The "Bob effect" presents a real danger to OTR tire technicians. (Our apologies to Bob).
"Bob" is the cliché for a veteran tire tech who has been servicing tires for years but cuts corners and skips safety steps in an effort to speed up a job. He may have had a few near-misses, but nothing bad has happened so far and he has gotten away with improper procedures for so many years that he chooses to continue to do it that way.
To compound the situation, when the company hires a young tech, "Bob" is the one to show the new tech how to do the job — incorrectly and in some cases, dangerously.
During the recent OTR Tire Conference in Las Vegas, a panel of tire industry trainers and safety consultants tried to grasp how the industry still experiences avoidable OTR tire technician fatalities with all the training and safety procedures that have been established for years.
While there are no accepted industry statistics, the panel surmised that there likely have been many more unreported near-misses and injuries.
Panelist Roy Galyer, training manager for Klinge Holdings, bluntly pointed out that while some may believe rules were made to be broken, the rules for servicing OTR tires "were written in the blood of other tire guys."
"Every single one was the blood of a tire guy and the pain of their children and wives when they never came back. And somehow we have to get that across to our tire people, to their supervisors, to the dispatchers to try and empower them to do it better."