BP Has a Dismal Safety Record, Do You?

760 violations at BP versus 1 at Exxon!

ABC News published an article recently about BP’s dismal safety record, citing that OSHA statistics show BP ran up 760 "egregious, willful" safety violations, while Sunoco and Conoco-Phillips each had eight, Citgo had two and Exxon had one comparable citation.

The article goes on: in two separate disasters prior to the Gulf oil rig explosion, 30 BP workers have been killed, and more than 200 seriously injured. In the last five years, investigators found, BP has admitted to breaking U.S. environmental and safety laws and committing outright fraud. BP paid $373 million in fines to avoid prosecution.

How does this story apply to dealerships? 760 violations at BP versus 1 at Exxon; does this happen at dealerships? Our engineers visit about 3,000 dealers annually, inspect them on potential OSHA violations, and develop a comprehensive safety program. While we don’t see such a the sharp difference as between BP and Exxon, we unfortunately have to admit that we see very large differences between dealers that have a safety culture and those that don’t. The general answer is therefore unfortunately “yes, there are dismal safety records at certain dealerships.”

In our February newsletter we wrote an article about Group 1 Automotive and Penske Automotive Group taking the lead in compliance management. Though both groups consist of nearly 100 dealer rooftops, these groups have effectively managed their compliance scores to an unbelievable 97% to 98% and have held this level of compliance consistently. To put this in perspective, the average compliance score for a facility prior to getting started with KPA’s safety program is about 85%. Both Group 1 and Penske Automotive Group are not only reaching high level of compliance across one store, they are doing it for all stores, across all States, regardless of the Management hierarchy. Essentially, Group 1 and Penske have managed their compliance program to virtually spot free facilities in less than one year.