Proactive Driver Training: Why You Can't Scale Without Documentation and Systems

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Is documentation the missing link in your ground transportation business's journey to scaling? 

In this episode, Ken and James explore the critical role that documentation, training, and systems play in not only growing your business but also in safeguarding it against potential legal and insurance issues. In this episode, you'll hear:

• Why initial and ongoing training is not just an expense but an investment crucial for your company's longevity.
• How training and documentation can make or break your case in a lawsuit.
• Understanding the risks involved in inconsistent training programs across multiple locations.
• The importance of keeping up with regulations, especially with the shift to larger vehicles like minibuses and sprinters.
• How telematics can serve as a valuable tool, but only if it’s actively managed and utilized to reinforce training and safety protocols.

Tune in to discover why a culture of safety, underpinned by solid documentation and systems, is indispensable for the sustainable growth of any ground transportation business.

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 (00:26):
Good afternoon and welcome to another exciting
episode of the groundtransportation podcast.
I'm here with my partner incrime on the podcast, James
Blaine

James Blain (00:38):
Hey everybody.

Ken Lucci (00:38):
from, PAX training.
And, um, we're going to betalking about something that
should be top of mind with everysingle operator.
And if it's not, you are puttingyour business in peril.
And that is it dovetails intothe biggest discussion going on
in the industry right now, whichis the insurance crisis.

(00:58):
And it really is howdocumentation and training can
actually save your businessduring a lawsuit.
So when I look at companiesfinancials, I ask the question
when I see zeros under trainingand education, what are you
doing for training?
Oh, well, we, you know, we havethis, we have that, but it's

(01:20):
really no outside trainingwhatsoever.
So people look at tradingsometimes negatively as an
expense, and it's not, and it'san investment, but it's more
than that.
And we'll, talk about how, A, itcan save you money on your
insurance premiums, but B, theevent of a lawsuit, It can

(01:40):
absolutely save you and the lackof training implements and
provable training implements canactually hurt you.
So give us an idea, James, ofwhat you go through and why do
you tell people that they needto do PACS training?

James Blain (01:59):
Well, and, and let me step back for a second.
Let me kind of set the stage,right?
so we've been, we've been doingPAX now for almost 10 years.
when we first started doingtraining, it was run a better
business, right?
It was grow your business.
It was make money.
you know, have a betterbusiness.
That's going to make you morerevenue.
That's going to have more peoplecoming back.

(02:20):
But coming out of COVID, thatshifted, right?
For the first time in a verylong time, we shifted our
messaging.
We shifted our marketing becausewhat we started seeing is these
explosive nuclear verdicts,right?
People are going to court.
And we are seeing just millionsof dollars awarded.
So what's happened with that iskind of interesting because they

(02:40):
are looking for.
Any door they can find to getin, right?

Ken Lucci (02:46):
Who's they?
Who's

James Blain (02:47):
they, right?
The other attorneys, right?
The ambulance chasers of ship.
Now they're not ambulancechasers.
They're ground transportationoperator chasers, right?
They're waiting for thataccident because they know that
in our world, especially Godforbid, if you got a bus.
Now you've got all of the peopleon the bus.
You've got the other people onthe side of the accident, right?
So these guys have figured outthey go in and go for policy

(03:09):
limits.
And tell people, it's just likewhat happens when you leave your
car parked outside.
Most of the stuff stolen from acar parked outside.
Isn't the guy coming through,breaking your windows, trying to
break into the car, making a lotof noise.
They're going from house tohouse.
They're checking each door onthe car.
And the second there's a doorunlocked, they're taking
everything inside.

(03:30):
Anything they can find insidethat vehicle and when they're
going to court, they're doingthe same thing.
You know, I've heard stories of,you know, we had a guy who had
LASIK.
He's supposed to wear glasses.
He had LASIK.
He was driving without hisglasses.
All of a sudden, that wholecourt case revolves around, why
didn't you have your glasses on?
Why didn't you update yourlicense?

(03:51):
In the training world, it's,okay, so you did training with
them.
How many days?
Show us the documentation.
When's the last time?

Ken Lucci (03:59):
is it true that they look for even the smallest
weakness to break open the barndoor.

James Blain (04:05):
Oh, yeah.
like I said, think of that carexample, right?
They're trying to find the opendoor.
And as soon as they find theopen door, they're in, right?
They're going to go for it.
So when we did a mock trial aspart of the Bus Industry Safety
Council, right?
You know, the situation therewas we're going to say that.
You know, there was a fire andwe lost all our training
records, right?
We don't have telematics, right?

(04:26):
We're kind of a cheaper company.
And you had a guy that wasjaywalking, and he gets hit by
the bus.
And in a room full of owners,operators, and safety managers,
Not a single group of peoplethat were pretend jurors gave
this guy less than a milliondollars, right?

(04:47):
And this, this is against ourown industry.
This is industry people awardingit.
So that's how good it is.
And what they're doing, the waythese attorneys are twisting it,
is they are going in and they'resaying things like, hey, you
have a training program, and aspart of your training program,
you get him out there on theroad.
And if he makes three mistakes,You're going to take this

(05:08):
action, right?
And, or, or, let's, let's makeit even better.
You have a one strike policy.
If you ever find out this guyuses his phone or pulls it out
while driving, you're going tofire him But we found in his,
you know, when we did ourdiscovery, we found in his file
that you actually gave him astern talking to for having his
phone out and you didn't firehim.
So you're negligent.
You don't even, you get to writeyour own policies.

(05:30):
You don't even follow your ownpolicies, right?
That's the world we live inright now.

Ken Lucci (05:33):
so distill it down, distill it down.
And when you walk through thedoor of a prospective client,
who's an operator, what are themost common weaknesses you see
in operators training programsbefore you really get into the
meat and potatoes of what youdo?

James Blain (05:50):
So, there's probably three big things I see
the vast majority of the time.
The first is the easiest.
And that's, it hasn't beentouched.
It hasn't been updated, right?
I've seen trainings wherethey've still got, you know,
town car, or they've still gotlike 1995 or they, they've got
something where I'm like, man,that we're talking 20, 30 years.
You haven't touched this thing.

(06:11):
That's real obvious.

Ken Lucci (06:12):
and the manual doesn't even have their up to
date fleet.
They may have, they may haveminis and sprinters, et cetera,
but their safety all revolvesaround the town car.

James Blain (06:22):
and I've seen it the other way around too, right?
I've seen companies that starton the black car side.
They've moved into buses.
Their fleet is predominantlybuses now, but their training
manuals, right?
Their chauffeur manual, theirdriver manual right?
Whatever They've got is stillrevolving around where they
started and not where they are.
The second one is ironic becauseit's the extreme version of

(06:44):
that.
And I see it most in your one to10 car operator, right?
Usually when you get to about 10or more, you have someone that's
a trainer.
You have someone's a safetymanager.
You have someone to put togetherthe

Ken Lucci (06:55):
You'd like to think.

