Kerri Wirachowsky of CVSA, Talks Truck Inspections Including Autonomous Vehicles

Kerri Wirachowsky can be reached through CVSA:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CommercialVehicleSafetyAlliance
Twitter: @CVSA
Website: CVSA.org

Transcript

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And welcome to the Dawg On-It Trucking Pawedcast. And don't forget to like comment and subscribe to this channel. If you find it, if you find the information useful, welcome to the show. Who's my guest. This week, the first show of 2021. Aren't we all happy to see 2020 in the rear view mirror. All right, Kerri Wirachowsky of CVSA is my guest and we get into inspections and all kinds of stuff. So join me. That's bring a carry onto the show.<inaudible> To another episode of the show. This week's guest, we have Kerri Wirachowsky from CVSA. Welcome Kerri. Hi, how are you? I'm good. How are you doing? I'm great. Good. I want to get into a few things and really you were a groundbreaker when I first met you. I don't want to say how many years ago I first met you, but I met you at a truck show. You were there working for MTO. Might've been in London. I'm not sure fairness. I'm thinking maybe Fergus, but it was a long time ago. And you were the only female MTO officer that I knew you were a groundbreaker Then that's probably true because I think when I started at the ministry of transportation, there may have been maybe six in the province at that point. Okay. And for our listeners and Watchers hanging in, because we're going to get into what Carrie does now, which is her work with CVSA, which is really what this interview's about. But I just wanted to find out a little bit, I've never asked Carrie these questions about why in the heck did you a female choose such a non-female career in those days? At least I will honestly admit to you that it was a bit of happenstance. To some extent I didn't come out of high school thinking, man, I want to jump underneath that truck. That was not it. I had gotten a contract job with the government, with the ministry of transportation in Kitchener as a secretary, to be honest. And then I went from that to an admin assistant. And I kept seeing at that time, the guys in Kitchener were all on patrol. There were no scales in Kitchener, but those patrol guys used to work in and out of our office. And as time moved forward, I started answering more and more enforcement type questions. And they used to come in off the road. And I thought, man, that job looks kind of exciting. It looks a little bit fun. So then I just went to management and I asked if I could, you know, kind of job shadow them. And back then they let us do that. But that was long before Bulletproof vests and all the other kinds of things that have come since I started. So I just went out with some of the enforcement guys for, you know, a week at a time here and there. And then a job came open and I'm sure you're familiar with the Putnam scales. That's where I started on the four Oh one just outside of London. And a job came open there and I applied for it and I got the job. So it was, it wasn't easy. I won't lie. It was not easy at all. And going there for, I probably would tell you I was 20 years old at the time, almost 21. And that's right. So when I went there, you know, it wasn't easy dealing with truck drivers. What I was not only was I female and I was 20, but I wasn't trained yet either. And you know, I mean the funniest thing that I tell people is, you know, they, there were so many, few females. It took me almost a year to get a pair of pants because they didn't make pants for females. And I can't wear men's pants. So it has changed a lot over the last what, 35 years. But cause that was in, I started at Putnam in 1990 and I started with the government in 1987. So it was kind of a three-year Oh, that looks like fun kind of experience. And then I just dove into enforcement. And once I got in there, it was sort of, you know, what, you're either going to sink or swim at that point. So, you know, my training officer was 54 years old. We were not in the same generation, but you know, you, you just learn from whoever's there. And before you know, it you're the old guy You started off at the Putnam scale, but when you left MTO, you didn't finish at the Putnam scale. No, I was at Putnam for six years and then I transferred to Kitchener and I was on area patrol for several years there. And then in the 2006, I believe I went into St Catherine's and then I was a program advisor and I ended up as the head of enforcement there. So I, I became more and more involved over time with training. And then I became more and more involved with CVSA and more kind of national type, you know, making sure that Ontario was on board with the rest of the country and the rest of North America and training of all the inspectors in Ontario. So that's how I ended my career there. And before you ended your career there, you won the CVSA inspector challenge. I'm not sure what that award is called, but I know you had to be a great inspector to win that. Yeah. So annually ever since 1994, I believe was the first year Ontario became involved with it. We have sent Ontario has sent somebody down to the North American inspectors championship that CVSA hosts and yes, in 2001 he's retired now, but my boss Hauns Johns, which I know a lot of people in the industry know that name. He was my boss at the time and he convinced me to compete here in Ontario because the trucking