Distracted Driving: The Impact on Passenger Safety, Insurance Costs, and Your Bottom Line

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In this episode of the Ground Transportation Podcast, Ken Lucci and James Blain discuss the importance of taking proactive measures to create a culture of safety within your ground transportation company. In this episode, you’ll hear:

• The basic elements of distracted driving and why it’s important to be proactive
• What does it mean to build a culture of safety?
• Examples of safety in action
• The role of telematics in driver training
• The paradox of of the ‘days without an accident’ mentality
• The impact of training on profitability
• Examples of distracted driving for CDLs
• Managing and correcting driver behavior
• The impact of driver safety on insurance costs

At Driving Transactions, Ken Lucci and his team offer financial analysis, KPI reviews,  for specific purposes like improving profitability, enhancing the value of the enterprise business planning and buying and selling companies. So if you have any of those needs, please give us a call or check us out at www.drivingtransactions.com.

Pax Training is your  all in one solution designed to elevate your team's skills, boost passenger satisfaction, and keep your business ahead of the curve. Learn more at www.paxtraining.com/gtp

Connect with Kenneth Lucci, Principle Analyst at Driving Transactions:
https://www.drivingtransactions.com/

Connect with James Blain, President at PAX Training:
https://paxtraining.com/

Episode Transcript

Ken Lucci (00:24):
hi, this is Ken Luchi from Driving Transactions, and
welcome to another episode ofthe Ground Transportation
Podcast.
James Blaine, my cohost frompax.
How are you today?

James Blain (00:34):
Good.
How are you buddy?

Ken Lucci (00:35):
Good.
It's been a busy week.
I have to give a shout out to,uh, Nila, new England Liberty
Association.
Um, great meeting on Wednesdaynight.
I drove up there, uh, with uh,Bentley and I drove up there and
I spoke a little bit about theworkshop we've got coming up.
We're doing, I don't know if youknew this, where I am doing a
workshop on May 14th, uh, forNila on Twofold.

(00:56):
One is pricing to make maximumprofits.
We're gonna do that session inthe morning.
And then the afternoon, we'regoing to do a session selling
how to sell value instead of lowprice.
So we're gonna inviteReservationists to come into
that, but that's, that's gonnabe a can't miss kind of thing.

James Blain (01:11):
And, and what date was that?
Just so everybody can mark theircalendar.

Ken Lucci (01:15):
May 14th, um, check out Neela, uh, NE a.org.
Um, and we're obviously gonnaput out an invitation.
It, it is primarily for Neelamembers.
I think there's gonna be a feefor anybody who's not a member,
but I would tell you, anybody upin the New England area, come on
up and I guarantee you, you'regonna walk out of there with

(01:38):
absolutely.
A vital worksheet on how toprice all of your services or
any vehicle.
And then you're gonna walk outof there with outlines and
scripting on how to teach yourpeople how to sell value instead
of low price, because that's oneof my primary concerns.
I, I just see too many peopleselling low price, but besides,
you know, announcing that Nilahad a panel, I was on the panel

(02:02):
to talk about insurance costs.
And I'm glad we're doing thissession today, um, and talking
about what you do, because I'mnot sure that the operators are
grasping the direct correlationcause and effect of the, the
rat, the massive increasesinsurance.

(02:24):
And their inability or theirlackadaisical approach to
managing driver behavior.
So it it, a lot of the examplesup there, and these were the
best insurance guys in thebusiness.
I mean, research, researchunderwriters was up there, uh,
on the panel with us and therewas a couple of guys who were
from underwriting.
So there were a lot of examplesabout telematics.

(02:47):
There were a lot of examplesabout something you deal with,
which is destructive driving.
And so I, I, I wanted, yeah, Iwanted to talk, I mean, what,
what are the elements ofdistracted driving that your
training deals with?

James Blain (02:59):
So it's really interesting because we are in a
place where as a society,driving has moved light years
ahead.
But we're also at a place wherehuman adeptness, right, and I'm
trying to be really nice'cause Iwanted to say stupidity here has
dropped light years.
So I was lucky enough that my,my wife's grandpa, he grew up

(03:23):
restoring model a's, and when hedied I inherited all these
manuals and it talks aboutsetting the valve lash and the
timing and everything.
And I was like, wow, I wonderhow this compares to the manual
for my wife's car.
And I went out, brand new car,pulled the manual

Ken Lucci (03:36):
only you

James Blain (03:37):
Do not drink.
No, no.
And I'm telling you, right?
Do not.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But, but my favorite part is Iget to today's manual and it
says, do not drink theantifreeze.
Do not drink this, do not lickthe battery

Ken Lucci (03:49):
I I never knew that you couldn't drink Andy

James Blain (03:52):
Right.
Who knew?

Ken Lucci (03:53):
I thought it tasted like lemonade.

James Blain (03:55):
Who knew, right.
Yeah.
Sweet.
Don't, don't put it out fordogs.
That's how you, how you get ridof a dog.
Right.
It's sweet taste.
But it's, it's funny because itillustrates this point that in
society we've moved from a pointwhere you bought the car, you
were expected to work on it.
Do everything to now we've gotthis.
Hey, don't drink the antifreeze.

(04:16):
And so we've seen that.
What's happened is.
Things have come way forward.
There's all these driver aids.
There's all these things, butthe problem is that in
everybody's pocket, there's abillion dollar device, right?
There's a whole industry builtaround absorbing all of your
attention to the point wherepeople actually, if they forget

(04:37):
their phone, they will feelghost buzzes.
And so we're in this age nowwhere there's so many things
vying for our attention.
Came up this morning.
I was having breakfast withsomeone, right?
Man, it was, it was funny.
So I'm having breakfast with mystepdaughter and a boyfriend,
and guess what they're talkingabout, man?
We're driving here and there'sthis 80-year-old woman on her
phone and she can't even figureout how to work it.

(04:58):
And she's looking down and I'mthinking to myself, yeah, yeah.
And you 20 year olds are whatI'm terrified of because you
guys know how to work it andyou're gonna posting on
Snapchat, driving, right?
We're in this age whereeverything is fighting for your
attention and everything istrying to distract us.
And as a result of that, whatwe're seeing is.

(05:18):
All of these safety aids, radarguided crews, right?
Self adjusting crews, controllane assist, all these things do
a great job of preventingaccidents.
But we're also in an age wherewe are seeing more high speed
full force accidents than weever had before.
Because if you're looking, wellthink about it.
You know, you've got a guy who'sdriving down the highway looking

(05:40):
at his phone.
By the time he goes to hit thebrakes, he's already hit you at
70 miles an hour.
He's already ran the red light.
And so we're seeing more andmore of these accidents where
they're full speed, absolutelyno reaction whatsoever from the
person causing it.
And so as a result of that,what's happening?
We're seeing cost of everythingelse has risen.

(06:03):
And now you've got these extremeaccidents.
Now you've got these lawsuits.
We've got kind of this perfectstorm that is making it more and
more dangerous, even if yourdriver out there isn't the one
distracted.
We spend a lot of time teachinghow to identify other distracted
drivers because guess what?
If I stop at a red light, thevery first thing I'm looking at

(06:24):
is the rear view.
'cause again, you've got thatguy behind you, 45 mile an hour,
full speed.
If he hits you, doesn't matterwho's at fault,

Ken Lucci (06:32):
Well, think about it.
Think about, think about whatyou just said there because, you
know, in the chauffeur space, Ithink the misnomer is, and, and
the rea Well, the reality isthat unfortunately we have
drivers that drive one way whenthe client is in the car

James Blain (06:46):
and another,

Ken Lucci (06:47):
way when they're all by themselves, right?
But when you have somebody inthe backseat, you are, you are
literally in charge of thatperson's life

James Blain (06:59):
life in your hands.