James Blain (06:56):
You'd like to think right, and I've seen this with
bigger companies, but it's themanual is in the owner's head.
That is, if I had to sayironically, right, that's not
where I started, but the mostcommon grave, like I can't
believe it's happening that Isee on probably a weekly basis
is the training.

(07:17):
Is all on the owner's head.
That owner knows he, well, Oh,what's your training?
Well, you know, John, the ownertakes them out.
He shows them everything he goesthrough.
He does.
I said, great.
What checklist is he using?
Oh, John's been doing this sincehe started the company.
He doesn't need a checklist.
Okay, well, how's he documentingit?
Oh, well, you know, we put inthe file that they spent time
with John.
Completely, you know, back toour example of court, completely

(07:39):
indefensible.
You go into the courtroom,John's gonna go on the stand,
and it's all gonna be just whatJohn says.
And the attorney's gonna go,great, show me.
And John's gonna go, well, theonly way I can show you is to
push through the training, andhe's toast.

Ken Lucci (07:52):
what's the number third?
What's the three?

James Blain (07:54):
The third is one and done.
They do training when they hiresomebody and, and along with
that is one of my favorites,they hire someone experienced
and they skip all their trainingbecause he's been doing it for
10 years.
He probably got great trainingsomewhere along the line.
So we're just going to fasttrack him and we're going to put
him in a vehicle.
And it is amazing.

(08:15):
You see that from all the way upto the largest vehicles in a
fleet, right?
I got motor coach companies thatare guilty of that.
I got chauffeured companies thatare guilty of that.
Taxi, any, anywhere across theboard we work with, that is one
of the cardinal sins of, Oh,well he's done it.
He's got experience.
He sounds like he knows whathe's talking about.
I can fast track him and get himin a car.

Ken Lucci (08:37):
So how do you get somebody to go from one and done
to ongoing training?
what's that look like?

James Blain (08:43):
Well, so a couple things, right?
And, and I'll, I'll start withthe mindset.
And I, I did a talk inCalifornia, right?
I was lucky enough to be on apanel with, Kim from Lancer,
right?
We have Susan from CaliforniaHighway Patrol.
Great panel.
And when we got done, I, I satdown next to a good friend of
mine, uh, Steve O'Shea fromLancer.
And Steve said, man, you kind ofdanced around it, but I think

(09:05):
the way you sum that up is youhave to treat your training Like
it's on trial.
Everything you do in yourtraining, every part of your
training, you got to be ready toput it in front of a jury and I
wish, right?
I wish I would have had thatgoing on that stage.
I wish I would have had that inthe panel because I've never
heard anyone sum it up thatsimple.

(09:26):
You've got to do the mindset ofall of your training.
If you have a bad accident, ifyou have a fatality, if
something goes wrong, if thatdriver has any kind of accident
at all and you're going intocourt, you're going Training is
going to be put on trial becausethey know that for a lot of
companies, that's a weak pointand they're going to be able to

(09:46):
show your negligent and they'regoing to use that to win

Ken Lucci (09:48):
So what you, what I'm hearing you say is it's got to
be a culture of safety.

James Blain (09:54):
a

Ken Lucci (09:54):
ongoing of safety.
So let's talk about what are yousupposed to do?
And this is kind of a little bittouchy when, when you have
somebody that is doing somethingwrong, you know, I'm, I am not
an operator.
At this point, and when I was anoperator, telematics was in its

(10:14):
infancy.
So, what do you do now?
What's the role of telematics?
And what is the role ofcorrective action when you do
see something wrong?

James Blain (10:24):
So a couple of things, right?
If we wanted to talk about thisin the frame of sports, Right?
Training is your practice.
Training is where you're workingon getting all of the form
right.
You're making sure everything'sthere, so that when game day
happens, everything goes the wayit's supposed to.
Telematics is videotaping thegame.

(10:45):
It is not proactive, it'sreactive.
And I hear it all the time,right?
Well, my telematics will tell meabout driver behavior, and
they'll do this, and they'll dothat.
Look, if you're watchingfootball, and they video the guy
getting tackled instead ofgetting the touchdown, and they
lose the game, they still lostthe game, right?
Same thing here.

Ken Lucci (11:01):
Right.
If game after game you'rewatching the same interceptions
happening, you're not changingit, Guess what?
That, that, game day videotapemeans nothing.

James Blain (11:09):
Absolutely.
So that's, that's the role thatyour telematics play, right?
Your, your telematics areshowing you where you need to
come back and do training.

Ken Lucci (11:19):
does stop here for a second?
What do you say to an operatorwho says to you?
I'm too small for telematics,and I'm too small to buy packs

James Blain (11:27):
so first off, I'm going to tell you, if you don't
buy packs.
Document, whatever you're doing,you're not too small to put
together a checklist.
You're not too small to documentit.
And the other thing is, even thetelematics companies are set up
just like we are.
We get it.
We work with guys all the waydown to a one car operator.
What you've got to understandand what I always have a big

(11:47):
issue with new operators is,man, I got to control where the
money's going.
This is preventative.
Right?
Putting a couple hundred dollarsinto something like Pax, pulling
a couple hundred dollars intosomething like Telematics,
putting money there now is goingto save you from having an
accident and getting dropped byyour insurance carrier, having

(12:08):
to worry about an explosiveverdict, having to deal with
that.
The question isn't can youafford not to?
It's do you have enough money sothat when they blow past your
policy limit, you don't loseyour company because you didn't
make that a priority up front.

Ken Lucci (12:23):
so there's a lot of talk The definition of defensive
driving talk to me about thatterm Defensive driving.

James Blain (12:32):
So, I will tell you right now, defensive driving is
something that we use becauseit's a recognized term, but we
focus a lot more on proactivedriving, right?
Because here's the thing, youthink of defensive driving, it
really gives this idea of I'mfighting everybody else.
The problem is In our world, weare passenger ground

(12:55):
transportation.
I don't need three seconds infront of me.
I need five, right?
Because even if I can stop whileavoiding the accident, guess
what?
If I'm jerking around everybodyon the bus, if I've got the CEO,
right?
If I've got Elon, if I've gotwhoever in the back and I do an
abrupt lane change and I missedthe accident.
He's not going to go, wow, greatjob missing the accident.

(13:16):
He's going to go, why'd you,why'd you jerk me around?
I'm trying to have a meeting or,or the whole bus back there is
going to get jerked around.
So in our world, you've got totake that a step further and
think of it as proactivedriving.
It's one of the things thatwe've really focused on because
the idea of defensive driving isone of those terms that's been

(13:38):
used so much.
It's been pushed around so muchover and over and over.
That we almost start to kind oflose the meaning in it.
Right?
It's one of those terms that'skind of gotten overused.

Ken Lucci (13:50):
so Give me an idea from the, from a perspective of
the biggest impact that somebodycan make.
What do you feel is the mostimportant thing an operator can
do to promote safety andactually prevent accidents?

James Blain (14:06):
So let's go back to our analogy of a game.
Right?
I play football, crayon upactually, I'm playing all kinds
of sports right?
Throughout my life.

