Schneider National exec wins safety leadership award

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GREEN BAY, Wis. — The Truck Safety Coalition has awarded its first-ever Distinguished Safety Leadership Award to Don Osterberg, senior vice-president of safety, driver training and security at Schneider National. The award presentation was made at the opening ceremonies of the Sleep Apnea and Trucking Conference, in Baltimore, Md. last week.

“Don has always pushed the industry envelope when it comes to safety on our nation’s highways,” said Jeff Burns, national transportation counsel for the Truck Safety Coalition, which is a partnership between Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways (CRASH) and Parents Against Tired Truckers (P.A.T.T.). “Don doesn’t just talk about truck safety. He pursues it with a vengeance and follows up with persistent reassessment and improvement, with the ultimate goal of saving lives.”

During his time at Schneider, Osterberg has overseen many safety initiatives, including the installation of speed governors on all company truck engines, placement of electronic onboard recorders in all trucks and the screening of all drivers for sleep apnea.

“Fatigue-related crashes have dropped by 27% and the fatal crash rate has dropped by 59% at Schneider under Don’s leadership,” noted Burns. “To top it off, he’s done this while he’s saved the company money. Through his leadership there is now absolute, hard solid proof that safety need not be sacrificed to promote productivity.”

Burns noted that the award is extremely important to the Truck Safety Coalition. “We’ve never recognized a trucking industry executive in this way before,” he said. “I hope it’s a watershed (in relations between the advocacy groups and trucking).”

“I believe there is a quiet majority in trucking who recognize that this could represent the dawning of a new era of collaboration and civility between organizations that have often been at odds with one another,” Osterberg noted. “I am optimistic we could be taking this in a new direction.”

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  • On January 13,2010 my husband was tragically killed by a tired truck driver.My husband was also a truck driver and coming back empty.It was the worst accident the police officers have seen between 2 transports.Unfortunatly,I cannot do anything about this accident.I am just amazed how many tired truckers that are out there and don`t know enough to pull over and have a sleep.My husband knew enough to do that and not to push the limit. Laws need to change about how many hours truckers are allowed to drive.Any feed back of what can be about this or if there is something I can would be greatly appreciated.
    Thank you