucking since it began employing a systematic approach to hiring and retentio...

What’s Really Going On In The Trucking Business? | AvatarFleet

Change blindness is an amazing phenomenon that demonstrates our perceptual limitations. It refers to incidents in which people fail to notice seemingl...

Plumb the Depths of Youthful Brains to End Driver Shortage?

Bud was perplexed. “What does this mean: ‘Research the cognitive functioning and behavior of 18-25 years-olds that could serve as the basis for gradua...

Sorting Out Health Care Options–Trucking Tales Ep7

Belinda is presenting her findings on health care options to the management team at Bright Mountain Trucking:

CSA: Promises to Keep and Miles To Go

In our 2010 White Paper, The Perversion of Safety in the Transportation Industry, we shared a model for how government intervention causes negative ef...

Roadside Checks: One Down, One To Go

As we predicted in our post below, government roadside checks took a toll on busing companies. "Earlier this month, FMCSA and its state and local law ...

Spring: Roadside Inspection Season Blossoms

It’s Spring. And along with the colorful blooming of azaleas and rhododendrons, it’s that time of year for roadside commercial vehicle inspections to ...

Doubt Cast On Regulator's Effectiveness in Cutting Accidents

We’ve asserted all along that regulations have little if any impact on the frequency of accidents in the transportation sector. Now, researchers at We...

Tax Day Causes More Driving Accidents! | AvatarFleet

You've heard the Kinks song: "The tax mans taken all my dough And left me in my stately home Lazing on a sunny afternoon"

50,000 Motor Carriers Get CSA Warnings...And Counting

When we wrote our White Paper, "CSA 2010: Pain and Suffering", in Summer, 2010, little did we know how predictive it would be.

All of a Sudden: Success-Trucking Tales Ep6

All of a sudden, Bright Mountain’s truck driver staffing problems are getting better. Naturally, this is a prominent topic at the weekly staff meeting...

The Brainstorming Conference-Trucking Tales Ep5

“Okay, let’s review where we’re at.” Jack, head of Bright Mountain Trucking, stood beside a flip chart pad. Several more sheets torn from the pad clun...

Advice From the Presidents-Trucking Tales Ep4

Jack is anxious to get his management going after returning from his monthly Presidents’ Council meeting, a voluntary business group where improvement...

Enlightenment at Annette's Diner-Trucking Tales Ep3

Every Friday, Jack and his management team from Bright Mountain Trucking head to Annette’s for lunch. The food is always top-notch, service is fast an...

So What’s the Problem–Trucking Tales Ep2

Suffering from hiring and turnover problems with truckers, Bright Mountain Trucking has decided to dig deeper. Cary gives his report to the management...

Tractors & Trailers Doing Nothing–Trucking Tales Ep1

“We got tractors and trailers sitting around doing nothing.” Jack, head of Bright Mountain Trucking, reflected on what Fritz told him this morning. It...

Fleets Boost Retention Efforts

The age-old driver shortage has once again become a spotlight issue for the industry. Experts, and others purporting to be experts, are ramping up the...