Ken Lucci (14:14):
Yeah, I'm not buying that.
I've seen your frame.
You're not big enough to playanything.

James Blain (14:18):
I said I played, I didn't say I was good.

Ken Lucci (14:20):
Okay.
What was it?
Nursery school.
Yeah, I get it.
Okay.
First grade.
I'm sorry.
I digress.

James Blain (14:26):
So here's the thing, though.
It doesn't matter, right, when Iwas playing in high school, when
I was playing in middle school,right, even, even now, right,
I'm, I'm playing hockey again asan adult to try to get back in
shape.
The biggest mistake you can makeis going out there without a
plan, right?
If you really want to win, Youdon't hit the ice.
You don't hit the gridiron.
You don't hit whatever sportyou're in.

(14:48):
You don't hit the field untilyou have a plan and everyone's
in sync, right?
And it's the same thing nomatter what you're doing.
Even if you're playing, right?
You're a tennis player, one onone.
If you go out there, even thoughit's just you and the other guy
and your plan is, I'm gonna win,you don't have a plan.
You're probably not gonna win.
The same thing happens inbusiness.

(15:09):
You have to have a plan.
You have to have a list you'regoing to follow.
And here's the thing.
When you're small, that, youknow, my first hire, yeah, I'm
probably not going to have thebest checklist.
I'm just going to bring him in.
I'm going to try and teach himeverything I know.
But even on that first hire, ifthat operator, that owner sits
down and says, hey, I need tomake a list of everything that

(15:31):
makes it, that makes me, me.
Right?
Why is what I do different thananyone else?
If you don't put a list out likethat, guess what?
If you hire a quiet guy and hedoesn't ask any questions,
you're going to miss half of it.
If you get lucky and you get aguy that just absolutely loves
questions like I do, he's goingto tease it out of you.
But if you don't have a plan,that next guy is not going to

(15:53):
have the same training.
And the worst part is a lot oftimes, by the time the owners
figured it out, by the time thatbusiness owners figured it out,
he's got 10 to 20 guys that areall doing their own thing.
And he's only coming back to itbecause he's either getting
complaints, accidents,incidents, or what happens in a
lot of cases, the insurancecompany showed up and they're

(16:14):
like, Hey, you don't have aplan.
You've had a couple accidents.
You're going to have more.
And then you've got to worryabout getting dropped.

Ken Lucci (16:21):
100%.
And, you know, I'm going to goback to your plan.
far as game day, you know, thebest laid plans are only,
they're only as good as thepractice of the execution.
It has to be ingrained and ithas to become muscle memory.
And, uh, I'm a, I'm a little,I'm worried.
I mean, I had, um, people say,well, why do you get, why do you

(16:43):
care about insurance?
Okay.
Yeah.
So, M& A is absolutely at itscraziest, we've all said that,
but M& A is going to get evenworse in 2025 because the
insurance market is going tobecome harder.
So, I've talked to, uh, thepresidents of two of the biggest
agency and one carrier, and Isaid, well, what's 25 going to
look like in comparison to 24?

(17:05):
And they said, worse.
I said, how is that possible?
How can it get worse?
So, so, What I what?
And tell me if you're you seethe same concern.
I think inconsistent training isworse than no training at all.
Because right in that lawsuitscenario.
Well, when was the last time youdid this?

James Blain (17:27):
and let me, let me take that a step further, right?
one, you got to have achecklist, right?
But the only thing worse thannot having a checklist is having
a checklist and not followingit.
Because what's going to happenif there's a big accident is the
attorney's going to go intocourt and he's going to say,
hey, You know, we, we had yousend everything over.
We've seen your, your materialsfor training.

(17:49):
You know, we're going to putyour driver on the stand.
They're going to say, Hey, tellus about your training.
How long was your training?
Well, I've been doing this 20years.
So they got me through it inthree days.
Really?
Okay.
Well then they're going to putthe training manager on stage or
they're going to put the traineron, or I'm sorry, on the bench
and they're going to say, Hey,now that I have you on the
stand.
Tell me, why'd you put this guythrough in two days?

(18:09):
If you have a checklist, well,he knew what he was doing.
Okay.
So I've got the checklist here.
What was not important, right?
What are you just assuming thathe knows?
And you run into these scenarioswhere it goes beyond just the
training.
It's, you know, you have apolicy, like I said earlier, uh,
if I catch you on a cell phone,I let you go.

(18:30):
Well.
We looked in your telematics, wepulled the history in your
telematics and this guy gotcaught on a cell phone twice.
Why wasn't he fired?
He's my best driver.
Sorry,

Ken Lucci (18:40):
Yeah.
No, listen, you're right.
And, uh, at the recent C.
D.
N.
L.
A.
Conference in D.
C.
I was at the insurance summitand Matt Dawes, the, the, you
know, foremost attorney in thisindustry that specializes in
transportation, he made acomment.
He said that, telematics can cutboth ways and your training can

(19:01):
cut both ways.
And it was interesting to me.
I never thought about it.
If you have telematics and youdon't manage by it, that will be
used against you in court.
And if you have a trainingmanual and it has dust on it,
right?
Or it says last revision, youknow, 2005, or it's actually
somebody else's.
and when they depose the, yourdrivers, they say, I've never

(19:26):
seen that.
It can cut completely againstyou and it can cost you the
trial.
So what do you see as theemerging risks or issues?
in the industry right now.
And how can an operator preparefor them?

James Blain (19:39):
So, I will tell you, I think probably one of the
biggest issues that I see that'shappening is going to be a side
effect of consolidation, right?
Your world and my world.
Not meeting up the way they'resupposed to, because I cannot
tell you how many companies aregoing through M& A, they're
buying companies, and then theystill kind of let them run semi

(20:01):
autonomously.
They don't have a single pointof contact for training.
They don't have everything rollup.
They don't have a singletraining manual, right?
Take some of these companiesnow.
Say you've got an operation inLos Angeles, Las Vegas, Texas,
and Miami, right?
If there is an accident in eachof those four, and it goes to
court, if each of thoselocations has different

(20:23):
policies, different training,different everything, Now you're
in trouble because you mightthink, Hey, we bought them out.
Everything's great.
And we run everything amazinghere in Los Angeles.
And I live here in Los Angelesand I don't visit those other
locations that often.
Just to find out that when thataccident happens in Vegas,
Texas, or Miami.
Right now, all of a sudden, youdon't know what's going on over

(20:46):
there.
It goes into court and it's, Ohyeah.
the manual was updated back in1995, and when we did the buyout
now, the revenue, everythingchanged, right?
The way all the money flowschanged, but we didn't do
anything there.
it's one of those things that Isee happening across the board.
Now that said, I'll share withyou.
I'm seeing my customers getbought left and right, and it's

(21:08):
always interesting to mebecause, and again, I don't want
this to be a plug, but.
It is a big difference whenyou've got companies that are
both on packs that get purchasedbecause I've seen it happen to
where one of my customers buysanother one of my customers,
they both customize the platformon our end.
That's really easy because nowwe can integrate that together.

