Page 60 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

PETERSON’S GOAL
Peterson’s GOAL initiative began in 2014 requiring drivers of all Peterson service vehicles to Get Out And Look before driving away. Once parked, the driver must place an orange safety cone at the front right bumper and another at the rear left bumper. Upon leaving, the driv- er has to collect the cones, which causes him/her to look around for any changes since parking or pedestrians that might otherwise be blocked by blind spots.
Vehicle cameras are one of Peterson’s safety initiatives.
Over the next year, the teams created and refined their ideas into concise workable procedures. Some of the larger ones include: Vehicle Cameras, Near- Miss reporting, TRACK forms, the Glove Policy, Safety Centers and the Serious Incident Review Committee (SIRC). Since then Peterson has in- vested hundreds of thousands of dollars into these initiatives to make it a safer environment for all.
VEHICLE CAMERAS
The vehicle camera idea came out of the Aware- ness Team. Today Peterson has a fleet of three hundred service trucks, parts delivery trucks, and pickups companywide. And with all those vehi- cles and all that mileage, comes accidents.3 “Our trucks are involved in accidents and, unfortunate- ly, we get blamed for most of them because we’re usually the biggest vehicle,” explains Erin Sorgel, who was on the Awareness Team. “These cameras are proven to reduce accidents, protect our people, and also protect ourselves against other people.”
In December 2020, Peterson installed one hundred cameras, and completed the other two hundred in 2021. Vehicles without backup cameras received those as well. The cameras have already validated, in certain cases, that Peterson employees were not at fault whereas before we only had their word as proof. While that word may be good enough for Peterson, insurance companies don’t always agree. “There were a handful of technicians who already had dash cams in their trucks,” says Zalesky. “They purchased them on their own dime for vindication, so if something happened, they knew it would be documented. Because they know that most of the time, the finger is going to point at the larger vehicle.”
NEAR-MISS REPORTING
One of the key takeaways from the S.T.A.R.T. course is near-miss reporting. “Before 2018, we had zero near-misses reported,” says Zalesky. “Over the past three years, we’ve averaged one
3 One of the key lessons from the S.T.A.R.T. training focuses on incidents vs. accidents. The word ‘accident’ implies that there is no cause, when in reality everything has a root cause. However, for the sake of general understanding, ‘accidents’ is used here.
58 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG