Each season brings new kinds of weather and driving conditions along with it. For winter, it’s snow. For spring, a higher chance of rain and wet roads. When it comes to summer trucking, the biggest thing you have to keep in mind is the heat. Not every summer day is going to be hot, of course, but the warmer weather and busier streets will affect your day-to-day routines.

To help keep you safe and cool out there, we’ve put together some summer trucking tips that can go a long way toward making sure you’re ready for anything. 

1. Check the Weather

Checking the weather is an important part of truck driving safety in every season, and that doesn’t change in the summer. Summer has just as much chance of extreme weather as any season, so always look ahead to see what kind of conditions you might be driving into. Checking up on the chances of heavy rain, flooding, fog, wind, or other weather is one of the best summer driving tips out there—you’ll know what to expect every time you hit the road.

Weather changes depending on the area you’re in, too, so keep tabs on it when driving across the country. Some states can have tornadoes or floods, for example. While these are not as typical, you’re going to want to know if there’s a warning in the state you’re about to drive into. So, check the weather and use it to set a schedule that’ll keep you safe and on schedule.

2. Take Care of Yourself

Alongside the winter months, the summer is one of the most important times to make sure you’re taking care of yourself when you’re behind the wheel. 

The summer sun can be harsh, so you’re going to want to have the right kind of supplies (and snacks!) to keep you focused and cool. This means having sunglasses on-hand to cut down on glare and harsh lights that can be distracting. You also need to be hydrating regularly, so keep a good-sized water bottle (or other healthy alternatives) next to you during the day.

Summer trucking also means wearing sunscreen, which might sound unnecessary, since you’re spending the day inside your truck but is still incredibly important. Even though you’re “inside,” there’s still a high chance that you’ll be exposed to the sun’s rays, which means you can still get sunburnt.

3. Expect More Traffic

Everyone loves the summer, which means there’s a higher chance that the roads will be busy when the sun is out, and the weather is nice. This can affect your daily schedule, but it can also increase the risk of encountering an accident. As always, it pays to think ahead and use a traffic-tracker (Waze is a popular option) to get an idea of the driving conditions you might encounter.

There also tends to be more construction on the road during the summer—it’s easier to work outside when the ground isn’t covered in snow, after all—which can also cause extra traffic or even diversions. 

4. Pay Attention to Your Truck

Each season affects your truck in different ways, which is exactly why you have to stay on top of maintenance at all times. The higher heat in summer, for example, means you’ll want to pay special attention to:

• The cooling and air-conditioning unit system(s)
• Coolant levels
• Tires (heat can make the rubber in your truck’s tires breakdown faster)
• Tire pressure
• Brake system (higher heat can cause malfunctions)

Regular maintenance is always a part of the truck driver routine, which is why getting in the habit of checking your equipment before (and sometimes after) your route is so valuable. The more in-tune you are with your truck, the safer you’ll be on the road.

The truck industry is taking extreme care in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since truckers are a huge part of keeping our country going during this challenging period, making time to properly clean and sanitize the equipment truckers use has never been more important. 

With that in mind, here are some semi-truck interior cleaning tips that will help you keep yourself (and those you interact with) as safe and healthy as humanly possible.

Regularly Clean Your Truck’s Interior Surfaces

According to a report done by The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), COVID-19 can live on the following surfaces:

• Cardboard (for 24 hours)
• Copper (for 4-8 hours)
• Plastic (for up to 3 days)
• Stainless steel (for 2-3 days)

As you can imagine, this means that semi-truck interior cleaning should be done at the end of your day or shift. That way, whoever uses the truck next will have a clean and safe space to work in. However, you might want to consider cleaning some of the higher-contact areas (like gearshifts, selectors, door handles, steering wheels, etc.) more frequently. 

If you’re driving with a partner, then make sure you’re communicating with them, so you’re both exercising the proper social distancing and safety practices whenever you’re outside of the truck (like the two Lily drivers example in the featured image above!). When your day is done, work together to wipe down and clean the cab’s entire interior thoroughly.