(21:31):
They can review it all, and nowthey've got the mechanism to
push it across the board.
Where companies get in troubleis they're trying to save a
buck, right?
Or they're trying not to make aninvestment in training because
the view is, I've got a bunch ofexperienced guys, and they have
an old paper manual, and everylocation's got a different
manual.
Or they're taking that onemanual and they're sending it to

(21:51):
everybody guys, if you don'thave a way to document how long
they're looking at it, test themon how they're doing with it,
and actually make sure thatyou've got all that laid out and
you've got a single place forrecords, handing out a manual
and having them sign a piece ofpaper, we all know they're not
reading

Ken Lucci (22:07):
And actually, and it can work against you as we've
talked about.
You know, the other part of theM.
And a scenario that reallyworries me in this regard is, is
you have somebody comes in andthe first thing they do is slash
expenses and they look at thetraining as expenses, right?
because they've never needed itin there.
The buyer has never done it inhis operation.

(22:29):
This is fluff, right?
So I see that as a huge problem.
The other emerging risk want youto comment on is the herd
mentality in this industrybothers the crap out of me, you
know, on every subject.
Um, You know, I'm going to goout and I'm going to buy
companies because so and so isbuying companies.
Okay, well, first of all, you'renot in the financial position to

(22:51):
buy companies.
So you have to have a strategicreason to do it.
But in this case, the herdmentality that bothers me the
most because it adds debt is I'mgoing to go out and I'm going to
buy a 45 passenger minibus,where heretofore my biggest
minibus has been.
25 or I've been using sprintersand sedans and SUVs and I'm

(23:13):
going to go up to minis.
Okay.
Or I've been using SUVs.
Now I'm going to go out and buysprinters.
So what you've done there isyou've taken a piece of
equipment that you usually puttwo or three people in.
Now you're putting 30 of them.
Well, what did you just do toyour risk?

James Blain (23:29):
Well, and let me take that a step further, right?
One of the things I hear all thetime that just.
It practically brings me totears because I know what will
happen is, well, you know, I canrun sprinters.
They don't need a CDL, so Idon't really have to worry about
anything.
No.
Guess what?
You meet passenger count, youmeet weight.
On almost all sprinters, you'regoing to meet passenger count
and weight, right?

(23:49):
Or one or the other.
Now that's a commercial vehicle.
Guess what?
You've got to have med cards.
You've got to have a driverqualification file.
Right?
You get all of those things thatcome in.
And one of the things that I seethere in our world that's a
concern is hours of serviceapplies.
I don't care if you're using 150or my right.
And that's the I can't tell youhow many times.
Well, we don't worry about hoursof service because we have 150

(24:12):
or mile radius.
Okay, great.
You still have to have thedriver to understand that.
You still have to have thedispatch to understand that.
Because here's the thing.
If that sprinter gets in anaccident and the guy was over on
his hours of service becausethey're going to go check
because remember those attorneyswhen you get to that point where
they're litigating against you,They don't care about collateral

(24:34):
damage.
They want your policy limit.
If they get more than that.
Great.
If they put you out of business,Hey, great, but they can go find
your policy limit and they'regoing to go to every single
possible Avenue.
And if they find out, Hey, thisdriver had been, you know, he
was out driving an SUV for a tonof hours before he got behind
the wheel of the Sprinter.
He was over, right?

(24:55):
He was done.
He was out of his on duty limitand he was out driving a
sprinter and he got in anaccident.
Guess what?
They're going to say you'renegligent.
They're going to say yourdispatcher was negligent and God
help you if that guy gets on thestand and they say so.
So what do you know about hoursof service?
Well, I know that it doesn'tapply because I'm in a sprinter.
I don't have a commercialdriver's license.

(25:16):
What are they going to do?
They're going to bring acompliance expert on right after
him and they're going to say so.
Can you explain to us what makesa Sprinter special?
And he's going to go, yeah, it'sa commercial vehicle that
doesn't require a commercialdriver's license.
So you have these regulationsthat kick in, right?
And so in our world, that'sreally easy.
we've got a module, right?

(25:37):
That's free.
That's included for every PACSmember that'll teach them hours
of service.
But what I think the biggestrisk for our industry going
forward is sometimes we want tobelieve the easier.
Answer is true because it soundslike it could be right.
You know, they don't need acommercial driver's license.

(25:57):
So it's not a commercialvehicle.
That sounds right.
I'm going to believe that over,Hey, it's a commercial vehicle
and I got to do all the otherthings because it's easier.
And the fact of the matter isignorance is not a defense.
If you go in there and you say,I didn't know.
They're going to nail you forit.
And if you go in there and yousay, I knew, and I didn't do it,

(26:18):
they're going to nail you forit.
And either way you're going tolose that.
In my opinion, the industriesmove to those vehicles without
having a true set focus onunderstanding.
What we have to do as anindustry to be compliant all the
way up into the larger vehicles,in my opinion, is the most
dangerous thing that we faceright now.

(26:38):
And especially from an insuranceside, if your insurance carrier
finds out that you're not doingit, you might never get to the
point where you have an accidentbecause they might just come in
and drop you.

Ken Lucci (26:48):
Oh, uh, you know, it's, it's, uh, it's a real If
you said to me in 22 and 23, Howoften does insurance come up?
I would have said to you, eh,not really that much.
I mean, I do occasionally havepeople selling because They had
a catastrophic accident.
It's just not in the many moreto do it or whatever, whatever.

(27:08):
But now it is literally thenumber one, first, second or
third reason why people want tosell their businesses.
And the sad part is I think thatfirst and foremost, safety
cells, okay.
a large corporation and, or youhave, we, we actually just help
somebody.
Um, get a, a really decentaccount was a law firm.

(27:29):
they wanted some, some, astandby vehicle, you know, when
they were driving people two orthree hours to, to another
jurisdiction in their state.
So we helped them do a P and L.
And when it came down to it, Isaid, listen, you really have to
emphasize the fact that, yeah,you may be a little bit more
expensive than the next guy.
But here's my safety record.

(27:51):
Here are my last runs.
This is what I have forinsurance coverage.
I mean, if you're dealing withone of your chief litigators, do
you want to put him in an uberand they have the bare minimum
insurance and frankly, no safetyprogram.
You know, not too many peopledon't realize this.
You tell me if I'm right orwrong.
But I heard that the T N.

(28:11):
C.
S.
The uber and Lyft cannot mandatethat the 10 99s or their
subcontract drivers go throughany safety programs because
that's a control issue.

James Blain (28:23):
So it's not a control issue, it's an
employment issue, and I'm goingto be really careful how I
tread, right, because there's,there's only so much I can say
here, but I can tell you that Iknow for a fact that at least
one major TNC has looked atoffering training.
And I can tell you that theproblem with offering training

(28:43):
directly to the driver andmaking it a requirement for that
is that they are now employees.