industry, they have a truck driving championship and we in turn had an inspectors championship that goes with them. And so he convinced me to do it. I did it. And then I won here, which then in turn, sent me to CVSA. And so that was 2001. And when I went down there in 2001, yes, to my surprise, it was me and 53 other men and yes, I beat them. And so yeah, I won that and that is what turned me into what I'm doing with CVSA now because I came home and I was honestly so excited about my job. And I was, so it takes that that event take the roadside inspector who just kind of knows their area. And it makes it a much bigger picture. You go down there, you meet inspectors and truck drivers from all over North America. And you realize that your jobs far more important than you thought to be honest. I mean, you go out day in and day out and it's a bit of a grind. And sometimes, you know, you, you find that one violation like a crack break drum and you actually say, you know, today I saved the life, but that doesn't happen every day. And sometimes it gets a little old, I won't lie. And so when you go down there and you meet all these other people and you realize they all have the same struggles, but we do make a huge difference. And the one thing that I can recall in several conversations I've had with media and the other is nobody really appreciates what an enforcement officer does until they don't do it. It's very noble thankless job. Everybody's happy to see a cop. Everybody's happy to see a firefighter. Nobody's happy to see an MPO officer ever. So last time I saw a cop, I wasn't happy. No thank God. It was a long time ago, But when you need them, you need a right. And then you're happy to see them. When do you ever go, I need an MTO inspector. I'm thankful for him to you. They keep me employed. Absolutely. But yeah. Yeah. And it's, you know, I say to truck drivers often when I'm talking to them is, you know, you get to see that truck every day. I'm lucky to see it once in my lifetime, but when that wheel comes off and it kills somebody guess who they blame me because I didn't find it. And you saw it every day. So One of the things I really think MTO, and I think all the other inspectors and all the jurisdictions, because it is truly a thankless, the inspector part, however, you are charged with keeping our roads safe and because of the great work, all the inspectors throughout North America, do, I can travel down the road and feel good and protect it. Right. And not feel like you've got some part of a truck that's going to come out from underneath that truck because you feel that it's maintained and it's safe. And the drivers operating within his hours of service and hopefully everything is good. And we spend our life trying to find that small percentile of motor carriers that maybe aren't playing by the rules. I mean, the vast majority of them do. So my job is not, my job was not still isn't to go out and catch all the compliant ones, but you have to sort through the chaff, you know? Wow. And that, I mean, you mentioned CVSA winning the award. Got you excited. You came back, but you saw a new world and eventually I know you left the MTO to join CVSA. What's your role there? So I'm the director of the roadside inspection program. And honestly, my job is not a whole lot different than my job in Ontario was when I left. It's just bigger. So when I was in Ontario, my, my responsibilities were related to officer training, industry, training industry, you know, anything that the industry required to understand the regulations better and then working throughout the country to make sure that the training was the same in Alberta, as it is in Nova Scotia, as it is in Ontario. My job now with CVSA is very similar. I try to get the message out to Canada, Mexico, and the United States to ensure that everybody understands the inspection process. It should be the same, whether you're inspected in Ontario or California, the only difference is the regulations vary. So that was probably the biggest challenge for me is you can ask me anything about the highway traffic act and Ontario, and I can probably quote you the song and verse to it. I wasn't quite there with the United States and their regulations. I'm getting better. And it it's, it's a learning curve, which was exciting for me because, you know, if you're the type of person that always likes to learn, eventually you've gotten to the point where you've kind of learned it all in your small world. Well, when you make your world bigger, there's all that much more to learn. So there's, there's a couple other questions that you've raised in my mind, but one, can you tell the listeners and the viewers what CVSA is Well CVSA, the commercial vehicle safety Alliance. First of all, it's not the government, which a lot of people believe that it is particularly in the United States. So every state territory and province belongs to CCSA and we have probably more industry members than we have. Well, we do more than state and territorial members, but it's an association that is made up of the industry and all the enforcement partners, as long as well as the federal governments. And we develop the out of service criteria. So if you're a motor carrier or a truck driver, you're accustomed to being placed out of service. Well that out of service comes from CVSA and it comes from committee structure. So after I competed at NACE, about five years later, I was appointed the vehicle committee chairman. So when I