BLAINE, Minn. — What began as a routine safety initiative at Lorenz Bus Service has grown into a full-fledged driver skills competition because employees wanted a chance to qualify for the International Driver Competition held during the United Motorcoach Association (UMA) Motorcoach EXPO.
“It’s a busy time of year for us, with school starting and the end of a big event we work on,” said Mike Canine, CEO of Lorenz Bus Service. “We started this skills competition a year ago, so this is our second one. Everybody competes in both a motorcoach and a transit bus, because we use some transit buses for the fair and other big events, and we want people practicing in both.”
The idea sprang from a safety training program Lorenz launched in 2021 to sharpen driver skills and reduce accidents.
Each summer, the Minneapolis-area transportation company sets up a course based on the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s model motorcoach curriculum and requires every driver to complete at least one-on-one training session in the course.
“This year we had 210 individual one-on-one training sessions,” said Ben Canine, Lorenz’s chief operating officer and Mike’s brother. “Whether you’re a new driver or experienced, the course helps prevent accidents and reinforces spatial awareness. You’re sitting in a 45-foot rectangular box that’s 12 feet tall and about 8.5 feet wide, so understanding how that bus moves relative to what you see and what you see in your mirrors is huge.”
Competitive urge
As the training gained momentum, drivers sought to test their skills on a bigger stage.
“The competition came about because we had a bunch of drivers who said, ‘We really want to go to EXPO. We really want to compete at EXPO,’” Ben said. “So after the skills training, we set up a competition and said the winner could go.”
Lorenz organized its first internal contest two years ago using the same challenging course. Mike recalled how they thought a tie was impossible because scoring was precise down to inches and centimeters.
“Last year we ended up having a tie in both our motorcoach side and our transit side,” he said. “The key prize was to go to UMA, and all of our people who competed said the thing they wanted most was to go to UMA.”
Those unexpected ties meant more winners than planned.
“We thought we were sending one driver to EXPO last year, and we ended up sending four,” Ben said.
This summer’s second competition drew 27 drivers. The winner of the motorcoach category, Luis Valencia, earned a trip to the UMA Motorcoach EXPO and a spot in the International Driver Competition. Jaime Guaman won the transit category and, with that, an all-expenses-paid weekend getaway.
“We wanted to be inclusive,” Ben said. “If you can compete in a motorcoach, that’s the springboard into EXPO. If you don’t drive a motorcoach, you can compete in a transit bus and still win a meaningful prize.”
Valuing safety
The brothers say the competition reinforces Lorenz’s priorities. “It helps push forward a culture of safety,” Mike said. “This is just one tool in our toolbox of how we get people excited about training and safety and in the mindset of trying to do the right thing and be good drivers.”
Monthly safety meetings build on that culture. Drivers with daily safety scores of 90 or higher earn raffle tickets for prizes –such as tickets to sporting events and large-screen TVs.
“It’s really simple,” Ben said. “If you drove every day and your score was good, you might have 20 or 30 raffle tickets. People love it. Without safety, we don’t have a business.”
Listening to employees was key, adds Mike.
“We really just tried to listen to what our employees are interested in and use those things to incentivize them and get them excited about safety,” he said. “Funny enough, people used to not want to come to our safety meetings. Now we can’t find enough folding chairs.”