Ken Lucci (28:50):
Requirement is that operative word.
Correct.

James Blain (28:53):
exactly.
Now that said, it's interestingbecause there are programs out
there where if they, you know,if they get bad enough ratings,
if they're going to kicked off,they will recommend, right?
They'll say, Hey, you got to gotake some stuff.
You got to learn some stuff.
But at that point, it goes backto my game analogy, right?
You don't want to watch the tapeand say, Hey, we've been losing
right this whole season.

(29:13):
So now we're going to go watchthe tape.
So we're going to change ourpractice, right?
You want to practice ahead oftime.
So you are on a winning streak.
You're always adapting and doingit.
That's not necessarily how mostof them operate.
And almost all of the TNCs.
The only time they everrecommend anything is they say,
Hey, when are you going to getkicked off the platform?

Ken Lucci (29:30):
Right.

James Blain (29:31):
it gets interesting because in our world.
You know, and, and in the, inthe world of that in general,
depending on your state,depending on how things are laid
out, there is the opportunity tosay, Hey, you have to have a
certification and you have tomaintain that certification.
If you don't maintain thatcertification, we're not going
to send business to you.

(29:52):
And the companies that I havethat are 1099s, because the way
that PAX is set up, in additionto all of those courses we have,
we have our chauffeurcertification, and part of that
is they gotta get, they gottatake the whole certification
course again every year, andthey gotta keep up with their
ongoing training, that's part ofthe certification, that's how
I've seen a lot of them work it,but the vast majority of our
industry at this point, we'vemoved to the point where we have

(30:15):
either Employees or we'resending work to affiliates, so
we have a massive advantage andthat we can go to that employee
and we can say, Hey, this ispart of your job.
You're going to do the initialtraining when we hire you, and
you're going to do the ongoingtraining because back to that
example of being in court.
If you have someone that worksfor you for five years and they

(30:37):
say, Hey, when's the last timeyou had training?
Right.
When's the last time that youtook any kind of training?
And the guy goes, well, when Iwas hired, the next thing is
that that attorney's going toturn around and go, well, ladies
and gentlemen of the jury, howwould you like to have a doctor
that after he got out of schoolsaid, I know everything I ever
need to know about medicine.
I'm never going to study again.

Ken Lucci (30:58):
No continuing education.
Yep.

James Blain (31:01):
no one in the medical industry would just
laugh, right?

Ken Lucci (31:04):
has the spike in litigation impacted what you do
and what operators need to dodifferently?

James Blain (31:12):
So I will tell you in my world, we have always
pushed that you have to doinitial training in our world.
It's weekly, right?
Because we know drivers sitdoesn't matter what they're
driving, right?
They're waiting at the airport.
They're waiting for someonethat's behind.
There's always time to get aphone or a tablet out when
they're parked and they cansafely do so and go through

(31:33):
quick training.
So we've always done thatweekly.
And we've always recommendedthat once a year, you go back
through and any new courses thatare available, anything major,
it's changed, you go through it.
What's changed for us is reallythe motivation.
Because like when we startedthis conversation, I said, when
we first started, it was, Hey,you're going to reduce
accidents.

(31:53):
You're going to run a betterbusiness.
You're going to have more loyalcustomers because we focus just
as much on customer service aswe do safety.
What's changed is now.
You can't really afford not to,when people talk to me about it,
it's, can you afford not to, ifthe insurance company comes in
and does a safety audittomorrow, and they look at your

(32:14):
training, are they going to beconfident that you're not going
to be the one on the news withthe accident?
Because if they're not, theymight not be your insurance
company for very long.

Ken Lucci (32:23):
Well, and we talked about it before in that this
come, people have said to meroutinely that there's going to
be more insurance audits, moredetailed insurance audits than
there are dot audits.
Now, as of today, when we're onthis, let's not put a date on
it, but there was a, there was a56 passenger motor coach that
turned over and there's afatality, you know, at the end

(32:45):
of the day, putting your head inthe sand on stuff like this, in
my mind, you're negligent.
the, the attorney, when you lookup and down, even Matt Dawes
said at the insurance summit, hecan't go back and forth, back
and forth from New York toFlorida and not see at least a
hundred, personal injuryattorney, uh, billboards, right?

(33:08):
So at the end of the day, youcould do what you want.
You can, excoriate the attorneysall you want.
But the reality is that you'reputting your livelihood at risk
if you don't have a bonafidesafety program.
And it's not, it's, it's notreally in my mind, we are not in
a time and a place in ourindustry where it can be amateur

(33:29):
hour, where one operator isgoing to share a checklist that
he created on its own.
It's, it's got to beprofessional.
It's got to be a professional.
level course because the otherpiece of this puzzle is the
lawyers will say, well, wheredid you get this?
Okay, well, you know, so and sogave it to me at a show for
Driven conference.

(33:50):
Really is so and so certified isso and so we have, we've had
that discussion in reference towhat I do.
You know, we are certified to dovaluations.
Um, so.
tell me about PAX what you'vegone through as far as how have
you evolved the platform to takeinto account the changes in this

(34:10):
industry?

James Blain (34:11):
So when we first started PAX about 10 years ago.
It was one certification.
It was one certificationChauffeur certification.
That was it in this industry.
That's all we had.
And as we went through, right,for us, it's, there's, there's a
couple of huge things, right?
For us, we don't want to dictatedown.

(34:32):
That is one of the biggestthings that has made us truly
unique is I love this industry.
Bruce, my partner loves thisindustry.
We ground transportations wherewe live.
And so we have always made it apoint to try and be involved in
the industry.
Understand where the industry isgoing and adapt, right?
And so, for example, I sit onthe committee for the Bus

(34:54):
Industry Safety Council.
We're the official trainingprogram of the National Museum
Association, right?
We've got an affinity programand we work with the
Transportation Alliance, right?
We're deeply involved with allof these different
organizations, right?
You can't go to ABA, NLA, TTA,UMA, right?
I can just spit out letters allday of all these organizations
that we're constantly involvedwith.

(35:14):
And one of the things that we'vedone is, you know, when you look
at kind of the old days oftraining, it was, here's a DVD,
right?
Here's a VHS, here's that.
What going online has allowed usto do is we're getting feedback
a lot quicker.

Ken Lucci (35:28):
mhm,

James Blain (35:29):
because we operate as a membership organization,
when we make new trainingavailable, that gets pushed out
to everybody.

