Crossing the finish line early: The trucking industry walks 25,000 miles in just 23 days

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TORONTO, Ont. – It only took 23 and a half days, but they did it.

Over 300 participants from more than 30 teams across the US and Canada walked around the world in the month of July and they did it sooner than expected.

The competition, organized by Healthy Trucker (a division of NAL Insurance) and Transportation Media, was to, as a group, walk a total of 25,000 miles (the equivalent of walking around the world) in the month of July and participants managed to complete the challenge early with just under a week to spare.

“Although the initial goal of the challenge was to walk 25,000 miles as an industry, everyone we spoke to feels they have too much momentum going at their company to stop now and wants the challenge to continue,” said Glenn Caldwell, v.p. of sales at NAL Insurance and Healthy Trucker representative. “Even though the only prize offered was bragging rights, it’s incredible to see what a little competition has done for the morale at many of the companies that have participated.”

The challenge saw fierce competition as teams moved up and down the leaderboard, trying to earn the top spot.  Each participant was equipped with a Fitbit device (a wearable pedometer) or used the Moves app on their smartphone to track their daily steps. Teams were ranked by their average steps walked over the most current seven day period.

Originally, the challenge was created to fight the stigma of the lazy, sedentary trucking industry.

“This challenge was set up to bring more awareness to getting up and walking more,” said Caldwell. “It’s no secret that our industry struggles with good health. The Healthy Fleet Challenge as a fun way to encourage trucking company executives, O/O’s, drivers and staff to do something about the sedentary lifestyle many of us live.”

Because of the success of the challenge, Healthy Trucker and Transportation Media working on creating a new challenege for the month of September that promises bigger and better things. For now, the Healthy Fleet Challenge will still continue, despite participants reaching the goal early.

“There is far too much interest from all participants to quit now,” said Aaron Lindsay, marketing manager at Healthy Trucker.  “We will keep the site open and still invite other teams to sign up to hold their own internal step challenges.”

Caldwell said every fleet he spoke to about the challenge said the competition added value to its wellness goals.

“We continually look for ways to promote healthy choices for our C.A.T. team members and were very excited to be able to participate,” said Sheldon Hayes, manager, safety, compliance and recruiting. “The response we had to our communication about the challenge was tremendous, with a total of 29 people having stepped up within a week. One of the many great things about the Challenge is how easy it was to join,The website has helped bring our people together by having fun monitoring each other’s steps, and engaging in lots of good-natured competition.”

Fleets and allied trades are invited to build their teams in the weeks before the September challenge begins. To sign up to be a part of the Healthy Fleet Challenge visit the official Web site here.

 

 

 

 

 

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