was the chairman of the vehicle committee for 10 years, you know, there's 60 to 80 people in the room and twice annually we would meet and there's issue requests that come in to CVSA about. And the one that I use as an example is when I started in vehicle, there was no out of service criteria for line drive shaft. Now there is. So that's something that was developed inside the vehicle committee. And it's developed with the help of motor carriers, enforcement manufacturers, all the people from the technology maintenance council, anybody that I have to reach out to that's the expert in that, in that field. So over the course of time, I've met experts in lighting breaks, you name it. I have that group of people somewhere because enforcement people, we're not the experts in the actual, in anything. We're just enforcing it. So you have to go to the experts to get the information. And then once you have the information, you can develop documents to help enforcement be able to enforce it correctly. Yeah. That's, that's awesome. CVSA. You mentioned it, but I just want to highlight it again. It's Mexico, United States and Canada are all members. Yes. Yep. Every single state province territory and Mexico is a member. We don't have any that are not. And then, like I said, several industry members from across all three countries as well, And then there are five. So it CVSA who developed the five levels of inspection. There's actually eight levels of inspection now instead of five. Yeah. So yes, CVSA developed the levels of inspection, the out of service criteria and the process. So like a level one inspection is 37 steps. So if I do a level, one inspection in Ontario, it's going to look and feel the exact same way as a level one done in California. Like I said, the only difference would be what regulations are going to get applied within the confines of that 37 steps. So there might be something that's required in Ontario, under regulation. That's not required in California or vice versa. So they will implement the regulations into those steps. But those steps will be the same. And then a level two. So a level one is everything encompasses the outside and underside and the driver. So everything level two does not incorporate the underside of the truck. So it's a walk around yeah. Inspection. Plus the driver level three is just the driver. So you don't look at the truck at all. You're just looking at his paperwork, a level four is an inspection. And if anybody that's listening to this, I never had an inspection done during operation air brake. Then that's a time where enforcement folk are told to just go under and check breaks. That's all you do. So you're looking at brake lines, check and push rod stroke, the end, not looking at suspension tires, anything else? So it's a targeted enforcement initiative and it's a level, level five that one is done mainly with facility audits in like Ontario, they're called facility audits down in the U S they're called the compliance reviews. But either way, I go in to do an audit on a company and I need so many vehicles out of their compliment to do the audit. If there's not enough, I might go out into the yard, get a couple of trucks or buses that are on ready for dispatch. And I'll do a level five, which is without a driver. So it's just vehicle only level six, something that actually Ontario is the only province in North America that is involved with the level six program. It's radioactive burials of a certain level. So not every radioactive material has to have a level six, but if you have activity of over a thousand terabyte row, for instance, then you would have to have a point of view, Oregon inspection. It's good for one trip. And there was inspectors. That was the last thing I did before I left. I started the level six program in Ontario for a repatriation project that was going from chalk river down to Savannah river. It now is finished, but our, the Ontario inspectors got involved with that and did the point of origin inspections. And it's a much higher inspection. You basically can't leave until you're defect-free for that's the easy way of putting it level seven is, is a jurisdictional inspection that does not upload to safety net or MC miss. So if, if all of a sudden Ontario wanted to do like cars or something, or very light commercial motor vehicles that they don't want to upload. A lot of the United States uses level sevens to do their school program because school buses don't go up in the mix miss. So they use it for that. So it's just a way to collect that without it filtering upwards. And then finally, the level eight is an electronic inspection. They're not being done yet. However, we defined it so that industry can work towards it. It would be a means to, and I'm sure you're familiar. <inaudible> with a lot of the sorting type devices that are out there where a truck does not have to go into the scale because they aren't a bypass system. So that system kind of gets elevated to the next level where we would be able to pull information like their ELD information, their CDL information, medical information, what did they have on the truck? It's basically doing a level three without stopping the truck at all. So it's all electronic. The carrier would have the ability to send the inspector, the information the inspector has the ability to read the information. And then the inspection is created based on the information that's transmitted between the two people without ever stopping the