Ken Lucci (35:34):
it's truly a proactive learning management
system,

James Blain (35:38):
It is.
And we're working within theindustry.
To set up and do things withpartners.
So for example, Lancer has awealth of material that they
make available to theirinsureds.
That is great material.
Well, we've worked with Lancerto get that integrated into the
platform so that if you're aLancer insured, All you have to
do is reach out to us so we canverify with Lancer and we have

(36:00):
all of the Lancer training thatthey've put together specific
for their insureds that we canturn on.
We can put there in the platformfor you and we're working with
lots of partners throughout theindustry to be that single
source where we can say, hey, Ifyou need training, not only do
we have what's available as partof your membership, we now have
all these other partners thatwe're working with that you have

(36:23):
a single source of training thatyou can put everyone through
instead of having to chase allthat around.
You know, I had someone that waslooking at packs that had a
page.
And on that page he had tons ofYouTube videos.
Well, that's great in terms of aresource, but if he has an
accident and they go into courtand they say, Hey, show me your
training program.
And he goes, I have this websiteand I have all these links with

(36:46):
YouTube.
They're going to say, great.
How do you know if they watchedit?
How do you test them on it?

Ken Lucci (36:50):
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, you remember back in theday Tommy Maz's chauffeur
training.

James Blain (36:55):
Absolutely.

Ken Lucci (36:56):
I think there was probably three paragraphs, maybe
two, God rest his soul, butthere's probably two or three
paragraphs on safety.

James Blain (37:02):
well, and the interesting thing is, you know,
it really is.
It's kind of a long evolution ofthat because Bruce, my business
partner, and Tom Mazza wereactually good friends.
Bruce was in one of his firstcharter groups.
And at one point, right, thestory goes that Bruce comes up
to Tommy and he says, Hey.
You know, I want to take thisonline and Tommy looks at him

(37:24):
and goes, you're trying to takethe food out of my mouth, right?
And they kind of laugh it off,right?
But it was, you know, I've gotmy thing.
I'm kind of running it.
Well, when Tommy passes away,Bruce has got to figure
something out for his company.

Ken Lucci (37:37):
If Bruce didn't step into the breach, I think they'd
still be redoing that DVD, thatTommy Maz's DVD.

James Blain (37:45):
look, it kills me that I never got to meet Tommy
because I've never in my entirecareer met someone.
Who didn't, when you brought upTommy sit you down and tell you
the absolute most amazingstories about him, but it
disappoints me when I see peoplethat are like, Hey, you know,
all the Tom Mazza videos are onYouTube and you can have your

(38:06):
chauffeurs watch that.
And that's a great way to dotraining one.
You're taking something that wassomeone's product that they
sold, that they made theirlivelihood off of.
And now you're basically havingit out on YouTube, out to the
whole world.
Right.

Ken Lucci (38:19):
I love that stuff, but it's also 1990s material and
the industry has evolved sincethen, you know, which leads us
to a discussion about people notwanting to change what they've
always done.
Well, we've always done it thatway.
And that to me that mentality isthe anathema to progress.
And, and now, in my estimation,this issue, this crisis,

(38:44):
insurance crisis, and I alwaystry to validate the crap out of
everything that comes into myhead.
And I said to one of the largestagents in the country, I said,
you know, well, are we almostover with this?
He said, absolutely not.
25 is going to be worse.

James Blain (38:58):
no.
and you've hit on somethingreally important, right?
And I'd be remiss if I didn'ttalk about this.
We have a mentality in ourindustry of drivers and
chauffeurs, right?
Whatever you call them in yourcompany, whatever type of ground
transportation business you'rerunning, right?
Doesn't matter if it's motorcoaches, doesn't matter if it's
taxis, doesn't matter if it'sblack car, doesn't matter if
it's any empty.
There is this mentality of.

(39:20):
The, they come and go, but themetal stays.
So I'm going to put all of mymoney into the metal and I'm
going to try and put as littlemoney as humanly possible into
them.
Look, the most expensive versionof PAX training is 9 a month per
person that you have on it.
So if you think about that,you're, if you're a bus company,
right?

(39:40):
You're sending someone out andover a half a million dollars
worth of metal.
Over a half a million dollars,right?
You don't have to be amathematician to know that for
a, even at 9 a month, right?
If you go in there and you say,Hey, that's a half a million
dollars.
Okay.
Well, let's go in there andlet's see.
I could probably train that guy.

(40:00):
What?
I don't know for a couplethousand years at that amount.
Right.
So.
What you've got to figure isthere's this mentality of not
investing in the person thatdecides whether or not that
vehicle comes back.

Ken Lucci (40:17):
I'm just gonna put a number on it.
I'm gonna put a number on it foryou.
That motor coach should begenerating about 25 20 to 25,
000 a month in revenue.

James Blain (40:27):
20 to 25, 000 a month.

Ken Lucci (40:31):
a good solid good solid motor coach is doing 240
to 300, 000 a year.
We just looked at the companythis morning and his average is
3 25.
So you're talking about Pointzero zero zero three six.
That's not even three cents.
That is, I think, call it wouldhave to be here, but I think

(40:52):
it's literally, I know, I thinkit's a third of a cent, right?
But, but more importantly, howmany lives are put in that,
motor coach on a monthly basis?
And there's a reason why whenthere's a plane crash, they
don't say, well, there were 300people on there.
There were 300 souls on there,right?
So when you putting somebody ina vehicle in your charge, I

(41:15):
think there's operators thatdon't take it as seriously as
they should.
when they want to sit and blamethe insurance company, I'll
never forget the fact that I,there was a guy that I finally
sold his company inPennsylvania, but I met him at a
PRLA meeting and he wasexcoriating.
It was just crucifying thisexecutive from Philadelphia
insurance, just crucifying onthe price of his insurance per

(41:36):
vehicles and sedans.
And this guy's a small operatorunder a million.
And, and after the fact, I saidto the guy, I said, no, you
know, I just met you, but Idon't want to offend you.
You don't understand theinsurance industry because only
a small piece of what you arecharged has to do with your
specific loss runs.
And the reason why you want yourloss runs at perfection is not

(41:58):
necessarily only because youdon't want your insurance to go
up, but you don't want to becanceled, right?
it's a measure of your safety,but they don't understand that
it's an ecosystem.
Much of it is out of theircontrol, but this is not out of
their control.
This safety aspect of things,safety sells, okay?
I will tell you it's a great,greatest value proposition.

(42:22):
The other thing, what do you dofor people that say, well, well,
my drivers are really safe?
Well, how do you, what do yousay to them when they just come
up with that?
What's your evidence of that?

James Blain (42:33):
Patrick Mahomes is really good.
We're going to have him stoppracticing and the Chiefs will
just keep winning.

Ken Lucci (42:37):
Hey, I always tell them.

James Blain (42:38):
I'd say word for word, right?
Because I don't care how goodyou are.
There's no one out there that isthe top of their game that
doesn't practice,

Ken Lucci (42:47):
uh, I always tell the story about Derek Jeter taking
batting practice three hoursbefore I, when I dropped him off
at spring training, I'm like,Mr.
Jeter, why are you coming inthree hours before?
And I used to follow him intothe tunnel and he said, I'll
show you.
And I would go down there and Iwatched him do batting practice.
I'm like, why are you doingthat?
He said, because once you're ontop, it takes a lot of time to

(43:07):
stay there.

