If your organization employs workers who drive as part of their job responsibilities, you’re already aware of the complex web of regulations that apply. Today we review some guidelines for determining whether OSHA or DOT regulations take precedence, and a tool that will help ensure that your truck-driving workers comply with applicable regulations and safety best practices.
As a general rule, OSHA has overall responsibility for the safety and health of all workers in the United States. However, OSHA is preempted from enforcing its regulations if a working condition is regulated by another federal agency. And, in the case of the trucking industry, other agencies–in particular DOT–do regulate large segments of the operations.
BLR’s Safety Meetings Library outlines these helpful distinctions:
- DOT preempts OSHA’s jurisdiction over the interstate trucking industry when trucks are traveling public roads. DOT regulates driving over public highways, the health and safety of drivers involving their use of drugs and alcohol, hours of service, and use of seat belts. DOT also regulates Commercial Driving Licensing (CDL), and the roadworthiness of trucks and trailers. In addition, DOT has specific requirements for the safe operation of trucks.
Whatever safety meeting you need, chances are you’ll find it prewritten and ready to use in BLR’s Safety Meetings Library on CD. Try it at no cost or risk. Here’s how.
- OSHA’s jurisdiction over interstate motor vehicles is limited to vehicles operated in the workplace and not on public roads. OSHA also has jurisdiction over all intrastate trucking (such as gravel and sand haulers, logging, agriculture, and cement and concrete mixers).
- DOT has jurisdiction over transportation of hazardous materials, whether interstate or intrastate. However, OSHA has jurisdiction if the driver has to clean up spills or enter hazardous areas.
- OSHA’s standards apply to truckers loading and unloading trucks. Thus, OSHA regulations govern the safety and health of the workers and the responsibilities of employers to ensure their safety at factories, grain handling facilities, warehouses, stores, construction sites, airport terminals, marine terminals, wharves, piers, and shipyards—wherever truckers go to deliver and pick up loads. While OSHA does not regulate self-employed truckers, it does regulate workplaces to which the truckers deliver goods and the workers who receive those goods.
Truck drivers operate in a dangerous arena daily. But if they observe safety rules put out by DOT and OSHA, they can have safe and healthy careers behind the wheel.
As an employer, it is your responsibility to ensure that your truck-driving employees are trained on applicable safety regulations and best practices. Safety Meeting Library’s presentation on “OSHA Requirements for Truckers” includes sections on loading and unloading, vehicle maintenance, transporting hazardous materials, reporting oil or hazardous chemical spills, transporting radioactive materials, whistleblower protection, drugs and alcohol, and much more.
The meeting is augmented with handouts on preventing truck and trailer accidents and on causes of truck accidents, and quizzes on driver fatigue and on OSHA’s role in trucker safety.
In addition, Safety Meetings Library also provides a separate meeting and quiz on the important subject of servicing truck wheels and tires.
And the fleet safety meetings are just two of more than 400 ready-to-train meetings on more than 100 key safety topics. And, in addition to the quizzes and handouts listed above, the in-depth meeting outlines are supplemented with regulations (OSHA’s CFR 29), a listing of the most common safety violations cited by OSHA, and case studies of actual OSHA cases and their outcomes.
We challenge you to NOT find a safety meeting you need, already prewritten, in BLR’s Safety Meetings Library. Take up our challenge at no cost or risk. Get the details.
Safety Meetings Library lets you choose from a variety of training approaches, including:
• Mandatory – Sessions that is OSHA-required
• Comprehensive – Sessions with broadest coverage of a topic
• 7-Minute – Short, simple, targeted sessions to fit tight schedules
• Initial – A session used as introductory training on a topic
• Refresher – Sessions that follow-up on or reinforce previous training
• Tool Box Talk – More informal reinforcement of a topic
• PowerPoint® – Graphic presentations for comprehensive initial or refresher training
• Hands-on – A session in which there are training activities
• Spanish – Including Spanish language handouts and quizzes coordinated with English sessions
You can get a preview of the program by using the links below. But for the best look, we suggest a no-cost, no-obligation trial. Just let us know and we’ll arrange it for you.
Download document type list
Download product sample
Download table of contents