Hard braking is a problem far too many fleet managers struggle to handle among their drivers. It’s not something you can always point your finger at if you don’t have the tools to de. But, it is something you must deal with whenever you have an opportunity to do so.

Why is Hard Braking a Problem for Fleet Managers?

Hard braking causes more problems than may be immediately obvious. When you compound these problems by an entire fleet of drivers, the costs of hard braking can add up quickly. These are some reasons to consider action to end hard braking in your fleet.

• Tears the brakes, requiring more frequent repairs and more downtime for vehicles.
• Wears out brake pads faster.
• Warps brake discs.
• Damages rotors by overheating them.
• Wears the tires faster.
• Wastes fuel, costing fleets up to three miles per gallon of fuel in efficiency.
• Increases accident risks.
• Symptom of aggressive driving issues that must be addressed.

It doesn’t take long for the costs of hard braking to add up for a fleet of vehicles on the road. It’s a problem your organization must address quickly and effectively.

What Causes Hard Braking?

For the most part, hard braking is an overall symptom of poor training and/or bad driving. That doesn’t mean that every occurrence of hard braking is an indication of these things.

In some cases, hard braking is the result of a driver’s attempt to avoid an accident or of a driver being involved in an accident. However, if a driver has a consistent record of hard braking, it’s a sign that the driver requires additional training and/or discipline to deter this type of action in your fleet vehicles.

How to Solve the Problem of Hard Braking in Your Fleet?

Obviously, if you have some drivers who consistently need new brakes or tires, more frequently than other drivers in your fleet, it could be a sign of a hard braking habit. Proving the habit, however, requires a little more evidence.

GPS fleet tracking is one of the best tools you have available to track hard braking among your drivers. You can even set up alerts that will send email and text notifications directly to fleet managers when hard braking occurs. This allows you to address the issue instantly.

GPS fleet tracking also allows you to track hard braking instances over time, so you can gauge if your current attempts to raise awareness, educate, and discipline offending drivers are effective.

Breaking a hard braking habit among your fleet drivers needs to be a priority for your entire organization. GPS tracking can help.

Tack trunks are part works of art and part workhorses in their own variety. They hold the gear, tack, and tools of the trade it takes to get your horses ready for whatever the day has in store. Some of them are substantial investments, costing hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars. Protecting that investment is a wise financial decision for any horse enthusiast, lover, or owner to make.

Unfortunately, tack trunks are major targets for thieves for a variety of reasons, including the following:

• They’re convenient. They are often left unlocked, unattended, and ripe for the plucking by thieves looking for easy scores.
• They’re valuable. Not only are many of the trunks valuable, but the equipment and gear they hold inside can set owners back a pretty penny.
• They’re notoriously difficult to recover. Even if you find your tack trunk, the odds are good you can’t prove it’s yours. Unless you’ve made very specific markings on the trunk or registered it, or the items in the trunk, you may never be able to prove it was stolen.

The good news is there is something you can do that will turn the tides a little better in your favor to avoid tack trunk theft.  First, consider adopting these tips for making your tack trunk a less attractive target for thieves:

• Lock your tack room. If you have a tack room, be sure it’s secure.
• Lock your tack trunk. Whether it’s in your tack room or you’ve taken it on the road, this is yet another deterrent for thieves. Especially if you secure the lock around an immovable object and purchase a high-quality lock.
• Lock trailers where tack trunks and other gear are stored. Do this in a manner that someone can’t simply back up and attach the trailer to their hitches driving off with your trailer and your tack trunk.
• Register and/or mark your gear. This is about making your tack, tack trunks, and other gear easily identifiable as belonging to you. It’s been an effective tool in the cattle business for quite a while and continues to carry weight today.
• Finally, invest in GPS tracking for your tack trunk. It might not prevent the theft of your trunk or equipment. But a GPS tracking device can certainly aid in its recovery. In fact, it offers real-time tracking benefits that might be critical in the recovery of your gear.

No plan is foolproof for preventing the theft of your tack and gear. These steps, however, will help you protect your investment and make your possessions a little less attractive to would-be tack trunk thieves of opportunity.

The Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources at Clemson University have decided to team up with a local wildlife agency to help research and track the local alligator population. The Nemours Wildlife Foundation hopes to conduct this study for the benefit of everyone living in the area including the alligator population. Together, the wildlife enthusiasts have set out to tag alligators with their own personal GPS tracking device.

This technology is expected to closely monitor the whereabouts of the animals. These actions, argues Ernie Wiggins of the Nemours Wildlife Foundation, will help researchers discover how alligators move around human populations.

These efforts can help protect both the gators and humans by minimizing the overall interactions between the two. Researchers can learn more about what encourages and discourages alligators from traversing certain areas around South Carolina.

Alligators have widely adapted to avoid areas heavily populated by humans, but residents still come into contact with these massive creatures frequently.

Each GPS tracking unit will ping the gators location every three hours for the next two years. At least five Sea Pines Alligators were tagged throughout the group’s efforts in April. One of these reptiles was estimated to be around 37-years-old. He was around 11 feet long and weighed about 250 pounds.

A video of the alligator’s release can be found on Island Packet. The team of researchers re-released the alligator back into Lake Joe after equipping him with a tracker, and they have been monitoring his movements ever since.

The group has decided to publicly share all information they discover during the reptile study. One of the goals of these efforts, according to David Henderson the director of special projects and operations for Sea Pines, is to educate locals. Residents of the area can learn more about how to discourage gators from wandering around their homes.

This ongoing study is expected to be completed around 2022. The communities involved in the program include Sea Pines, Fripp, Spring Islands and Kiawah.