James Blain (43:08):
Well, and I had a similar story, right?
My mentor in small businessbefore I came to this industry
was my father in law, right?
He works in the ag industry.
Maybe one day we'll have him on.
He's got some incrediblestories, but he started his
business in his basement, right?
And he was stuck in the basementfor years.
And then one day.
You know, now he's got years andyears.

(43:29):
We're talking 20 years down theline.
He's got a multimillion dollarbusiness that he can be really
proud of.
And he, he came to me one dayand he goes.
People will come to you when youactually get a successful
business and they'll say, myGod, you're an overnight
success.
You're the American dream, butthey'll never see that time you
spent in the basement.
They'll never see all thosepeople that told you you were a

(43:50):
loser that told you to give up,that told you it didn't make
sense.
It told you it wouldn't goanywhere, right?
He said they'll never see all ofthose years that you toiled in
the dirt To actually build thatbusiness and what

Ken Lucci (44:03):
and get the experience.

James Blain (44:05):
And get the experience and he said the other
thing is his big thing wasalways Understanding where
things are going right?
We gave the example a minute agoIf you're you're at point right
zero zero zero not even Like,not even close to 1 percent if
you've got a bus and you'respending 9 a month on a driver.
Think about this.
if you're getting 1, 000revenue, that's it.

(44:25):
You're just doing 1, 000revenue.
You just bought one vehicle,you're on your own, you're a
solo driver, and you're paying 9a month.
That's not even 1%,

Ken Lucci (44:36):
Not even, right, yeah, nine tenths of a percent
if it's a thousand bucks.
The average SUV, what do you,what do you, you know, the
average SUV should be doingroughly ten thousand, uh,
actually no, more like four,twelve to fourteen thousand, but
let's say ten thousand.
Again, it's, it's ninety cents,it's peanuts money.
It's peanuts money.

James Blain (44:55):
But it's mentality, right?
I, um, I don't know if I've evershown this on the podcast, but I
keep a double mint gum on mydesk.
And the reason I keep this on mydesk is the original owner of
Wrigley's when they had thegreat recession, right?
We're going way back in history.
What right?
Great.
Sorry.

(45:15):
Even further back.
Absolutely correct.
So you have the GreatDepression, and he's trying to
figure out what to slash, he'strying to figure out how to get
through.
And they get to the marketingbudget, and he goes I want you
to increase it and everybody inthe room looks at him and they
go, you're nuts.
You're stupid.
That's not what you do.
And he says, no, I am a luxuryitem.

(45:36):
Does this sound familiar?
Everyone?
I am a luxury item.
I have to get people tounderstand that if they're down
to their last nickel.
They need to get that feeling ofeverything's going to be okay.
They need to understand thatthey get that last holdout.
They get that last piece of whatthings are like when it's going
great.
I want them to come and buy mygum and that to be it.

(45:59):
And if I don't double down on mymarketing and I don't put that
message out there and I cut mymarketing, we'll be out of
business.
Well, guess what?
There's a reason I can go buyanother pack just like this.
There's a reason this pack's onmy desk.
Because you have to understandwhere to cut.
In our world, training is justas important.
I can't tell you how many timesI get owners that call me and

(46:19):
say, You know, I, I, We, we'regoing to reduce the budget on
training because we're not usingit.
I said, okay, so why are youcutting it?
The answer is not to cut it.
The answer is to use it.
The answer is to get better.
The answer is to grow.
If you're not being smart aboutwhere you're investing, not just
the money, but investing thetime.

(46:41):
You're going to get that bigaccident.
But the other thing is, youknow, we've talked so much about
insurance.
One of the biggest things thatwe do is we balance the safety
and the customer service,because if insurance costs are
going up, if it's getting harderto run your business, not only
can you not afford an accident,you can't afford to lose a

(47:01):
single passenger.

Ken Lucci (47:03):
No.

James Blain (47:03):
You can't afford to have a single mistake.
And the only way that you aregoing to keep winning is if you
practice harder than you've everpracticed before, right?
Things don't get easier as youwin more, they get harder.
You don't just suddenly at yourhighest point, like you said,
with Jarek Jeter, you've gotsome on top of their game and
they're practicing harder thanthey have in their entire life.

(47:25):
Because once you get there, yougot to work to stay there.

Ken Lucci (47:28):
I said that this morning to a customer who's
extremely profitable and, uh,real happy to have calls with
customers like that.
And, and he's like, I'm reallyhappy that we've started working
with you.
I'm like, well, you're veryprofitable.
And he said, I understand that,but I feel like you're going to
keep me there.
And I said, I agree with thatbecause success is fleeting.

(47:48):
requires micromanagement.
True success is fleeing.
And if you think you're at thepinnacle and at the top of the
mountain, it's very easy to getknocked off of it.
And again, I think that yes, theinsurance crisis has
necessitated this true focus.
but it has to become musclememory in your company.

(48:11):
It has to be it has to become asafety culture.
And.
I've seen it firsthand wherecatastrophic accident has caused
insurance to go through the roofand or they cannot afford to fix
the vehicle they cannot affordto pay next year's insurance and
if you're a marginallyprofitable company it's going to

(48:31):
put you right out of business.
Um, so, I don't think we're overemphasizing it.
I know people love it when we dofeel good topics above, you
know, other stuff, but I thinkthis is a necessity and I see
2025 as it's going to be atougher year to operate.
Cost drivers are going to gocontinue to go up and it's

(48:54):
insurance.
Renewals are now extremelyunpredictable.
But what you can control is Yoursafety and what you can't
control is the product you putout there While before we wrap
up or as we're wrapping up, whenan incident happens what steps
should the company take?

James Blain (49:16):
So I'm going to echo Mike, who was, it was
right.
So, so Mike Maricoli was on andhe talked to us a lot about
insurance and I'm going to echohim here because I think we have
this view in our industry thatthe insurance companies are not
our friends, right?
They're out to get you.
And look, I can tell you.
They want you to be successful.

(49:36):
If you go out of business, theydon't get your premium, right?
It is not in their best interestfor you to go out of business.
So you've got to keep in mindthat yes, it can be scary to
have to reach out to them.
But when something goes wrong,you have to immediately do it
right.
We all kind of have, and itcomes to us from being kids,

(49:57):
right?
You're in the kitchen, you breakthe dish.
Do you really want to go tellmom there's Broken glass all
over the kitchen.
God.
No, that sucks.
But you know, it's kind of thatsame mentality of when something
goes wrong, you have toimmediately get the insurance
company involved.
You have to immediately starttaking steps and start taking
actions, right?
So what does that look like?

(50:17):
You're going to reach out tothat insurance company and
you're going to let them knowexactly what happened.
You're going to get, you know,that statement from the driver.
You're going to find out exactlywhat happened from the driver.
And most importantly, You're notgoing to beat up your driver.
I'm going to repeat that again,because this is most
importantly, you're not going tobeat up that driver.
You're not going to give thatdriver a hard time.