truck. So that's coming in the future and it's coming pretty quickly. And it's really something we're focusing on a lot because of the autonomous vehicle stuff, because there's gotta be a way to keep an eye on those autonomous vehicles in the platooning and everything else. But it's kinda hard to stop a truck with no Driver. These are things I never thought. And I'm, I read a lot, almost every news story that catches my eye. If it says the autonomous I'm there reading it because I want to know the future. And it's something that I happen to enjoy. And I do believe that we're going there. And again, I never thought about how it affects you and your industry or the officers on the road and how you are going to still keep our roads safe. Right? Yeah. There's a, there's a lot to, you have to be very proactive when it comes to that. You have to think ahead of where they're at all the time. We'll see how it's going to affect if it becomes commonplace on the road. I mean, right now, basically every time it happens, it's a test and it's, it's, hasn't been a huge deal at this point, but we have a specific committee, the enforcement modernization committee that deals with all types of advanced technology. So we have a person on staff will Schaefer he's involved with pretty much nothing, but all of that, you know, advanced technology stuff so that we can keep an eye on it and keep, make, you know, make sure that we're a step ahead or at least in the country. Yeah. Well, it's, it's hugely important recently. You and I did a training for drivers. And one of the things that you brought up that I wasn't aware of was the way Ontario enforces abs lights on the trailers. And I just wanted to ask you about it because it is one of the, in my work, I see it a lot on vehicles as a D excuse me, as a vehicle defect, abs light. Is there, can you just talk about that a little bit? How can a driver look at abs how can a driver know that it's working properly so that he doesn't get caught with a defect? Right. So honestly the best advice that I can give a drivers to go on CVSs website and go to the inspection bulletins and pull down the, I believe it's 2013 Oh two, the antilock brake inspection bulletin at the end of the bulletin. It there's a flow chart there. And could just turn the key and cycle. The key will in a lot of cases, check your abs malfunction lamp it'll cycle on it'll cycle off, it'll go off and you know, what's working, but there are instances where that is not the case. And that's usually where drivers get stuck because either a, they have cycled that key. And once you cycle it, once, if you have a full-time power trailer, it will not cycle again, unless you unplug the trailer and plug it back in. So there's a flow chart that indicates that, and it talks about, you know, abs has not been required forever. So it talks about, you know, if you have a tractor that's manufactured after this date and you're towing a trailer, go here, go here. If you have all of a sudden, you know, an, a train and the converter Dolly in the middle is old and doesn't require abs, but the last trailer does, then you have to apply the brake pedal in order to make that last one function properly. So not only do roadside gut roadside, inspectors need to know that. And that's why we want the flow chart because roadside inspectors were just turning the key cycle in the key. And if it didn't cycle, the violation was being applied to the inspector report. We kept learning more and more and more again from our industry partners saying, well, in these cases, though, that doesn't work, okay. Modify the abs bulletin. I mean, I'm sure that AVS bulletin honestly, has been modified and updated. I want to say at least six times, because of more and more things that we learned and more and more things that the brake manufacturers learned as time moved forward. It's like anything when something's new, you know, this much, but then as time moves forward, you realize, Oh, but that affects this. And that affects that. And you know, so my best, my, honestly, my best suggestion, short of trying to teach it to you right here is two things. And if you're a CDSA member, there's actually a course on the learning management system on abs, which tells you exactly how to check abs depending on what years and makes and models of trucks and trailers you have. If you're a member, you can get through it. If you're not then use the inspection bulletin and follow the flow chart. And I will find it and put a link in the show notes below so that people listening to this can more easily find it. It's very easy to find on the website, Right? So you, you mentioned being a member of CVSA. Why would a trucking company want to join CVSA? What would the advantages be? The biggest advantage in my opinion is you get a say. So when I have conversations with some of my friends that are in trucking companies that I even knew in Ontario, I'll say to them, why are you not a member of CVSA every year that out of service criteria changes. And every year we have meetings in order to make those changes. And I used to say it all the time when I chaired the vehicle committee, if you're not there to make the statement, we might not know. We don't know necessarily as enforcement folk, how it affects the motor carrier industry all the time we can guess, but we don't know. I get so much information from the motor carrier industry. And in my own personal opinion, when I used to chair the vehicle committee, you have enforcement