Use the Right Cleaning Materials

When you’re cleaning the inside of your cab, not just any rag will do. If you want to truly sanitize a surface, then you’ll need to work with the disinfectants the United States Environmental Protection Agency recommends for use against the virus.

The list from the EPA is a long one, but ultimately, it comes down to this: you need to use disinfectants, not simple cleaning supplies. As Trucking Info explains, disinfectants can kill the virus but, “common cleaning products may just transfer the virus from the surface to the rag or wipe.” 

Cleaning trucks is important all the time, but since this virus is so unpredictable, it’s absolutely essential that you take the time to properly and thoroughly use truck cleaning supplies on all the surfaces you come into contact with. Wearing masks when outside the cab is important, too, but it’s not a substitute for proper truck interior cleaning practices.

Keep a Fully Stocked Truck Cleaning Kit

To keep your truck clean, you’re going to need to have the right supplies in your cleaning kit. Even if you know exactly how to sanitize the cab, running out of the right supplies will make it hard to put that knowledge to good use. So, always double-check your truck cleaning kit before hitting the road. Do you have your mask? Gloves if necessary? The right kind(s) of disinfectant? 

There’s nothing more important than the continued health and safety of our truck drivers, which is why Lily is committed to making sure everyone on our team is continuously informed about any new policies and processes which can help us all stay safe. 

When it comes to spring and summer driving, it’s only a matter of time before you find yourself in some heavy rain. This is especially true for all of the men and women truckers who spend their days behind the wheel. Driving in heavy rain isn’t fun, but with these truck driver safety tips, you can keep yourself (and everyone you share the road with) safe and sound.

Plan Ahead

One of the most important things you can do before hitting the road is to check the forecast. Is it going to rain? If so, how much? How much of your route that day will be in the rain? Are there any supplies (umbrellas, rain jackets, etc.) that you’ll want to have with you in preparation for the day’s weather?

These are the kinds of questions you’re going to want to have answers to before you start your day. Weather is unpredictable, but the more prepared you are for what the season might have in store, the safer you’ll be.

Prepare for Slippery Roads

When it comes to truck driver safety tips, one of the best things you can learn about is skid control and prevention. Driving in heavy rain (or snow during the winter) probably means driving through slippery road conditions. To help you stay safe, make sure you’re familiar with the following tips:

• Ease off the accelerator and avoid heavy, sudden braking
• Give yourself lots of extra time to slow down
• If you start to slide, turn your front wheels in the direction you’re starting to spin toward
• After regaining control, immediately turn away from the slide and return to a straight line

Be Patient

Maintaining trucker safety sometimes means slowing down and being patient. If you don’t feel comfortable maintaining your usual speed during heavy rain, then slow down. Truck driving in bad weather means giving yourself a lot of extra time to decrease your speed, increasing the distance between you and other drivers on the road, and often going slower than the posted speed limit.

Even if you stick to all of the best truck driver safety tips, rushing through intense weather will increase the risks of an accident. So, don’t use your cruise control, keep your lights on, and be patient.

Here at Lily Transportation, we consider our drivers to be part of the family. We’re committed to ensuring that everyone on our team is fully equipped with the tools, insights, and skills necessary to manage whatever conditions the open road may throw their way. 

As most of the country continues to hunker down in their homes and practice social distancing to help stop the spread of COVID-19, truck drivers remain committed to keeping essential stores stocked with all of the products people need to keep themselves safe and healthy. But to do their job well, and to stay safe while doing it, drivers need to make sure they have the right kind of trucking supplies.

While there are plenty of supplies that truckers are accustomed to having with them on the road (gloves, dashboard mounts, tool kit,  dashcams, etc.), the COVID-19 virus has created a need for additional trucking supplies. Here are some of the resources drivers should make sure they have on-hand during these trying times.

The Most Important Trucking Supplies to Have Available

If you’ve been watching the news at all—and even if you haven’t—you’ve probably heard of the things you can be doing to protect yourself and others from getting exposed to the COVID-19 virus. The most important supplies you’ll want to have with you on the road are:

• Cloth face covers/masks 
• Gloves to wear when working outside the cab of your truck
• Hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol 
• Disinfectant wipes or spray to clean the inside of your cab 

For example, in the image that headlines this blog, you’ll see one of our drivers using a lithium-ion sprayer that we provide to our team members to disinfect the cabs of their trucks. We’re always looking for new ways to provide for our drivers, and we have even more advanced cleaning supplies on the way to ensure nothing less than the safest, cleanest working environments.

