ABS is devoted in promoting safety in the Canadian Trucking Industry and to working with trucking companies to improve their safety standards. Increasing safety standards and awareness can improve a trucking company’s profitability.

Our professionals work with companies to improve safety standards and the image of our entire industry.

If you are looking for a seminar on an industry hot topic, question about a new regulation or need advice about improving your safety program, and driver training were here to help no matter what your looking for.

SERVICES:

Our officials work with our clients to identify risks and analyses training needs. These professionals help our customers adopt best practices that improve their working through reducing accident frequency, increasing driver awareness rate.

Our solutions are customized to suite each company’s operations. These services include, but they are not limited to

•  CVOR Analysis SAFETY RATING
•  Driver and Company Profiles
•  Maintenance Profiles 
•  Preventive Maintenance 
•  Carrier’’s Pre Audit before the MTO’’s or DOT’’s Facility Audit 
•  Carrier Policies and Procedures 
•  Log Book Auditing and Monitoring 
•  In-vehicle Assessment (Road Evaluations) 
•  Driver Hiring and Orientation 
•  Driver Improvement 
•  Safety Seminars 
•  Safety Action Plans

During road Check 2005, federal and state enforcement programs conducted over 60,000 truck inspections. As a result of these inspections, 1 in 5 vehicles were placed out of service. Imagine all the delayed deliveries, customer service issues, fines and lost revenue that resulted?

Don’t Risk having Any Of Your Vehicles Placed Out Of Service!

"Fundamental for Success"

Regular training and sharing of information are absolute necessities in today’s transportation industry. Often what starts out as a genuine effort, ends up fading until finally there is no longer any system for ensuring that employees can be trained to the highest, most current standards they can be.

Log Book Auditing & Monitoring is often a challenge for fleets to stay on top of the task of monitoring their drivers’ hours of service. Some organizations do not have the resources or in-house expertise to get the job done adequately. Others prefer to contract out driver log book administration so that they don’t require additional staff or can reallocate current staff time to other activities. In either case, the fleet is still responsible for on-going monitoring of drivers’ hours worked/driven. We can help!

Utilizing a state-of-the-log book aduiting and our regulatory expertise, we:

• Have the ability to process a high volume of driver logs on a monthly basis (received by courier). 
• Will provide fleets with a variety of reports, including information our competitors won’t tell you, so that you can effectively manage on-going hours of service issues. 
• Can monitor vehicle inspection reports and provide you with information that will enhance your current fleet maintenance program. 
• Can complete random audits of driver logs versus supporting documents, upon request. 
• Will protect your interests with respect to regulatory compliance in all jurisdictions where you operate.

Whether your drivers are exempt from Ontario Highway Traffic Act and other rules requiring the completion of log books or not, every fleet is required to have a system in place that monitors daily hours of service and a means of determining if drivers are near their cycle thresholds and should or should not be dispatched.

We can assist with the development of a system to accomplish your regulatory compliance goals. We specialize in providing all our clients with customized compliance solutions that fit their needs.

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7 Log Auditing Insights from Experienced Pros

Able Business Services & Training School has been helping transport companies with regulatory compliance for over 5 years. Below are 7 tips from our log auditing specialists that can help you with your own log auditing:

1.       If you can’’t read the log it’’s a violation.

2.       Never tell the drivers exactly what you’’re using as audit points.

3.       Tell the drivers that any record generated can and will be used to check their logs.

4.       If auditing has turned up a problem, deal with it quickly.

5.       Remember to adjust for time zones when using supporting documents!

6.       Speed counts in auditing. If you’’re three months behind in auditing and a driver is making a mistake, you’’ll have three months of mistakes to deal with!

7.       If you don’’t audit, don’’t expect compliance.

Looking for more ways to simplify your log auditing process? Check out with our office, how we can help your company to deal with it!

Designed to provide a complete approach to commercial driver and vehicle safety and compliance. Compliance Solutions prepares detailed Safety Plans that include:

• Program Implementation 
• Hours of Service 
• Disciplinary Policy 
• Driver Profile 
• Vehicle Profile 
• Pre-Trip Inspection 
• Preventative Maintenance Check Lists 
• Driver Qualification File Check Lists 
• Driver Disclosure of Licence 
• Driver’s Certification of Violations and Accidents 
• Annual Review of Driving Record 
• Monthly Maintenance Record 
• Vehicle Service Record Check List

Safety Plans are tailored to your Company’s needs and reflect current regulatory standards.