kind of on one side and you have the motor carrier side on the other side. And then we have all the manufacturers kind of in the middle telling us, you know, where is that line? Where your truck can't continue down the road. We all know what a violation is. We can go to the regulation and figure that out. But the other services where you have a violation, but can you go home and fix it, or do you have to stay on the side of the road or at the scale and fix it? That's what we rely so much on the manufacturers to tell us, where is that line? And then we rely on the motor carriers to tell us, well, how does that affect you? How does that affect your ability to do the business that you do? And when you're out of service, are there policies and procedures that we should put in place to make their life easier? I mean, it's not, it's not, anybody's objective to make everybody's life difficult. However, there are times when you have to be placed at a service and when you are for whatever the condition is, what other things need to be done. I mean, I can tell you right now, there's a motor carrier that comes to every meeting and not complaining in a bad way, complaining in a good way. She's always saying, you know, inspectors do not write enough information on the inspection report to clearly tell us what was wrong with the truck. So that is something I focus on. Like every day of my life in this job. It's like, you can't just say there was a chafed airline somewhere on that truck. Tell the motor carrier where it was, tell them, what side was it on? What chamber was it going to put a piece of chalk? I mean, I used to say that when I was in Ontario, you find it out a service violation, there better be some chalk Mark on it. I don't care what it is. If you find a broken spring, put some marking on it, cause that driver's going to drive away or towed away or a repair guy is going to show up and you might not be there. They have to find it. They have to know what's wrong with it. So we get that feedback from motor carriers all the time. And that lead me down a training path. When I know that I'm hearing it from a whole bunch of motor carriers Anything's happening. So you should join CVSA so that they can influence yeah. Influence the decisions, Influence what we're doing. They have as much influence in everything that I have anything to do with as the enforcement side of the fence. Does they both do. They're both equally important to me. Yeah. And that's awesome. Thank you. Last question or not last, but let's get into a topic. Personal conveyance. You were speaking at a, an industry event at a golf club in Mississauga. I think it was when you first brought up. It was the first time I had heard personal conveyance, not being exactly the same as personal use here in Ontario or here in Canada and how truck drivers can get in trouble. Canadian truck drivers can get in trouble using us personal conveyance when they come home in personal use. Right? Clean that a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So in Canada, it's pretty simple in Canada. You're only allowed 75 kilometers a day and you have to be on label. So you either have to be Bob tailing or you have to straight truck with nothing on it. If you're not doing that, then you're not in personal conveyance. So it doesn't matter how much you tell me. It doesn't matter once you dry. You're just not. So whether you're driving to the grocery store, if you've got a trailer on, you're not on personal conveyance, it's really that simple. It's not that simple in the U S in the U S as long as you're not furthering the commerce and you can have a trailer, it can be loaded. It can be the loaded you're being paid to deliver. So I'll give you the, a couple of examples. So if you're at a loading dock and you're sitting there and all of a sudden, they said they were going to unload you in an hour. And now all of a sudden, they're not going to load, unload you for four. And they're telling me you can't stay there. And you're potentially out of hours. You can go into personal conveyance with that trailer and go to a rest area. That's, you know, and you can't go a thousand miles from there, but you can go to the nearest, safe Haven is what they say. So I always say to American truck drivers be careful with that because enforcement officers know their area. So the example that I always use is it's like, you know, if I stopped you at Putnam, for instance, and you say you're on personal conveyance because they booted you out of your yard and you've already passed the flying J you've passed the Dorchester fifth wheel and you've passed whatever. And you end up at Putnam and you tell me you're on personal conveyance, looking for a safe Haven. Your road ends right now. Like you've already passed that. And I could potentially charge you for false log at that point, because now you're driving in the direction of the load and you could potentially be driving two, three hours. So what happens in the U S is yes, they can do that. And if they do that legally, there's no problem, but there's no limit. So you can do it for as long as you like, as long as you're doing it legally. Well, that's different than the rules in Canada. So what happens is when a Canadian goes down into the U S the U S will allow you to use personal conveyance because it's their rule. But what Canada concluded was they don't want to give you that personal conveyance when you come home. So they're not going to charge you with false