However, always remember that you need to wear a face mask or covering and, ideally, a pair of gloves anytime you venture outside of your truck. You’ll also want to try and limit the number of surfaces you touch to minimize your risk of exposure.

CDC Recommended Truck Driver Safety Tips

“Professional truck drivers are on the front lines of the global COVID-19 pandemic,” Dr. James Voorhees, president and CEO of ITI, says. “It is vital that they know how to protect themselves and others.” To that end, here are some truck driver safety tips to help keep you healthy during your day-to-day routes.

• Clean (or avoid) high-touch areas outside of your vehicle.
• Stay informed of any regulatory changes that might affect your job (hours of service, CDL expirations, etc.).
• Wash your hands for 20 seconds with soap and water (or hand sanitizer, if soap and water are unavailable) whenever you’re in public.
• Sanitize the inside of your truck at the start and end of every day. Pay special attention to areas like door handles, the steering wheel, turn signals, shift levers, and other high-touch surfaces.

“The American trucker sits at a vital intersection in society,” Trucking.org says. “They are the critical link between the valued goods we produce and the demands of our most pressing needs.”

With the supplies and truck driving safety tips above, you can keep yourself safe, healthy, and productive during this trying time.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, is changing the way we interact with the world around us. Whether that means staying home, working remotely when possible, or self-isolating to avoid exposure, everyone is doing their best to “flatten the curve” and keep themselves and their loved ones healthy.

However, for truck drivers across the country, working from home isn’t an option. It’s their job to keep shipments moving, stores stocked with the supplies people need, and ultimately, keep major sections of our country running during this trying time. 

Here at Lily Transportation, we’re constantly inspired by the commitment and courage of our drivers and are always looking for new ways to help keep them safe. With that in mind, here are four ways to make truck driver safety a constant priority, no matter where the job takes you.

Keep Your Distance

One of the best things anyone can do to prevent exposure to the coronavirus is to keep your distance from others. For truckers, this means using truck stops carefully and maintaining a six-foot distance between themselves and anyone else around. Like a driver told a reporter for the Star Tribune, keeping your distance “is for other people.”

Social distancing is for everyone’s benefit and safety. And for truckers who are traveling across state lines (and into highly-populated areas), it becomes nothing less than essential, as it helps them keep on trucking and, as a result, keep our country running.

Wear the Proper Safety Equipment

While social distancing is an incredibly important part of truck driver safety, so is having the right kind of safety supplies and protective equipment. To further stop the risk of exposure to COVID-19, the CDC recommends that “critical infrastructure workers” should be wearing a face mask whenever they’re in public and cannot maintain a 6-foot distance. 

To really maximize truck driver safety, wear disposable gloves whenever you’re handling paperwork or product and remember to wash your hands (or use sanitizer) after every transaction and avoid touching your face.   

Clean the Truck’s Interior

Even if you take all of the right precautions, your truck driver safety checklist should still include cleaning the interior of your truck as often as you can. This means wiping down any high-contact surfaces (steering wheel, door handles, etc.) with a cleaning product (i.e., alcohol-based wipes or sprays containing at least 70% alcohol) or soapy water.

By incorporating cleaning the inside of your truck into your pre-trip process, you’ll be able to rest easy knowing that you’re doing everything you can to ensure not only your safety but also the safety of anyone else who may operate or interact with the truck in the future.

Take Care of Yourself

As important as these truck driver safety tips are, the only one who can enact them is you. So, as you go about your routine, take care of yourself! You’re doing incredible work, and we all want you to stay as healthy as you can be. Wear a mask when you’re in public; limit your exposure to others; order takeout food so you don’t have to go inside a restaurant; clean your truck (and sleeping cabin if you’re driving long-distance), and monitor yourself for any signs of illness. 