Canada’s NEW Pre-Trip Inspection requirements are here!

Canada’s new pre-trip inspection regulations, under NSC Standard 13, proposed implementation is January 2008, but some provinces like ONTARIO & SASKATCHVAN already implement the new regs. Many of your truck and bus drivers will now be required to keep a copy of their Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports in their cabs.

New Pre-Trip Inspection Regulation already in fact from July 1, 2007, there are changes to the daily pre-trip inspection requirements (Ontario Regulation 199/07 "Commercial Motor Vehicle Inspections")

Major Changes to Pre-Trip Inspection Requirements

1. The list of vehicle defects has been revised.

• Vehicle defects are now differentiated between "major" and "minor".
• "Major" defects, which pose an imminent safety risk, are to be recorded and reported by the driver, and must be repaired immediately.
• "Minor" defects, which are related to vehicle maintenance, are to be recorded and reported by the driver.

2.       Drivers are now required to continually monitor the vehicle during the course of a trip to detect the presence of major or minor defects.

Able Business Services & Training School already develop the custom made training in Pre-Trip Inspection course, can provide to your drivers in affordable charges. ABS has the up-to-date, accurate Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports you need, and can be custom print for your company in affordable prices.

Our New Pre-Trip Inspection Course prompt your drivers to fill in all the required info, and we will provide NSC Standard 13, Schedule 1 is printed and laminated so you can easily meet the new requirements!

Facility Audits

We can do partial and full facility audits. These audits would prepare you for an M.T.O. or DOT(US) facility audit and give you an idea of how well you would rate on a government safety audit. They would also help in identifying problem areas that should be corrected before a ministry sanctioned enforcement audit is initiated. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need my assistance.

What is a facility audit?

A facility audit is an examination of an operator’s safety practices and record keeping for the purpose of determining the operator’s compliance with relevant highway safety regulations.

What items or areas are examined?

A facility audit is made up of these 3 profiles; each profile is worth a certain percentage of the total facility audit score. :

1. The Vehicle Profile,                                           45 points
2. The Driver Profile,                                             45 points  
3. The Safety Programs and Training Profile.              10 points

Note:       If you choose not to include the Safety Programs and Training Profile in your audit, then the scoring will be: Vehicle Profile, 50% and Driver Profile, 50%.

Why would M.T.O. auditors/investigators conduct an audit?

Facility audits may be undertaken for a variety of reasons, including:

       a carrier’s overall violation rate exceeds 65% of its overall CVOR threshold

       an excessive out-of-service rate on inspections

       a severe accident or accident rate

       a request from other jurisdictions to perform audits on their behalf

       a carrier is involved in a high profile highway safety-related incident, such as a collision, wheel separation, impoundment, and/or criminal driving offence

It may just be that your company hasn’t had an audit conducted in quite a few years, or even that it never had one, and is now due for one.

In some cases, a facility audit of the operator’s business practices and record keeping may be necessary to obtain a specific rating. The results of this audit will be combined with the operator’s CVOR record.

Carrier Safety Rating

The Carrier’s Safety Rating will be determined by the operator’s CVOR record plus, where available, the results of the facility audit. Operators will receive one of these five carrier safety ratings:

 1. Excellent: (Superior audit and low percentage of CVOR threshold)

 2. Satisfactory: (Acceptable audit and CVOR record)

 3. Satisfactory-Unaudited: (Acceptable CVOR record with no audit)

 4. Conditional: (Unacceptable audit and/or CVOR record)

 5. Unsatisfactory: (Sanction in place − suspension or cancellation)

Note:       A carrier’s safety rating will be made available to the public,  shippers, transportation industry, financial lending institutions, insurance agencies, and other jurisdictions.

These are some of the reasons why it’s important to have good safety practices and record keeping in place.

We hope we was able to assist you with this information on Facility Audits.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if we may be of further assistance to you in determining your company’s compliance with relevant highway safety regulations.

Brakes Essential to Your Drivers' Safety

Why is the condition of your fleet's brakes important? Consider this:

• 51.6% of Out of Service Violations during Roadcheck 2009 were because of brakes
• Results from DOT's most recent Large Truck Causation study indicate brakes were a factor in 29.4% of all the crashes investigated
• The NHTSA has issued stringent new braking standards for large trucks

September 13-19, 2009 is Brake Safety Week. Prepare you drivers, mechanics, and vehicles with help from ABS’s Air Brake Endorsement & Air Brake Adjustment Course.