Ken Lucci (07:00):
Right.
And, um, I was in San Diego, uh,spoke at a 20 group last week,
and I took a ride from theairport.
Great, great, great, greatchauffeur, great company, great
chauffeur.
And I chalk him up a little bit.
And it's an employee chauffeur.
Okay?
So I, I'm looking at this camerain the car, right?
And this person's body, his,this person's head, this

(07:23):
person's head did not move, inother words, okay?
They literally, they werestraight ahead and, and I
watched them a little bit, lookat the mirror.
I watched them look at the rearview, and then I watched them
look at the side view.
But my whole point is theydidn't, they didn't take a drink
of their big gulp.

(07:43):
They didn't take a look at theirphone, they didn't answer.
I mean, their phone pinged once,right?
They didn't even look at it thatway.
Okay?
Now I'm driving back, uh, the,the company's picking me up
from, uh, the hotel and I'mdriving back, right?
And the driver is looking at hisphone.
And the driver is texting.
Okay.
So I said, lemme ask you a que,are you an employee?

(08:04):
And he's like, no, no, uh, youknow, we're, we're a vendor for,
for that company.
And I, okay.
I, I could tell the difference.
I could tell the difference.
And that was an IO car.
There's nothing wrong with that.
There's nothing wrong with that.

James Blain (08:18):
The, it's normal.

Ken Lucci (08:20):
right.
But the di But the, thedifference is the first person
was doing their job without meseeing all kinds of gyrations.
And they were literally, theywere looking at nine o'clock, 12
o'clock, two o'clock, threeo'clock at, you know, obviously
the rear view mirror.
So the distracted driving piece.

(08:42):
When you talk about distracteddriving, how does the operator
manage that chauffeur?

James Blain (08:48):
So you gotta think of it a little bit like a sports
team, right?
You're responsible for yourplayers, you're responsible for
their thought process.
You're responsible for the tonethat you set in your own
company.
And I'm starting here becausethat's the single most important

Ken Lucci (09:03):
Oh, culture of safety.

James Blain (09:04):
culture of safety.
If you don't set the tone, ifyou don't set zero tolerance,
that's huge.
Now, I'm gonna take us on alittle sidebar.
I'll bring it back in a second.
But one of the big things thathappens is operators will try to
set that tone and they'll say,Hey, I have a zero tolerance
policy for texting and driving.
We're just not gonna do it.
If I catch you doing it, you'refired.
Then the best driver gets caughtand it's, man, I can't lose

(09:27):
Johnny.
Johnny's been with me 10 years.
It's the first time we've everhad an issue.
And so you decide to keep him.
The problem is, if Johnny getsin an accident six months later,
you are going to have anegligence claim on your hands
because they're gonna say, well,you had a, you had a policy.
And that policy was that ifsomebody got caught texting and

(09:48):
driving, you'd fire him.
'cause you were gonna keepthings safe.
But ladies and gentlemen of thejury, how greedy is this man?
He decided that money was moreimportant.
Why?
Because he needed that driver onthe road.
He needed money.
Money was more important than myclient's ability to walk or
whatever they're gonna targetyou on.

Ken Lucci (10:07):
Well those nu, the nuclear verdicts is what kill is
killing the industry.

James Blain (10:11):
absolutely killing it.
But that again, comes back toyou've gotta have that policy.
And here's the thing, onceyou've get that, Hey, we've got
policies we're gonna do andwe've got the culture, we've got
the tone.
You've gotta understand that inour world we have an extra piece
vying for our attention.
One of the things that drives menuts is, look, we teach eye
contact.

(10:32):
Eye contact is good.
Now, if you've got culturalconcerns, you know someone
coming in from overseas, yougotta be aware.
Other cultures are not as likelyas the west to have direct eye
contact.
But what always scares the helloutta me is when I get a guy in
the car driving that is talkingto me and thinks he's gotta look
me in the eye when he talks.

Ken Lucci (10:51):
Right.
And, and he's, and he's lookingat you through the rear view.
Or worse, he's going like this.

James Blain (10:56):
I've had him both, and you're absolutely right,
you've beat me to the punch onthat, right?
He's looking in the rear view,which is great, but he's looking
at me in the rear view.
Or worse yet, he's turning overand and trying to

Ken Lucci (11:07):
Now think about what you just said.
I mean, the driver talking, uh,is a distraction.
It's a distraction because he'snot, he's not doing his routine.
You know, in the, in thesecurity industry, I was always,
when I was trained, I, I, I wastrained.
If you're, if you're against thewall, you don't worry about your
six.

(11:28):
You're six.
So you have, now you work,obviously you're 12, you're
nine, and you're three.
But when you are driving, you'redoing the same thing.
Think about it.
And, but, but again, if I'm, ifI'm, if I'm having a
conversation, I'm not doing whatI'm supposed to be doing, which
is no, my 360 field of view.

James Blain (11:49):
Exactly.

Ken Lucci (11:49):
And you know what?
Get think.
Don't think that, don't thinkthat your client doesn't notice
it either.

James Blain (11:54):
Oh, they notice and They can feel it.

Ken Lucci (11:56):
They notice it.
And especially with thesefucking phones, the, the text
messages are dinging, right?
So the driver automatically,now, he doesn't realize it.
He takes his eyes off the roadand he is like, what did I just
do that I, five seconds, my, my,my five seconds.
I was away from looking at thewindshield.

James Blain (12:15):
How many football fields do you cover on the
highway?
Right?
Well, it's one of the things wetrain and here's, here's where
it gets fun, right?
Sometimes we are our own worstenemy in this industry, right?
Because I can, I can tell youwhen I've, I, I've gotten picked
up by someone who starts drivingand then they go to their driver
app, and then they put the,they're on right now.

(12:38):
Now we're updating the driverapp.

Ken Lucci (12:40):
updating the driver app to say, I have customer in
car.

James Blain (12:43):
While they're right.
Instead of doing the normalroutine, Hey, you know what,
just wanna confirm where we'regoing.
Would you like water?
You know, update it, then getdriving.
Nope.
He starts driving, then goes andupdates it.
I immediately knew it was an IObecause the phone rings and he
picks it up.

Ken Lucci (12:59):
yep.

James Blain (12:59):
I'm on route, I've got, I've got him messing with
the tablet.
I've got him taking calls, andguess what?
He's got to, that's arequirement of what he's doing
for this trip.
They gotta know, he's just doingwhat he's been trained and
taught to do.
And so one of the things that wereally focus on is you've gotta
train people to understand,look, it's tortoise in the hare.

(13:22):
Right?
Fastest, slow, right?
Slow is fast.
If he gets in an accident, ifbecause he's updating the
statuses because he is notpaying attention.
If we get T-boned,

Ken Lucci (13:34):
What were you do?
What were you doing?
What were you doing?
When the vehicle impacted is thequestion that's gonna be asked

James Blain (13:42):
Exactly.
And someone brought this up onFacebook the other day, and it
was one of those ones, you know,look, I see a lot of things on
Facebook where I go, I am nottouched that, but I jumped in.
You know, Hey, I have a pastor.
Get in the car.
I'm in a huge hurry.
You know, I'd step on it.
Well, what do we do?
Well, what you don't do is speedand try to catch the light and
drive any differently.

(14:02):
What you do is you say, Hey, I'mgonna do everything I possibly
can to get you there as quicklyand safely as possible.
And then you drive safely andsurely,'cause guess what, again?
You get T-boned, you get pulledover.
Anything at all happens.
They're not getting there atall.
Now, you still want to make surethat you're cognizant of the
fact that they're in a hurry andyou treat them accordingly.