If you have any questions about trucking during COVID-19 or want to learn more about how Lily Transportation is prioritizing truck driver safety, don’t hesitate to reach out to us!

Safety is the core of everything we do here at Lily Transportation. Trucking safety plays a crucial role in the way we hire drivers, train our employees, maintain our equipment, and so much more. Here is just a glimpse into the many ways we make truck driver safety a priority each and every day.

Equipping Drivers with the Right Equipment

When you spend a good chunk of your day behind the wheel of a truck, you’re going to want the right equipment at your side. Whether it’s a cell phone mount (for easy GPS access), a thermos for your daily dose of caffeine, or winter (safety)  boots for those especially snowy days, Lily Transportation wants to help equip you with everything you could possibly need while on the road.

This is why we provide our drivers with complimentary winter coats (equipped with reflective material, so that other drivers can easily spot them), hats, gloves, and safety boots, all of which are replenished as they wear out.   We want you to thrive at Lily, and we’re willing to go above and beyond to make your truck driving lifestyle as productive, enjoyable, and safe as possible.

Safety is at the Core of Everything We Do

It’s one thing to talk about how important trucking safety is, but it’s another thing entirely to make trucker safety a pillar of your company. So, instead of talking about how Lily Transportation is committed to trucking safety, let’s show you the things we do every day to act out that commitment.

Safe Hiring Practices

Before a new truck driver gets started, they have to go through a specialized hiring process that helps us make sure everyone we work with is an experienced, safe, and driven worker. For example, as part of our safe hiring practices, Lily Transportation requires:

• Driver physicals & drug and alcohol testing
• A driver road test before hiring
• Two years of verifiable experience
• And more

Safety Aids

We don’t stop at safe hiring practices, though. Our prioritization of truck driver safety remains a staple across all of our departments. To help keep our drivers, and the people they share the road with, safe and sound, we provide the following safety aids:

• Driver logs & trip reports that are checked and verified by managers
• PeopleNet E Log systems (Electronic On-Board Recorders)
• Discreet wireless real-time vehicle locator and speed control

• Speed gauge reports (vehicles monitored for excessive speed by speed zone)
• Mobil Eye lane departure and forward warning system
• 24-hour dispatch
• A truck driver safety checklist to help drivers take care of themselves and their vehicles

Additionally, we provide our managers and drivers with bonus incentives as they proactively engage in our Driver Safety Program. And to make sure we’re constantly improving our processes,  all accidents and injuries are tracked, reported and discussed with the Senior Management team every week.  

We don’t ever want our drivers to have to deal with an accident or injury, but if they do, we want to know what we can do better, what we can do to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And then we put those new processes into place.   

To help keep driver safety as top-of-mind as possible, especially during the winter trucking months, Lily Transportation will regularly share a variety of trucker safety tips and tricks to help our drivers keep themselves safe on the road. We even offer bonus incentives for drivers as part of our Driver Safety Program, which means we’re always looking for an excuse to spotlight drivers who represent Lily’s year-round commitment to trucking safety.  

According to the Federal Highway Administration, over 20% of the crashes that occur each year are weather-related, and the majority of these weather-related crashes happen as a result of wet or slick conditions. 

As you can imagine, winter driving skid control is a valuable skill in any context, but it’s an especially important one for truck drivers. If you’re a veteran driver and have already had more than your fair share of truck driving in winter, then these tips will be mostly review. And if you’re a newer truck driver, who maybe hasn’t experienced as many winter trucking conditions, then these trucking safety tips can help equip you with the tools you need to manage the winter roads ahead.

Familiarize Yourself with Winter Trucking Conditions

More than anything, the best skid control tip is also the simplest: know what kind of conditions can cause your truck to start skidding. Wet or icy roads are the biggest culprits, so if you’re driving in either of those conditions, stay alert and be extra careful. 

It’s not always easy to tell when the road is slippery, though, so if it’s actively raining or snowing, or has been recently, take things slow. Driving too fast can make your tires start to skid, as can worn tires, which is just another reason why it pays to prioritize the continued maintenance of your truck.

