Introduction

"Forty-five minutes," that is what my wife said to me. "Forty-five minutes, Rodney. Forty-five minutes to get organized and get out the door to get the kids to school on time." Forty-five minutes for me to get ready in the morning is an eternity. I don't have to wash my hair. I don't have to blow dry it. Forty-five minutes is an eternity for a bald guy. So I stick my head back down into the sports page of the morning newspaper. After what I think has only been a few minutes, I look up to see thirty minutes has gone by. I now have fifteen minutes to get myself organized, to get my kids dressed, and to get them to school on time.

We finally get out the door. We climb into our car and everyone buckles up their seat belts. I look around and back safely out the driveway. I shift it into drive and pull down the street. Using my turn signal each time, I make a couple of right turns and get on the freeway. Now that I am on the freeway, I am making up that time that I spent reading the newspaper. I am going a little, okay, I am going a lot faster than the posted speed limit. My eyes glance at the rear view mirror to see a car with flashing lights. So, of course, the first thing I do is turn down my radio (because that is what you do when you see a police car in your rear view mirror, I am not sure why). I turn on my turn signal and slow down. I safely look and move over one lane, I look and move over another lane and then finally pull to the side of the road and stop the car. The safety professional driving the car with the flashing lights comes up and has a short chat with me. He gives me a notice of violation and offers me an invitation to attend safety refresher training. Once we finish, I shift the car back into gear and pull away. I look at my wife who is looking at me as only a wife can look at you, and says "Rodney remind me of something, you talk to people about … SAFETY?"

But how many of you may drive a little faster than the posted speed limit? We often drive down those freeways and our employees sometimes are driving in the car next to us. We wave "Hey, How you doing?" as we are driving along at 75–80 miles per hour. But when we get to our place of business, get out of our car, walk in through our doors, we hand them a binder, sometimes multiple binders, of safety policy and procedures and say, "Now that you are here, now that you have walked through that door, change your behavior.

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