(14:24):
But as you already said, Ken,you've gotta understand that
you've gotta drive correctly.
So what we train people isyou've gotta manage all of these
things through routine, andyou've gotta manage them through
order of operations.
Look

Ken Lucci (14:40):
It's gotta become muscle memory.

James Blain (14:41):
When that, when that person gets right, you've,
you've got'em in the vehicle,you've got everything loaded in,
you're immediately going to thengo through your typical spiel
and it's gonna vary a little bitby company.
You know, Hey, excited to haveyou on board.
I've got you going to theairport.
You know, it's about a 45 minutetrip.
Would you like something todrink?
Would you like temperature?
However, your company does that,and it varies company to
company.

(15:02):
Then, before you ever throw itand drive, update your app, set
whatever you need to set, dowhatever you need to do right
then and there.
Because even though for you itfeels like it took an eternity,
it doesn't, it doesn't feel likean eternity in the backseat
because guess what?
We all get in and drive.
We all know that you don't justhop in and throw it and drive.

(15:23):
You gotta start the car.
You gotta do everything.

Ken Lucci (15:25):
And I think you, I, I think you also have to get it in
your mind that you are beingjudged by the passenger.
You are being judged by thepassenger.
It's not just Jim and Ken, Jamesand Ken being hypersensitive.
When we take trips around thecountry, every, every passenger
is thinking the same thing.
Harsh Dr.
Harsh braking is a pa is I, Inotice a lot.

(15:48):
I, I, I notice the swerving.
I notice all of that stuff.
And we used to train that,pretend that you have champagne
glasses, a tear of champagneglasses in the back as you.
Right as you, as you make yourturns, as you're braking, et
cetera.
Um, I don't know about you, butI, when I'm in the backseat,

(16:10):
I'm, I'm hyper anxious about thecar in front of us.

James Blain (16:14):
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (16:15):
And, and there's also, there's also a perception
that that car in front of us isreally a lot closer than it is.

James Blain (16:23):
Well, and I think one of the things that is easy
to forget is that driving issomething most people do or have
done as a regular part of theirlife.
And so I.
It's a little bit like customerservice.
If I said to someone, tell,explain to me what customer
service is, they're gonnastruggle.
I say, great.
Explain to me what bad customerservice is.

(16:46):
They instantly think of a timewhere they're like, oh man, this
guy, he was the worst.
He treated me like crap.
I hated it.
He didn't respect me.
Or, you know, it's the samething with driving.
We don't have to be able todescribe what's wrong to feel
it.
I can feel when you're in asituation where you're boxed in,
I can feel, even if I'm in theback working on my laptop, if

(17:07):
there's two semi-trucks oneither side of us, I'm going to
feel claustrophobic.
It doesn't matter.
Right.
A little different for me.
'cause I do this for a living.
But you know, you can have oneof my kids in the back and
they're gonna know thatsomething doesn't feel right.
So you have to understand, andwe teach, you have to really
have a bubble.
Your whole goal is to create aspace around your vehicle and to

(17:31):
do what you need to, to protectand maintain that space.

Ken Lucci (17:35):
Yep,

James Blain (17:36):
It's

Ken Lucci (17:37):
Well, so, so what do you think of the drivers that
give you a play by play?
Oh my God.
Look at that lady in front ofus.
Oh my.
Let's get away from her.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Yeah, seamlessly.
I, I don't wanna know that we'rein peril.
I want you to manage thesituation.

James Blain (17:54):
and, and we're playing chess, not checkers.
Right.
That's one of my favoritesayings.
If you've ever been on a webinarwith me, if you've ever heard me
talk chest, not checkers, if itgets to that point, you screwed
up.
Because here's the thing I cantell you right now.
One of the big things, and thisis a huge one for me, if I'm
driving down the road and I'm inthe right lane and I see a truck

(18:15):
merging in.
I'm going to make damn sure thatI'm either one lane over that
I'm slowing down so there's roomin front of him, or if, if I
can, without speeding orotherwise causing an issue,
making sure that he's merging inbehind me.
Because here's the thing, in allof those situations, I'm worried

(18:36):
he's gonna merge into me andI'll, and again, I I mentioned
very cautiously speeding up.
If he's merging in behind me,you better believe I'm looking a
mile down the road because thelast thing I want is for him to
merge in behind me.
And anybody in New York, anybodyin this part of the world, I'm
talking to you.
We all know in those areas, thelast thing you want is him

(18:58):
merging in behind you.
Traffic stops.
And now I've got him trying topark on top of me.
So you are having to manage thatspace directly around your
vehicle and then look all theway around.
So.
Look, I, I mentioned New York.
In New York, it's gonna betough.
In the ideal world, I, I want anempty lane on either side and I

(19:18):
want plenty of room in front of

Ken Lucci (19:20):
What's plenty in front of me?
Three, four car lengths.

James Blain (19:23):
So it's gonna depend on your vehicle.
The bigger the vehicle, the moreroom you're gonna need.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Because it, and, and it's funnybecause I want you guys to
think, everybody always expectsto go and they always go, I know
this, I learned it in driver'sed.
It's a three second rule.
And I go, okay, great.
Till it rains, till it's foggy,till I'm driving a bus.

Ken Lucci (19:44):
Yeah, you're driving how, how many, what's the motor
coach?
14,000 pounds or 28,000 pounds,I forget.

James Blain (19:50):
It's, well, it's gonna depend on, on what you're
loaded with, and it's gonnadepend on your weight.
But the, the motor coaches are,are gonna be very heavy and
they're gonna stop very slowly.
But the other thing that youhave to keep in mind, and I tell
people the distance that youkeep on everyday driving unless
you're used to keeping a biggergap, look, we're recommending
four to five seconds even in asedan now.

(20:13):
You should never in a sedan haveless than three and, and some,
and I look,

Ken Lucci (20:20):
do you count?
How do I know that I've gotthree to five seconds in front
of me.
How do I do it?

James Blain (20:24):
well, and here's, so here's two things.
So the seconds, if you've neverdone it, this is super easy.
You wait for something to go byand you start counting.
So I, I say, all right, look, I,I've got a sign up ahead.

Ken Lucci (20:35):
mile, marker,

James Blain (20:36):
counting mount 1, 2, 3.
If I get to it, I stop counting.
Once I actually get there, Istop counting.
Now, here's the thing, and thisis what I hear all the time from
the guys, especially LA EastCoast, lots of traffic.
James, are you nuts withtraffic?
Do you know how long it wouldtake me to try and do that?
Do you know how often that meansslowing down?

(20:57):
Do you know what that means toturn to opening up space?
I get it.
But here's the thing.
If you don't maintain thatspace, if you don't defend that
space, when you do have to stopor the guy in front of you stops
short,

Ken Lucci (21:11):
gonna be, you're in trouble.

James Blain (21:12):
you're in trouble.
And we are now seeing across thecountry, there's been an
increase in fraud.
Now this is where operators,telematics cameras, telematics
cameras, but we're seeing anincrease of people that have
figured out I can cut in frontof a commercial vehicle, slam
the brakes, make'em hit me, andI have a claim.

Ken Lucci (21:31):
no, shit.

James Blain (21:32):
And guess what?
You probably have at least$1.5million of insurance.
And if you're running buses, yougot 5 million.
So I know I'm not gonna work fora while.
And that goes back to thenuclear verdicts, to the
insurance guys.
They think we're lotterytickets.
I,

Ken Lucci (21:47):
you know it, and again, it's the straight line
between the insurance premiumincrease to managing the
expectations of your drivers.
The other night I said, somebodysaid, well, what do you mean by
creating a culture of safety?
Okay.
To me it's like, uh, it's likecreating a, a, a lifestyle of

(22:07):
healthy eating.
Okay.
It's, this is, this is what I'mgonna avoid and this is the
activity I'm going to do.
Right?
So talk to me about this, thetelematics systems, because, you
know, I, I help, I've helped acouple of operators from a
strategic consultingperspective, put some, put some
job descriptions in place andwork.

