[Rear View] How's My Driving?

Take travelling the highways in San Bernardino County, Calif. Three interstates — 10, 15 and 40 — made the top 20 "Killer Roads" list.

Scripps Howard News Service compiled the list by reviewing 562,712 fatal vehicle accidents reported to the U.S. Department of Transportation from 1994 to 2008. It then ranked the worst roads in every county.

Interstate 10 going through California, Arizona and Texas was cited most often on the list, followed by a three-way tie for second: I-15 (California & Nevada), I-5 (California) and I-95 (Florida).

The pest management professionals we interviewed generally steer clear of major highways and said the biggest problem is getting around back-ups and accidents when they do happen.

"My guys are told to avoid the 15 from the 10 north on Fridays because you’ll sit on the freeway for a long time," said Cliff Utley, president of Cliff‘s Pest Control in San Bernardino. "Everybody knows to avoid it."

About half of Utley’s technicians have their own navigation units to help them avoid traffic backups.

Dave Taylor, director of technical, safety and training at Antimite Termite & Pest Control in nearby Chino Hills, said company accidents aren’t common on the freeway. It’s usually surface street intersections and parking lots where "we’re rear-ending somebody or somebody’s rear-ending us."

The company makes every effort to consolidate routes, so technicians drive as little as possible. "Windshield time is lost production time," he said.

To reduce incidents, professionals monitor employees’ on- and off-duty driving records, discuss driving safety at monthly training sessions, and hold annual driving safety and vehicle maintenance meetings.

Taylor’s managers ride with employees annually to evaluate safe driving abilities. New employees and those with traffic violations or motorist complaints get extra ride-a-longs.

Training "keeps you on your toes," said Taylor. Being aware of the need to keep a safe distance, always having an out, and properly adjusting mirrors, he said, has saved him multiple times from accidents. — Anne Nagro
 

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All in the Family

Family business owners are optimistic, but doing a poor job of planning for the future, according to a recent PwC study.

Family businesses are poised for post-recession growth in 2011, but owners remain concerned about overall market conditions, according to a recent U.S. Family Business Survey from PwC. Notably, more U.S. family businesses (88%) are concerned about market conditions than their global counterparts (68%), but they are also more confident about the future.

The optimism of U.S. family businesses is evident in their belief that their core market(s) will improve over the next 12 months – an expectation voiced by 58% of U.S. respondents. Seventy percent say growth and expansion is a chief business strategy for the next 12 months. Although market conditions top the list of external challenges that confront U.S. family businesses, government policy is also a considerable challenge, cited by nearly one-third of respondents. Competition, too, is ranked high among challenges, but by fewer respondents than in the previous family business survey, which was conducted in 2007 (21% vs. 34%).

Finding qualified workers is the chief internal challenge for U.S. businesses (52%), up from 49% three years ago. In line with their twin objectives of improving productivity and increasing competitiveness over the next 12 months, survey respondents plan to invest more in IT infrastructure, HR/training, sales activity and marketing. "The challenges confronting family businesses require owners to stay abreast of the changing economic, tax and legislative environments," according to Alfred Peguero, PwC’s U.S. Family Offices Services leader. "Being actively engaged in the business will allow owners to plan for and address oversights that, if ignored, could lead to considerable and unnecessary expense."

Reservations about the strength of the economy long-term and how well it can sustain family businesses are evident in the declining percentage of family business owners who say they intend to pass their business on to the next generation (55%), down from 72% in 2007. However, only one-quarter anticipate a change in ownership over the next five years. Forty percent of family business owners don’t have a succession plan in place, leaving their businesses vulnerable to conflicts over control. "In times of economic uncertainty, having a succession plan is critical," says Peguero. "Timely succession planning protects a business and its value by eliminating potentially disruptive surprises and signaling to key stakeholders that the company has longevity. At PwC, we encourage our clients to develop and communicate a plan to family members sooner rather than later to reduce the likelihood of conflict and facilitate the transition process."

(Source: Pricewaterhouse Coopers)