log. They're going to look at your log though. And if you have personal conveyance yesterday and yesterday, you did personal conveyance for two hours, with a loaded trailer. They're going to take that two hours, and they're going to put it back into your drive time, and it will affect your cycle time by two hours. And it probably won't do anything to you as far as being over your hours, unless you were right on the line to begin with. If you were, then it may affect your hours and they may put you out of service for being over your hours, if that is the case. But as you know, the hours of service rules are higher in Canada than they are in the U S so as long as you're reasonable with your personal conveyance, when you're in the us, and you're not using it eight to 10 hours a day, you should not have a big issue. But I have seen logs, ELD files from inspectors in the U S where drivers are abusing personal conveyance. There is no doubt in my mind. And if you do that, you're going to suffer a false law violation somewhere. And you're going to be placed out of service for if the inspectors catch you Just carrying on with the personal convenience. If I use PC in the States and I interrupted my 10 hours off duty, and I crossed the border into Canada today, how is a Canadian inspector going to look at it? Are they going to say you did, you don't have 10 hours off duty now? Yep. They're going to put it back in. I mean, depending now, if the guy was Bob tailing and he did it for less than 75 kilometers, then they'll give it bill, allow him to do it, but let's say he's not. So yes, in the us, if you go on personal conveyance, it serves as off duty time, which then in turn serves as your 10 hour reset. So if you break it right in half, just for argument's sake, and you have five on one side, five on the other, and two in the middle, you will not have that eight hour reset that Canada requires. And so you better not be over 13, 14 or 16 on which you probably will be. So, yeah, I mean my best, my best case scenario of that, if you're going to do that, if you're going to use it part of the 10 hours, make sure it's at the beginning of the end, because you only need eight in Canada. So if you're going to put two hours personal conveyance, if you do it on either end of the 10 hours, then your two hours will serve as off duty for your 10 hour reset. And then us, and you'll be left with that eight consecutive hours that resets your cycle or resets your work shift in Canada. You know, the drivers. I mean, honestly, I always recommend the drivers. Don't use it because unless you really understand what you're doing, you're going to get yourself into trouble. If you use it a lot, when you're in the United States, it can add up. It really can. I mean, I've seen a logs where drivers are using it every single day. And if you do that every day, two hours a day for seven days is going to add up in your cycle for sure. What else do we need to know about Carrie or about CVSA as we wind up? That's a good question. I don't like saying anything about myself. I don't know. I, I, you know, I, the one thing that I always tell people is, you know, if you ever have a question about anything that happens to you, roadside ask the question, like, don't just take it. Like I used to say that to drivers all the time. It's like, if an inspector is putting you at a service for something or giving you a ticket that you don't understand, ask them to explain it. And then of course, through the fonts to me, is, are you crazy? Like if I ask the question, then I'm just going to get five more tickets or whatever the case may be. And I'm like, yeah, but I always got asked the question. And if I did not get asked the question, I did the explanation anyways, I'd have books out on the back of the trunk of the car, whatever. And it's like, I need you to understand what's wrong. My, for me, my job is not to catch you. My job is to make sure that you comply on your own. That's my job. That's what I want. That's. I mean, I have an industry course that I'm currently, actually right now working on Canadian icing for my Canadian friends. And it's an industry course, it's the exact same course that the inspectors go through and I've been doing it in the United States now for three years. It's the, it's the most favorite part of my job, to be honest, because I get a room full of industry people. They are the best students in the world. They, they really are. They, they suck up the information. They're dying to know the information, not because they want to see how they can get around things. They really do want to comply for the most part. They really do. And that's why they're there. And it's like, if I can give them the information, absolutely. I want you to comply. I mean, I'll be the first one to tell them if you screw up, I got no problem, right? The violation on your inspection report either. But I just want everybody to do what's right. I want the inspectors to do their job break too. So, you know, everybody makes mistakes. So it's, you know, to me, it's, it's a, it's a back and forth. And if we share the information best, we can, we'll have the best results. I think that's perfect. Carrie, I want to thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure. I hope you love the show. As much as I did, please leave us a, like a thumbs up a review, a comment, a rating. If it is, thank you so much. And I do really appreciate your time and join us again next week for another exciting injury.