(22:29):
One of them was a safety managerand A-D-O-T-A-D-O-T compliance
officer.
And I learned a little bitabout, um, samsara.
I was unbelievably, and, and I,they're not a sponsor, but by
the way, they should be payingto be,

James Blain (22:45):
Sam, call us.

Ken Lucci (22:46):
right.
Samsara call us.
Uh, third,

James Blain (22:49):
Scon call

Ken Lucci (22:50):
Yep.
Third, third outreach.
Um, so the, talk to me about theAI functions of these telematics
and what it means and how anoperator can use it to change
the behavior of his drivers.

James Blain (23:03):
So let's, let's take a higher level approach
first.
'cause I wanna frame it becausea lot of people think that
they're being proactive byhaving cameras and telematics,
and

Ken Lucci (23:14):
are, but you don't do anything about it.
If you don't, you look at'em,there's nothing proactive about
it.

James Blain (23:18):
Well, and here's the thing, it can, anything that
records an event cannot beproactive in preventing it.
Okay?
Look, I am a firm supporter oftelematics.
If you don't have sock on, ifyou don't have Samsara, if you
don't have one of the othervendors, right?
Raven Camera, whatever you areusing.
If you don't have those in thevehicle, you are at a massive

(23:41):
disadvantage because you have tounderstand the proactive range
and the reactive range.
I live squarely on the proactiveside.
My goal at Pax, my goal is thatyou never get an alert.
You never have to deal withanything.
You never have to say That was aclose call'cause you never know
about it.
We're training to prevent thingsfrom ever happening.

(24:02):
You then have your reactive sideand I tell people I live in the
practice range.
If we looked at this as ahigh-end sports team.
I live in the practice range.
This is the practicing, this isthe training.
This is getting ready for thegame.
Your sock on, your Raven, yoursamsara, your telematics.
That is your pre post gamereview.

(24:23):
That is your video of the game.
That's what actually happenedout there.
Now, what's really cool, and totie this into your question
about AI, is it used to be thatthey were really kinda looking
for static items.
Hey, we know that the speedlimit here is 80 and the guy was
doing 90, right?
That typically happens when noone's in the car in real life,

(24:45):
the speed limit.
Here's 55.
He's doing 65.
All of these different thingswere kind of static.
Now that we have ai, we're ableto actually go in and say, Hey,
where's the driver's eyes?
You know, if you're watchingthis on YouTube, I'm looking,
you straight in the camera, butthe camera can tell that Now I'm
looking off at something else,right?

(25:05):
I'm over here, I'm leaning.
I'm trying to talk to thispassenger.
I boom, distracted, drivingalert, it knows, Hey, there's
harsh driving.
There's all these differentthings that it can now take all
of the data and extrapolate itwhere you'd have a manual review
before and you'd have toactually go through and find it.
The big thing though, and Ken,you've already identified this,

(25:26):
even as a reactive tool, it'snot a tool if you don't use it.
So if you're not addressingthese alerts, if you're not
actually looking at what's goingon now, suddenly doesn't apply
anymore.
I'm getting the alerts.
I'm not doing anything with it.
And by the way, let's bring thisback to insurance.
'cause it's always aboutinsurance.
Right?
Now, if they find out in courtafter an accident, hey, you had

(25:50):
a driver that he hit someonebecause he was following too
closely.
Oh, by the way, your telematicshad alerted you time and time
and time again that this driverwas engaging in this repeated
behavior.
That magic, magic word thatthose evil, evil attorneys that
come against us love

Ken Lucci (26:07):
And they all are.
They all are.

James Blain (26:09):
Negligence, right.
By the way, my sister-in-law'san attorney, but she's on the
right side of things.
Um, but then you get thatbeautiful word negligence
because you knew it was aproblem.
You wanted to make profits.
You wanted to make money.
You put money over people, andyou let that unsafe driver stay
on the road.
Guys, they got you on the ropes.
You're done.

(26:30):
And that's what they're lookingto do.
So the goal of all of thesesystems, the goal of this is
it's telling you what it'sseeing, it's identifying these
behaviors so that you can fixthem.

Ken Lucci (26:42):
So you can change the behavior in advance of a
problem.

James Blain (26:45):
Chess, not checkers.

Ken Lucci (26:47):
Yep.
And this is a perfect analogy,very quick one.
You, I used to drive DerekJeter.
I think I've, I've told thisstory before.
And he used to get to springtraining two and a half hours
before.
And one day I watched him in thedownstairs batting cage and the,
and the pitching, the, uh, the,uh, hitting coach was there.
Now Jeter was the captain of theteam, okay?

(27:09):
And the hitting coach is there,and he's listening.
Derek, look at this video andlook at what's happening to your
swing.
What's something's going onhere?
Okay.
So you're talking about a guythat's the captive of the, of
the team who could easily say, Idon't need to come in for
batting practice.
Right.
So what do, what do you do forthe operator who says, well, I

(27:30):
don't need to do that.
All my guys are great drivers.

James Blain (27:33):
Well, if I can help him, I help him.
Unfortunately.
Otherwise, I gotta sit and waitand wait for life to wake'em up
because here's the thing, Idon't care what level of sports
it is.
It's all built on fundamentals.
Look, I, I started playinghockey last October.
I've been very lucky in that I'msurrounded by coaches that are
great, that one of the coachesall time scoring record one of

(27:55):
the other coaches, right?
Grew up in Canada, grew upplaying it.
And the thing that they comeback to over and over and over
is the fundamentals.
The core fundamentals, becauseeverything is built on it.
Jeter gets it.
He understands that, hey, eventhough I might be amazing at
this, two incredible thingshappen with people.
One, learning's not an an upwardtrend where you just learn and

(28:19):
you go and you get amazing.
Usually we get a hiccup.
You get to a point where youamass enough knowledge that you
kind of get that uncertainty.
Wavering.
I've kind of got it all, but nowit's kind of more mixed up than
it was before.
And there's a dip and then we goup.
Then you hit a plateau.
Right?
And Jeter probably understoodthat plateau better than anyone
because what happens withdrivers is companies wanna say,

(28:42):
watch how you've been drivingsince he was 16.
I trained him how to drive andnow he's at the plateau.
Well, if we wait for them to dipdown, to push them back up, now
all we're doing is we're eitherperforming at base level and
then falling below it andpushing back up.
All you're ever doing isperforming at base or dropping
below.

Ken Lucci (29:01):
See, I, I think it's also fun more fundamental than
that.
I mean, ma uh, Tom Maser, Godrest his soul.
Um, you know, he was one of myconsultants when I first started
in the limo business.
I believed in consultant.
I hired Tommy, and I never usedto tell my people Tommy was
coming in, right?
And they, they still didn't knowwho he was.
So, so Tommy would stay inTampa, we would pick him up from

(29:22):
the airport, take him to thehotel, and then we would have
another driver take him from thehotel to the office the next
day.
And, you know, he would say hisbiggest thing when he did the
training is, Ken, most drivers,most shoppers don't know that
they're bad drivers.
They judge not being a gooddriver by, well, I haven't had
an accident in seven years.
And he used to say, geez, youknow, odds are you're gonna have

(29:44):
one.
So think about what I just said,and the, the measure of most
operators before this insurancecrisis was, well, my loss runs
aren't bad.
Aren't bad at all.
We haven't had an accident in x.
I mean, think about, think aboutthat logic.

