NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ont. — Home Hardware and Pro Trucking Systems were recently recognized as two of the safest private fleets in Canada during the Private Motor Truck Council’s (PMTC) annual conference.

Pro Trucking Systems of Burlington, Ont. won the award for the small fleet category while Home Hardware took top honours amongst large fleets. The awards are sponsored by the PMTC and Zurich.

Pro Trucking Systems has established itself as one of the safest small private fleets in Canada, having won the award four times in the past 11 years. The fleet delivers time-sensitive materials such as weekly flyers to more than 200 newspapers. The company operates six power units and 13 trailers and runs about 100,000 km per year, while maintaining a clean CVOR.

Much of the miles run by Pro Trucking Systems is in the Greater Toronto Area, where there’s plenty of opportunity to become involved in a collision. The fleet has a written safety policy statement as well as a driver policy, which outlines specific driver requirements and the responsibilities of management. New drivers must first be assessed by an experienced driver as well as the operations manager. Regular safety meetings are held to allow drivers to voice safety concerns and CVOR issues. David Chambers, general manager of the fleet was on-hand to receive the award.

Home Hardware runs 124 tractors and more than 400 trailers from coast-to-coast. Last year, the fleet racked up 16 million kilometres. The private fleet delivers 95% of the goods sold in Home Hardware stores and operates out of four distribution centres. More than 75% of the fleet’s miles are considered ‘long-haul’, making the Home Hardware fleet fairly unique among private fleets.

Home Hardware was among the first fleets to adopt the CSA Carrier Safety Management system, a program that documents all phases of a carrier’s safety program from the initial hiring of drivers, through orientation, and continues to monitor their ongoing performance.

The fleet is so confident in its safety record, it recently volunteered to allow the MTO to do a ‘mock audit’ as part of the modernization of the entire Facility Audit Program. Home Hardware’s CVOR violation rate is only 5%.