Give Yourself Lots of Time to Slow Down

Whenever you’re driving in winter conditions, you’ll want to give yourself plenty of time to brake and slow down before intersections, stop signs, and the like. “Slushy or snowy pavement causes a 30% to 40% speed reduction on major roads,” which means you’re going to need to give yourself extra time to come to a complete stop, as slippery roads will require you to ease off of the accelerator and gradually press down on your brake to come to a controlled stop.

Turn Your Wheel Into the Slide

You may remember this winter driving skid control tip from your driving course back in the day, but it’s worth reiterating, as it’s a skill you’re going to want easily accessible if you ever find your truck skidding across the slick pavement.

As soon as you feel the tires start to slide, turn your front wheels in the same direction that you’re slipping. This will help you regain control of the vehicle. Once you feel like you’re in control again, immediately turn your wheels away from the slide and get yourself going in a straight line again.

Familiarizing yourself with trucking safety tips and skid control tips like these is crucial, as you won’t have a lot of time to think about what you should do if your truck starts to skid. You want these skills to be as instinctual as possible, so if you’re ever caught off-guard by winter trucking conditions, you’ll be more than capable of managing them like a pro.

Anything can happen on the road, especially during the winter months. A storm can come out of nowhere and knock a tree onto the street; an accident can cause traffic to move to a crawl; a moose could wander out onto the highway and stubbornly refuse to move. It’s impossible to predict what you’ll encounter on a job, which is why every truck driver must have an emergency checklist.

A winter emergency can be defined in several ways, but it’s ultimately up to the discretion of each driver to decide for themselves whether a situation qualifies as an emergency or not. With that in mind, your truck driver’s winter emergency checklist should have all of the tools and equipment you could ever need. 

To help you make sure you have the right kind of truck driver emergency kit, we’ve outlined a few of the actions and items you’re going to want to be familiar with in the case of an emergency.

Planning for the Unpredictable with an Emergency Checklist

A truck driver emergency checklist is very similar to a truck driver emergency kit. Where the kit contains the kinds of equipment you’ll need, the emergency checklist will be the roadmap that shows you how and when to use that equipment.

For example, if you’re stuck in a nasty snowstorm and need to stop driving, then your truck driver emergency kit should contain items like:

• Thick, warm blankets
• Flashlight
• Batteries
• Bottled water and healthy snacks
• Whistle
• Snow shovel
• Flares
• A simple tool kit (screwdrivers, pliers, hammer, etc.)
• Cell phone charger(s) 

With these items, you’ll be able to take care of yourself and your truck (don’t forget about that part!) by sticking to the emergency checklist you prepared ahead of time. You don’t have to have a checklist for every conceivable situation, of course. But, it would be best if you have a basic understanding of the kinds of winter situations you could encounter and have a rough gameplan for how you would deal with them.

In the case of the snowstorm example, you would want to hang tight in your truck (if possible) and pull over at the safest exit. From there, you can use your truck driver emergency kit to stay warm and energized so you’ll be ready to go when it’s time to get back on the road.

And, as always, make sure you have tire chains easily accessible to you. If you get hit by a sudden snowstorm, then you’re going to want to put those chains on your tires to give you more traction on the slick surface of the road.

What Should Be on Your Emergency Checklist?

When prepping an emergency checklist for yourself, be sure to talk with your carrier about it. They’ll be able to help you identify the truck driver essentials you’ll need, provide important info that you’ll want to have on-hand (phone numbers to call in case of an emergency, for example), and much more. 

This is also one of the reasons Lily Transportation provides weekly training sessions and 24-hour dispatch for all of its drivers. We never want someone on our team to feel like they’re unprepared or on their own.  Safety is the top priority at Lily which is one of the reasons why we’re always available to help our drivers if they come upon a situation they don’t know how to deal with.

The actions and information that eventually end up on your truck driver emergency checklist will vary depending on your preferences, the routes you and your carrier use, and the kinds of weather you expect to encounter. 

But, above all else, always remember that it’s better to be overprepared than underprepared. So before you hit the road, be sure to go through your truck driver safety checklist, take your DOT-compliant truck kit with you, and double-check your truck emergency kit to make sure it has all the supplies you might need.