James Blain (30:02):
But look, and, and there'll be a whole nother
podcast episode on a lot ofthese topics, but I think one of
the things is.
The kiss of death to a safetyprogram, and I mean this, I'm
dead serious.
The kiss of death to a safetyprogram is when someone comes in
and says, Hey, you know, wehaven't had an accident forever.
We're spending too much money onthis.

(30:23):
Let's, let's save some money.
Let's cut some costs.

Ken Lucci (30:25):
They think it's, see, see what you just said.
They think it's a cost insteadof an investment.
And okay, that's the, I got, Igot an operator that makes more
money than God, okay?
He's been on our program formany ti and this guy makes a lot
of money and, and he basicallysaid to me, you know what?
My guys are spending too muchtime on Samsara.
I said, there's no such thing.

(30:46):
There's no such thing.

James Blain (30:48):
look, if you get our highest level membership.
It's$9 a month if you, if youhave over a hundred drivers, you
then start getting into volumepricing.
You start automatically gettingdiscounts supplied to that
amount, right.
All the way up to a 25% off onthat$9 a month.
And I have operators all thetime that come to me and they
say, well, you know, I would, Iwould do that, but I just don't

(31:11):
know that I wanna spend$9 a

Ken Lucci (31:13):
I, I don't want, I don't want another recurring
expense.
Yeah.
You're the same guy that's gonnacomplain when your insurance
goes up 35%.

James Blain (31:20):
Well,

Ken Lucci (31:21):
you?
Yeah.

James Blain (31:22):
one accident.
One accident will wipe out thecost of every driver over the
course of several years.
And the other thing, it's reallyfunny because we've got this
mindset that we don't thinkabout it in the right frame of
mind.
I I love this example.
I used to give it all time.
I said, let me ask yousomething.

(31:43):
If I could give your driver aRed Bull and it was a magical
Red Bull, that for a whole monthwould help keep their mind on
what they're doing, help keep'emdoing the right things, help
keep'em amped up, help try andget you better reviews, help try
and prevent accents.
Would you buy him that Red Bull?
I said, oh yeah.
I said, if it was a Starbuckscoffee, a little more expensive,
but just one a month.

(32:03):
Would you do that?
Well, yeah, but what happens iswhen we start thinking about
scale, we say, well,$9 a monthtimes, my number of drivers
times this, you know, we haven'thad an accident in a while.
Look, I'm not telling people it,you don't have to use Pax.
You don't have to come and giveme nine.
And that's at the high end,right?

(32:24):
We've got lower end options.
But the point that I'm trying tomake is that.
This is really hard as an ownerbecause nobody looks and says,
Hey, this is how I make mymoney.
The money wants to go intosales.
The money wants to go into moretrips.
The money wants to go intovehicles, the money wants to go

(32:44):
into these places.
But in our industry, we foundthis commoditization of the
driver or the chauffeur, howeveryou refer to them internally,
whatever type of work you'redoing.
There's this commoditization andthis thought of, well, you know,
if I buy a vehicle, I'm gonnahave that vehicle.
Even if the person driving, itdoesn't work out.
Even if I've got two or threepeople that drive it, I've got

(33:05):
them there.
But when you look at the cost,you are spending every month on
a lease, on a payment, howeveryou're doing it, the question
becomes why do we have thismentality that the person
operating it is not where to putthe money?

Ken Lucci (33:22):
Right, right.
And you know something, it'sfunny, um, this is a good
analogy.
So Burn Steakhouse down in, uh,down in Tampa, right?
They have, they have a, a, likea six month training program for
their, for their waitresswaiters and waitresses.
That's absolutely incredible.
Been that way for years, andit's extraordinarily detailed.

(33:43):
So they had somebody come in andlook at the cost structure of
the, the, the steakhouse.
First of all, it's one of themost profitable steakhouses in
the country, right?
But somebody walks through thedoor and says, you know what?
I think you ought to changethis.
And you, you, you ought to, youought to maybe make it only.
A week or two week of shadowinga, a waiter, a waitress.

(34:03):
You know what the o you knowwhat the owner of Burn
Steakhouse said, right?

James Blain (34:06):
I'm hoping you said get out.

Ken Lucci (34:08):
Yeah.
Right, right.
So it, it's, it's investing, tome, it's an investment.
And to me it's an internal, ininternal insurance policy.
Right.
So I also believe that safetysells.
Okay.
I think that we're all trying toget a shrinking piece, a a, a

(34:30):
piece of a pie that's shrinking,which is the co the corporate
account.
The corporate, the corporateclient, right.
I don't care if it's corporate,it's corporate, it's
hospitality, whatever.
And there's competitioneverywhere.
To me, when you walk through thedoor with statistics.
And you walk through the doorand you say, listen, this is my
telematics management system.

(34:52):
This is how I manage mybusiness.
These are the statistics.
This is, I have PAX training.
All of my people have gonethrough PAX training and this is
why your executives are safewith us.
Right?
It's, it's, it's truly aninvestment.
So let me ask you a question.
So, so break down the topdistracted driving that the,
that the chauffeurs that you seethe chauffeurs doing or the CDLs

(35:16):
doing, and then what should theybe watching out for on the road?

James Blain (35:19):
So, so a couple things In our world, one of the
easiest things to avoid and, andit, this is kind of distracted
driving, but it's really its ownitem, is following too closely.
If you ever get in an accidentfor following too closely, that
is typically the easiest toavoid.
And the excuse that I typicallyhear is, well, man, you don't,

(35:40):
you don't drive out here on theEast coast or you're not out
there.
You know, you, you don't knowhow much traffic we have.
Guys,

Ken Lucci (35:44):
Jesus traffic is everywhere.

James Blain (35:46):
Traffic's everywhere.
And look, I travel the countryand sometimes I, I'm riding with
a chauffeur or I'm riding on amotor coach.
Other times, guess what guys?
I'm in this business.
I love to drive.
It's my favorite thing to do.
So it doesn't matter if theygimme a four runner or a
Mustang.
I'm gonna go grab a car and I'mgonna drive.
When I come out to New York, I'mnuts.
I like to drive.
So I drive in New York andbecause I'm nuts, I fly into

(36:08):
LaGuardia and I drive over toNewark.
So it's, it's not like I'm notdoing that same thing in la.
Guess what?
I might be down by LAX, I mightbe up by Ontario.
I might be down in San Diego.
So it doesn't matter whereyou're driving, the thing there
is the distracted driving piece.
The biggest thing there islosing control of that space.

(36:30):
Now sometimes that becomes, Hey,I let being a little tired
distract me from defending thatspace.
I let my phone distract me.
By the way, CDL drivers, it'sworse for you because it is
liter texting and driving'sillegal for everybody.
But phone use for us is illegaltoo.
If you are holding that phoneup, it's illegal.

(36:52):
You've broken the law now, andmost states, guess what?
Most states now are moving tomaking that a law for all
drivers.
It's one touch or Bluetooth and.
Owners, guess what?
Unless there's an emergency,unless there's an issue, you
should make it a policy thatthey're not taking calls when
they're driving, whether thatvehicle's empty, whether it's

(37:14):
with passengers.
I might have told this story onhere before, but there was a
horrible accident in Florida,and what happened is you had a
bus driver who was distracted bya phone call.
Everything's legal, no law'sbroken with the phone call one
touch Bluetooth just on a phonecall.
No, she's not supposed to be ona call, but she's on the call.
And there's a guy that was aformer gangster, had gotten his

(37:37):
life back together, had marrieda nurse, had the dream life.
Well, he ran outta gas and forsome reason it possessed him to
try and push this SUV down thehighway.
What happens?
This distracted driver hits andkills him with his wife and two
kids in the car.
The thing that is burned into mymind, to the point where even in

(38:00):
my personal life, you know what?
Call me later.
I'm driving, I won't answer.
It's burned into my mind becausethe photo I saw was the shoe on
the top of the back of a 45 footbus, right?
His shoe up on the top of thatbus.
So you've gotta keep in mind thenumber one thing that is the

(38:22):
distraction right now in ourworld is devices.