(50:38):
You're not going to make himmiserable.
Even if it's, Hey, this guy wason his phone.
It's a hundred percent hisfault.
He's going to lose his job.
Guess what?
Losing your job over it is badenough.
You don't need to make it.
to where he now is miserableabout it and hates himself about
it and doesn't want to help you.
You've got to keep in mind thatwhen an accident happens, the

(50:58):
people that are on your side ofthe bench, right?
Your home team

Ken Lucci (51:02):
stay there.

James Blain (51:03):
absolutely right.
That's your driver.
That's your chauffeur, right?
Whatever you call them in yourcompany, they got to stay on
that bench.
You've got your insurancecompany.
They're on your bench, eventhough sometimes you might feel
like they're on the team's benchand you're playing against them.
Guess what?
You are on the same side of thatbench.
All of those people on yourcompany are there.

(51:24):
So you've got to take actionquickly.
You've got to make sure you'regathering it.
I can tell you in our world, oneof the very first things that
happens is you're going into thePAX training platform and you're
pulling up all of their trainingrecords and you're printing it.
Why?
Because you know you're going toneed it.
Right?
You're going and you're pullingall the telematics.
Why?
Because you know you're going toneed it, right?
You're going through and you'repiecing everything together, and

(51:47):
you're working with thatinsurance company.
I can't emphasize that enough.
And like Mike Marcoli said onour podcast, right?
If it's a little fender benderand you think you can handle it
yourself, you want to haveRight.
And you should make sure that ifyou don't have this, get with
your company's attorney or oneof the industry attorneys, make
sure you have a form for this.

(52:07):
If you're going to pay them outof pocket, if you're going to
get them to release it, youbetter have them sign something
that says, this is it.
We're done.
Because the last thing you wantto do is write him a check, give
him money, and then have themcome right back with an attorney
and take even more.
If you're paying them out, youwant it to be done.
And along those same lines,guess what?

(52:27):
You're still reporting it to theinsurance company.
You're still letting them know.
And here's the other thing.
And this goes for telematics.
This goes for accidents.
This goes for everything.
In business, we don't tend to dodebriefs, right?
This is something ABA one yearhad Guy Snodgrass, who's a

(52:48):
former top gun instructor,right?
Incredible pilot.
And one of the things he talksabout is no matter whether the
mission went well, whether themission failed, what happened,
they debrief, right?
You sit down with your team,right?
You sit down with your squadron,you sit down with whoever's
involved and you say, Hey, whatwent right?
What went wrong?
How do we do better?

(53:08):
Success.
Failure.
Otherwise, what happens there?
If you have an accident, if youhave a service failure, if you
have an incident, right, if youhave a complaint, if you have a
bad review, that is anopportunity for a debrief and
the debrief might be, Hey, youknow, this person was clearly
having a bad day.
We can't find anything we didwrong, right?
They just having a bad day.

(53:29):
And how do we address it?
Or it might be, Hey, we droppedthe ball here.
Because we didn't put this inhere and as a result of that, we
didn't have noted that we neededto change the pickup location.
And we were at the wrong placeto pick them up.
And as a result, when we got tothe right place, we were late,
you know, whatever that lookslike, you know, Hey, we need to

(53:50):
redo our policy.
We need to go back through ourtraining.
You have got to do a debrief.
you know, I came back from thatABA marketplace, I bought this
man's book and I said to myself,my God, I've been in small
business for as long as I canremember, and I don't know that
I've ever truly done a debrief.
So that's biggest thing there isunderstanding that you've got to

(54:13):
assemble your team, you've gotto react quickly, and then
you've got to figure out how doyou get better.

Ken Lucci (54:20):
And it's it's the sad part is Yes, we're reeling from
an accident.
But you also have a teachingmoment.
You always you also have a timethat you can reflect on.
Okay, what did go wrong?
And what do we what do we make?
How do we make sure this doesn'thappen again?
I think the worst thing you cando is not take it seriously or

(54:42):
blame the insurance company.
I think you have to doeverything in your power today
that you can to create a cultureof safety.
make the investment in realsafety training.
And as I keep saying, safetycells put it at the forefront of
your value proposition.
And I think that the strongsurvive the people who take

(55:06):
their business seriously will doextremely well.
And even if there is anaccident, if you've got all your
ducks in a row, it's not goingto be a career ender or
something that's going to closethe business.

James Blain (55:18):
but you have to know yourself, right?
So there's a piece of psychologythat we talk about internally
here, right?
And I'll pull the curtain back,right?
This is no secret.
I'm happy to tell you guys, butthis is something we talk about
internally.
When someone calls us and theysay, Hey, I just had an accident
and I made a change, it is oneof the very few times that we
try as hard as we can to getthem signed up and up and

(55:40):
running quickly.
Not for us, but for them.
And here's why on what we foundin almost 10 years of doing this
is if you have an accident andyou say, Oh, you know what?
I had an accident.
I need to make a change.
I've got to do something.
Then it becomes you have 48hours to make the change.
If you do not make the changewithin 48 hours.

(56:05):
Your chance of doing that everyday that goes by drops by 50%.
if by the end of that week, youhave not made a change in your
company, I can tell you I amalmost guaranteed the next time
I talk to you to hear, you know,we made a mistake.
We had a problem.
It doesn't happen to us.
It's the first time it'shappened in a long time.
We're not going to be due for awhile.

(56:26):
I think we're fine.
We're going to move on.
Right.
Why?
Because we're firefighters as Idon't care what type of business
owner you're in.
You are a firefighter.
You are putting out whateverfire is going on in the business
that day.
And guess what?
After that 48 hours, there's anew big blazing fire that you as
a business owner have to gotackle.
And so we've developed thisinnate ability.

(56:48):
To jump from fire to fire andjust learn to move on, right?
People love to post online thelevels of stress we deal with
every day would probably kill anormal person part of being a
business

Ken Lucci (57:00):
It is part of being a business owner.
And this is one thing that youcan be proactive about.
There's a lot of things that wecannot foresee, but we certainly
can foresee because if they'reall around us, that people have
car accidents, what are yougood?
And how can you prevent it?
There's no question.
Well, listen, I, I reallyappreciate the fact that we

(57:21):
could do the guest thing andthen we can also do just the
conversations.
I think this was, prettyimportant.
And I think that my, my own,when I look at companies, I, my
own advice I give to operatorsis if you take for granted that
your drivers are doing thingsright, you do so at your own
peril.

(57:42):
Managed by the telematic system,managed by a safety program, um,
and try to avoid as many of thesurprises as you possibly can.

James Blain (57:52):
hundred percent

Ken Lucci (57:53):
All right, so this is another exciting episode.
I apologize for ending it alittle bit earlier, but James
Blaine, where can they find PAXTraining again, please?

James Blain (58:03):
paxtraining.
com and we are, you need advice.
You need help, whatever youneed.
We are happy to be there foryou.

Ken Lucci (58:10):
Sounds great.
All right, we'll catch you sametime next week.

James Blain (58:13):
Thanks for listening to everybody.
Bye bye.
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

(58:35):
contact Ken, Go to drivingtransactions.com.
We'll see you next time on theground transportation podcast.