Ken Lucci (38:25):
And, and it's, and it's not just the device in the
hands, it, you just describedsomething that's sensor, that's
sensory.
Right.
Because they, they, they, theywere on the call.
Chances are, they may have evenbeen looking in front of them,
but they didn't realize it.
'cause they're.
Their brain was focused on

James Blain (38:42):
Cognitive distraction.
Yeah.
And I, and I don't wanna gosuper crazy with this, but you
know, you, there's differenttypes of distraction that you
deal with.
And so in that case, you hadsomeone whose eyes were on the
phone, or, or I'm sorry, theireyes are on the road.
Their brain is on the phone andtheir hands are on the wheel.
So they're physically engaged indriving, but they're cognitively

(39:03):
unengaged.
And so you, you have all thesedifferent types of distractions

Ken Lucci (39:08):
got a missile going about 70 miles an hour.

James Blain (39:10):
and you got, yeah, you got a giant missile going 70
miles an hour.
Exactly.

Ken Lucci (39:14):
So, let's back up a step and talk about the operator
that knows they should do this,that doesn't, right?
The same operator knows theyshould look at their financial
statements, but for some reasondoesn't,

James Blain (39:28):
But we're gonna help that

Ken Lucci (39:29):
we're gonna help that person

James Blain (39:30):
gonna help you.
We got you.

Ken Lucci (39:32):
So what do you do for the operator that has checks the
box and has the samsara, or haswhatever the telematics system
is, but does not have a systemin place to review it and then
change the behavior in apositive way?
Te how do, what's the advicethat you give them?

James Blain (39:48):
So most importantly, I'm gonna break
your mindset of box checking.
It is not a box to check.
It is a way that you run yourcompany.

Ken Lucci (40:00):
It's a cultural, it's a culture of safety or it's not.

James Blain (40:03):
it's not, yeah, it either is or it isn't.
And if you ask me what we do,and I am absolutely notorious
for any time Pax does anythingat all.
Customer service never comesbefore safety.
You ask us what we do.
Safety, defensive driving, andcustomer service.
Why?
Because you can't give customerservice if I've literally peed

(40:28):
my pants in the back of the car.
'cause we've had five nearmisses.

Ken Lucci (40:32):
it was knuckle dry.
It was a white knuckle trip.
Yeah.

James Blain (40:34):
look, here's the thing.
If I gotta change my shorts whenI get to the airport, it's one
thing.
If I'm going to a businessmeeting and it's the biggest
meeting in my life and I'veliterally crapped my pants on
the way there because this guyhas terrified me.
I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna useyou ever again and I'm gonna
lose the deal.

Ken Lucci (40:50):
no, no offense too.
I mean, anxiety is a big thing,right?
And, and a lot of anxiety isbecause the person feels that
they've lost control and thepassenger has given you their
ultimate control.
The ultimate control is theirlife.
So, so the operator who doesn't,you know, who doesn't like to be
confrontational and says, I'mnot gonna deal with that because

(41:13):
Jesus, I don't want to gothrough another hiring phase.
What do what?
How do you deal with that guy?

James Blain (41:17):
So, so a couple things.
So first and foremost, and, andmaybe this will come up when we
do an episode on pricing, I knowthat's something that you're
gonna talk with us about.
Ken, first and foremost,understand that this is an
investment.
I mentioned earlier the kiss ofdeath to any safety or training
program is when you say, wehaven't had any accidents, we

(41:39):
can scale back.
No.
If you haven't had anyaccidents, you don't change a
darn

Ken Lucci (41:43):
A actually, I think you double down

James Blain (41:45):
You absolutely

Ken Lucci (41:46):
because the odds are, the odds are that, you know, you
gotta, you gotta almost wait astate, wait a minute, it's too
quiet around here.

James Blain (41:53):
Yeah, and, and that's what you want because
this is operationally part ofthat.
Now, remember what I talkedabout earlier When people
plateau, you've got this plateauand then they dip back down.
What's a much safer way tooperate is you're pushing people
up on the plateau instead ofdown.
And anytime someone comes down,we try to push them back above

(42:13):
that and keep top performers.

Ken Lucci (42:16):
So how do you do that when you, when Samsara or or
another telematics says, okay,we've had five episodes of
distracted driving with Ken.
What's the process?

James Blain (42:28):
So first and foremost, don't let it get to
five second, go back and reviewwhat's happening in your
company.
So if you find that you arehaving a issue.
Multiple times.
This keeps coming up.
Don't play checkers.
Don't just go, well, I'm gonnaaddress one at a time.
Play chess.
Think 4, 5, 6, moves ahead andsay, Hey, something is

(42:53):
fundamentally wrong in mytraining, or something's
fundamentally wrong in my safetyprogram.
Look guys, this is just likesports.
Anybody that grew up playingsports, it should be second
nature to you.
Because here's the thing, thegame that's driving, that's game
day.
Game day is driving and they'rejust game after game after game
after game.
Your telematics, your cameras,that's your review.

(43:16):
The problem is we get in thiscycle where we never go back to
practice.
Think about it.
Think if after winning the SuperBowl, the coach came out and
said, guys, we are so good.
From now on, we only practiceonce a year.
I'm gonna bring everybody in.
I'm gonna give'em a big pep talkand we're gonna go continue to
win.
Super

Ken Lucci (43:34):
It is not gonna

James Blain (43:35):
It's not gonna happen.

Ken Lucci (43:36):
Yeah.
At The at that, at that level,they all understand that it is
the continuous strive to improvethat keeps them winning.
And we, a lot of operators don'tget that in any function.
In any function.
Right.
You fund, you, you, you, I, I, Isaid this last week in a speech,

(43:56):
well, I'm profitable, thereforeI don't need to manage my
financials.
Oh, wait a minute.
I, I, I, I haven't had a, wehaven't had an accident,
therefore I don't have to jazzup my safety program.
Okay.
Comfort.
Complacency and omni thinking tome are the worst things that you
can have as an operator.
You've gotta operate at aheightened level of safety at

(44:19):
all times.
'cause otherwise, no.
Frank, no, no.
You're no different than theUber or Lyft driver that that's,
that's taken your business

James Blain (44:27):
I, I'm gonna share a story, right?
I, I knew of an operator thathad an accident and they had an
accident with a couple in thecar, and he, he couldn't afford
to lose the driver.
So he put that same couple inthe car with that same driver,
you know, a week,

Ken Lucci (44:46):
was the, the driver was negligent.
The driver was.

James Blain (44:48):
this driver was in an accent.
I don't care if he wasnegligent, for God's sake.
Don't put, unless I ask you to,why would you put me back in the
car with the same guy?
Not only that, why would therebe a timeframe where that guy's
right back in, that guy's rightback in with that same
passenger.
Look, I don't care if it wasn'this fault.
I don't care what the situationwas, if you haven't lost me as a

(45:10):
customer, unless I'm saying,hey, no, no, it, it totally not.
I'm fine with it.
Why would you put me back withthat person?
Our whole world, everything wedo in pasture transportation,
our goal is to create thisfeeling that they are safe, that
they are taking care of everyneed is there.
That's why in our world, it'snot just driving SA safety and,

(45:32):
and defensive driving has alwaysbeen about building a core of
safety and building a core ofservice.
You can only get to service onceyou have the safety in place.
Now, think about it, whether itwas his fault or not, regardless
of what happened, what am Iimmediately gonna think about
the next time I get in thevehicle with that driver?

Ken Lucci (45:52):
It's gonna, it's gonna be immediately

James Blain (45:54):
gonna be in my mind.
Yeah.
Doesn't matter what happened,it's on my mind, right?
And unless I said, Hey, that wasmy guy, I want that driver,
unless I'm requesting it, don'tput me back in the vehicle with
them.

Ken Lucci (46:05):
And I and I, and I think that that's almost, that's
almost like you have no conceptof what you put these people
through.
That's number one.
And number two, I, I think ingeneral, our industry, we are so
busy working in the business,not on it, and trying to get
people from point A to point Bbecause, uh, especially on our

(46:26):
busiest days.
That we're not proactive.
We're almost, we, we, we thinkwe don't have time to be
proactive.
And, and I argue that the reasonwhy you're on, on this hamster
wheel is you haven't, youhaven't taken time out to think
that why is this continuallyhappening?
Why are people hitting cars inthe parking lot?

(46:49):
You know, you brought upsomething the other day, uh, or
earlier that it's, it's notnecessarily the catastrophic
accident, but it's the scuffbumpers, the, the, the fenders,
the dinged rim.
That's a thousand dollars tofix.
And you're like, why is the shitcontinually happening?
And my an my answer is becauseyou haven't backed up and you

(47:11):
haven't looked at why youhaven't.
I mean, you haven't, you, you,you don't have a proactive
process.
In place to manage the data thatyou have.
And a guy said to me the otherday, well, you know, telematics,
I look at it.
If I've had an accident or Ilook at, I have a problem.
I said, there is so much datathat you can ma that you can
manage your business by that'sproactive and that you can, that

(47:35):
you can use it as a sales tool,but use it to build up the
muscle memory of your company.
And it, it, it kind of is veryconcerning that they don't draw
that direct correlation.
They, they're like, well, the30% price increase has nothing
to do with me because I haven'thad an accident.

James Blain (47:55):
But, but you used a magic word.
You brought up something reallymagical that a lot of business
owners miss, and that can bereally tough to see through the
weeds.
And that's process.
Here's the thing, you needprocesses and systems.
And guess what I can tell youright now, I hear people all the
time say, Hey, yeah, no, I, wecould develop our own program.

(48:17):
We can develop our own trainingmaterials, we can

Ken Lucci (48:18):
Of course you can.

James Blain (48:20):
We can do all of this.

Ken Lucci (48:21):
Of

James Blain (48:21):
great.
And I can make my own iPhone.
You know, I can go findengineers, we can figure out the
technology.
Why, why, why do we have thisthought of.
Do and, and here's what happensto most business owners.
You have that thought of, we'lldo it at absolute best.
You half cock that gun, you kindof sort of throw some stuff at

(48:43):
it and you call it good.
One of the things that I learnedas an entrepreneur from my
father-in-law, who I was luckyenough to be mentored by, right?
He's got a multimillion dollarbusiness, doing well, doing
great.
He said, look, you didn't startthere when I was little.
I had to figure out what to do,but why would I try to invent
the wheel when it alreadyexists?

Ken Lucci (49:03):
Why would I reinvent the wheel?
There's no

James Blain (49:05):
why?
Why am I gonna try and build anddo something?
Guys, look at this.
In this way, you have to figureout what it is that you produce
at your company.
And it, for almost all of us,we're not making the SUV, we're
not making the motor coach,we're not making the sprinter.
Our big thing is you are makingdrivers that provide

(49:27):
experiences.
So instead of trying to figureout exactly what it is, how do I
keep'em safe?
How do I do this?
How do I teach'em?
Driving safety, customerservice.
Grab these tools off the shelf,go put in a telematics company.
Use a company like Pax to helpyou do the training, and then
you focus on developing theminto the type of person that you

(49:50):
want to drive your family.
That when passengers ride withthem, they go, I have never felt
so great.
But you're doing that by puttingall of these pieces together.
If you spend your time figuringout how to actually create the
hammer, you're never gonna drivethe nail.

Ken Lucci (50:06):
Uh, without question, and again, to me, pull it off
the shelf because it's there.
Use it to improve your businessand then spend your time that
energy working on your business,not

James Blain (50:20):
Not in your business?

Ken Lucci (50:22):
know, it's, it's like a guy says to me, what do you, I
said to him, what are you doing?
He said, well, you know, I'mdoing my books.
I said, wait a minute.
You're doing your books.
It's two, it's, it's 10 o'clockon a Tuesday morning.
This is prime selling time.
This is the reason why yourrevenue is, is

James Blain (50:36):
Just revenue generating

Ken Lucci (50:37):
Right.
Because it's, it's not a gooduse of your time.
Okay.
And to me, it's not a good useof your time to try to rere
recreate the wheel.
To me, it's easier to get it offthe shelf.
If you want to enhance it,that's fine.
But it was interesting to me,the undertone in the room and
Nila shifted.

(50:59):
It shifted away from the problembeing the insurance companies to
understanding that they play an,the operator plays an active
role.
There's a guy up there thattalked about the telematics
system and the AI functions, andhim, him contacting the drivers,
the chauffeurs when there was nocustomer in the car and say,
listen, you know, you, you,you've, you've we're getting

(51:22):
this signal.
You really need to sh to drivethe vehicle the same way when
you have the car, the chauffeurin the car or empty.
And that's the biggest thing.
And so I saw the operatorsgetting more collaborative on it
and an understanding that inorder to fix the problem, they
had to identify the symptoms andthey had to change and treat the

(51:42):
symptoms.
Um, when you, I, I'll leave youwith this.
When, when I look at review, badreviews of companies, do you
know the most prevalent, badreview I have.

James Blain (51:52):
Which one?

Ken Lucci (51:54):
That driver cut me off.
The driver cut me off.
Your driver was speeding and hecut me off.
I want you to think about that.
That person gave a review of thebusiness.
They're not even a customer.
Okay.
And how could that have beenprevented?

James Blain (52:08):
Yep.

Ken Lucci (52:09):
The guy was speeding down the highway and of course
the logo is on the vehicle.
We want that, right?
But Right.
So what is, the person is soupset that they got cut off that
they give you a shitty review.
Okay, so obviously I'm lookingat a company that's got five or
seven of those really bad.
They're racing their peoplebetween transfers.

(52:31):
That's number one.
They're, they're racing thembetween transfers, right?
And they're not, they're notdoing what you said, which is
understand that you've got thisbubble around you and they're
not using the data.
To me, when I look at a reviewthat says the driver was
speeding, right?
Driving reckless, recklessdriving, he's not even a
customer and they're observingthat.

James Blain (52:51):
well, and, and here's what I wanna close on,
because you're, you're hittingon something and, and this,
it's, it's a little similar towhat you said a second ago with
your telematics, when you get atelematics alert.
One of two things is gonnahappen.
You're gonna go review it andyou're gonna find out it's
legitimate, or you're gonnareview it and you're gonna find
out it wasn't legitimate orwasn't an issue, and you are

(53:13):
going to document if it wasn'tlegitimate.
If it is legitimate.

Ken Lucci (53:18):
gonna document the change in how you change the
behavior.

James Blain (53:21):
Not exactly.
Not only that, right?
One of the things you should bedoing is, and I get people that
call me all the time, Hey, I hadthis situation, what's the exact
right course have and take?
Because you want to go in andsay, Hey, I've done a remedial
training and in Pax, that's easyin our world, that's, I assigned
him the course, or I had himretake the course, or I gave him

(53:42):
this piece of that additionaltraining, and then I spoke with
him, and you're gonna documentthat, and then you're going to
make sure that if that happensagain, you are being careful to
not allow patterns of behaviorto develop.
Because remember what I saidearlier, the problem becomes if
you have a guy that, Hey, I'vetalked to this guy 10 times for

(54:04):
speeding.
Ju dude, the lawyer's gonna goin and he is gonna go, he knows
it's a problem.
He doesn't care because we onlycare about money.
That's always it.
It's gonna come back to, and theother piece of that is, guys,
there's no silver bullet.
Insurance is going to go up.
It's across the board.

Ken Lucci (54:23):
The market is the market is never gonna become a
soft market.
You need to understand that it'sgonna be a hard market and it's
gonna continue to go up and upand up.
So that, that's gonna lead us topricing at some point.

James Blain (54:35):
but I have good news.
And you're absolutely right,Ken.
If you guys don't listen to thepricing episode, after you
listen to this episode, you'rein trouble.
But here's the thing, when thepricing goes up, you don't have
to ride the ride all the way tothe top.
Look, their job at the insurancecompany is to assess how much of

(54:55):
a risk you pose.
That's what Underwriting's wholejob is.
Underwriting's job is to come inand say, okay.
Timmy's limo, John's Motor CoachCompany, Steven's Taxi, whatever
company you have, they come inand they say, okay, we have to
try and figure out how risky youare and how likely you are to
blow it.

(55:15):
Because if you have a hugeaccident, if something goes
horribly wrong, we know what theworst case scenario is.
But what do we kind of expect?
What do we think is gonnahappen?
So if you are actually creatinga safety culture and you're
documenting it all before you doyour insurance renewal, months
before you should be getting aninsurance packet ready.

(55:36):
Here's all the training thatwe've done in the

Ken Lucci (55:38):
Build the case,

James Blain (55:39):
build your

Ken Lucci (55:41):
build the case that you're less risky.

James Blain (55:43):
You are being graded, you're being assessed.
'cause they have to assess therisk.
Now does that mean you're gonnaget the most favorable, best
pricing in the world?
No.
Insurance is also a regulatedindustry.

Ken Lucci (55:54):
do you say to the, what do you say to the operator
that says, well, you know, I'mreally good friends with the
broker.
He'll take care of me.

James Blain (56:00):
Okay, well let me ask you something.
Are you giving the broker whatthey need to get the job done?
Because if I hire a chef and Isay, Hey, he comes to my house
and his name is Tommy and I'veknown him since we were kids and
he's his best chef in the worldand he gets to my house and
there's nothing in my fridge andthere's nothing for him to cook,
how is he gonna take care of me?

Ken Lucci (56:19):
he can't tell, he can't tell the story anymore
because there's not enoughcompanies out there.
Right.
There's not enough companies outthere where he can pass you
between from one company toanother, and he can't tell the
story without data.

James Blain (56:33):
And, and to that point, your goal, you should not
be, if you are looking atinsurance as price alone, guys,
there's more to it than that.
We have, we at Pax, have apartnership with Lancer.
If you're a Lancer customer, ifyou're one of their insurance,
can't say enough about Steve andTim, um, that whole team.

(56:53):
But if you're a Lancer insured,you get access to additional
lancer specific training.
Lancer, the way they approachclaims, the way they do things
is different.
Every insurance company's alittle different.
There are things you're gonnaget with Lancer that you might
not get with a nationalInterstater.
You might not get with aCarolina casualty, or there's
things with Carolina Casualtyyou might not get with a Lancer.

(57:16):
They each have their own thing.
So if you are assessing it.
Purely on insurance, right?
Purely on my cost.
Two things.
Their job is to assess yourrisk.
If they know you're looking forthe cheapest deal, that tells
them you're a cheapest dealperson.

Ken Lucci (57:32):
and you're, you might be more risky'cause you're also
gonna be cheap on your safety.
You're gonna be cheap on yourDOT

James Blain (57:37):
because it's here, just a cheap guy.
Yeah.

Ken Lucci (57:39):
Because by the way, it's usually because you don't
make your pricing properly andyou don't make enough profit.
That's why you have to be cheapbecause your profits suck.

James Blain (57:47):
and here's the thing, guys.
You've gotta make sure that youunderstand the game that you're
playing.
To Ken's point about, he's mybroker's taking care of me.
Give him the tools to do thejob, right?
Set him up for success.
Look, we have a company that wework with out on the East coast.
Had'em come to me this year andsay, Hey, the first time ever,

(58:08):
we've had no incidents lastyear.
And we know that it's becausewe're doing weekly training
through pax.
We're keeping it top of mind.
They have two main things thatthey think about every single
week.
How am I gonna stay safe and howam I gonna create an experience
for this passenger?
That's what their focus, that'sthe bread and butter of the
passenger transportationindustry.

Ken Lucci (58:29):
And you know, the funny part

James Blain (58:30):
pushing them up.

Ken Lucci (58:31):
you know the funny part about those companies, they
understand that success isfleeting.
They understand that success istemporary, right?
So what they do is they developsystems of excellence.
And it's not just lip service,it's internal processes and
systems of excellence.
And it's funny how the ones withthe best safety programs are

(58:54):
also the most profitable.
They're also the ones

James Blain (58:57):
They have the best

Ken Lucci (58:58):
they have the best systems and they also have the
best insurance rates year afteryear.
Okay.
It's funny how that is, it'sfunny how the ones that do
everything reactive, they doeverything last minute.
They really are not in touchwith all of the, all of the,
the, the levers of theirbusiness.
And I, I, I say to them, I don'tknow why you're surprised that

(59:20):
your rates went up 35%.
You're doing the bare minimum onsafety.
You're doing the bare minimum ondriver training.
It doesn't, you, your mindset iswhen your mindset is a sense of
plentiful.
I can go and get insuranceanywhere.
I don't have to change things.
It's, you know, it's out of myhands.
No, it's not,

James Blain (59:41):
This, this shows up time and time and time and time
again all throughout business.
And this is what I'll leave youguys with.
When you have a vehicle that youstart getting a small noise
from, do you wait for it to beso loud you can't ignore it, or
for your lights to show up as aChristmas tree?

(01:00:02):
Or do you immediately take careof the problem?
More importantly, don't you wanta safety program just like you'd
want in your maintenance programthat never has the squeak
because you are identifying itand taking care of it before it
ever became an issue.
Because guess what happens?
Yep.
Issues turn into problems.

(01:00:23):
Problems turn into accidents.
Accidents turn intocatastrophes.
Wouldn't you rather never haveissues?
So I think that's the best placeto leave off.

Ken Lucci (01:00:33):
I think it's a great, absolutely a great place to
leave off.
I love these episodes.
I, I, we've been on the road fora couple weeks, but another
successful episode.
Guys, we will see you back hereagain, uh, soon.
And the next subject is going tobe pricing.
Okay.

James Blain (01:00:49):
Pricing.
How do you afford this?

Ken Lucci (01:00:51):
By the way, we've got some great stuff coming up.
We've got Charlie Horkey comingup right from Charlie Horkey
from Slate Services, one of themost, I mean, iconic operators.
Been around this business for 40years, to me, one of the fathers
of the Li Li industry.
And then we've got one of myfavorite people in the entire
world.
One of the most positive guys inthe entire world.
Eric Augh from The AdvantageRemarketing is coming up.

(01:01:12):
So, uh, stay tuned guys, andthanks for, uh, thanks for
listening.

James Blain (01:01:18):
Take it easy, everybody.
Thank you for listening to theground transportation podcast.
If you enjoyed this episode,please remember to subscribe to
the show on apple, Spotify,YouTube, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
For more information about PAXtraining and to contact James,
go to PAX training.com.
And for more information aboutdriving transactions and to

(01:01:38):
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.