Ep. 635 Hierarchy of Controls Applied to Landscape Maintenance Fleet Safety
Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley and Vice President of the Landscape and Tree Care Group, Drew Garcia, talk about the tactic of applying the Hierarchy of Controls to landscape maintenance companies, particularly as an effective way to approach fleet safety.
Show Notes: https: Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter
Director/Host: Alyssa Burley
Guest: Drew Garcia
Producer/Editor: Megan Lockhart
Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “Breaking News Intro” by nem0production
© Copyright 2026. Rancho Mesa Insurance Services, Inc. All rights reserved.
Transcript
Alyssa Burley: You’re listening to Rancho Mesa’s StudioOne™ podcast, where each week we break down complex insurance and safety topics to help your business thrive.
I’m your host, Alyssa Burley and my guest is Drew Garcia, Vice President of the Landscape and Tree Care Group with Rancho Mesa. Today, we’re going to talk about the hierarchy of controls.
Drew, welcome to the show.
Drew Garcia: Alyssa, thanks for having me.
AB: We're happy you're here. Now, you recently wrote an article about applying the Hierarchy of Controls to landscape maintenance company’s fleet safety. For listeners who may be unfamiliar with it, will you explain the Hierarchy of Controls framework and why it is such an effective way to approach fleet safety in a commercial landscape maintenance operation?
DG: Well there’s a lot pain around auto right now for landscaping so that’s kind of what centered me into this article and trying to look at auto through a different light where we talk about trying to eliminate frequency, distracted driving, following distance. We talk a lot about training. So what's another area that we could look at auto from a more objective stance? In my own research, I did find the hierarchy of controls, which isn't anything new. It's been around for a long time. But if you can picture an upside down pyramid or triangle, the top and most effective way that the hierarchy of controls would tell you is more effective is elimination and then working down through substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, and then PPE. And I’ll say that. When you look at your fleet safety through that lens, it really opens up some unique possibilities into how you can better control the different risks that autos bring and gives you some ideas as to how to clean some process up to hopefully protect the business.
AB: All right. Now your article also walks through each level of the hierarchy like you just did. So from elimination to personal protective equipment, which controls do you believe have the greatest impact on reducing fleet risk? And can you share some practical examples of how landscape companies can implement them?
DG: Yeah, they all, I think they all do. They all have some element of help when it comes to eliminating risk. And some that, as I was writing this article that I was trying to think critically about, and I'll have to say too, landscape companies are very entrepreneurial and they're already doing a lot of the things that this, if I look at risk through the hierarchy controls. Whether they know they're doing it through that lens or not, they're shedding a lot of risk by the things that they're currently doing. But obviously you can't eliminate driving because landscaping, you need to get employees, you got to get crew trucks, you got to get equipment out to job sites so that work can be done. So I know when you look at elimination from a fleet safety standpoint, you're like, okay, I can't do that. But what are some areas that we can look into elimination to hopefully better protect or shore up the business and reduce the amount of risk?
You know in an area of like route optimization so you're eliminating miles driven you're shoring up your routes making those a little bit more efficient and effective so that you're not driving as much that would be a form of elimination and I know these are things that are probably commonly being done but you know to us this is something that we would want the insurance underwriters to know that the company's doing when you have severe weather and that could be heavy rain, you've got
fog, snow, or high wind. If you're effectively pulling vehicles off the road and not letting them drive in those conditions, you're eliminating the exposure of what could happen. And if you're doing that, making sure you're communicating that to your insurance agent so that we can effectively let the underwriter know you've eliminated that exposure. So those would be two. On the substitution, think about the older vehicles. for newer vehicles so as your vehicles age out these newer trucks are built with just different safety capabilities you know like lane departure and blind your blind spot you're getting beeps if you somebody's in your blind spot where that older truck that work truck probably doesn't have that and i think there's, there's an element to both there because if you're driving that old style vehicle that doesn't have those sensors you got to be you know very reactive looking at your mirrors and very you know respectful of how you're driving And, but, you know, shedding those older vehicles off for newer ones that have newer capabilities could be a nice substitution piece.
Staggering morning rollout. So, you know, if you've got, you know, 60 vehicles that are leaving a yard in the morning, there's probably an effective way to get all those out at one time or staggering those so that it's, you know, you have less opportunity for your own vehicles to collide or have an issue in your yard. Those are things that I think landscape companies are already doing, but do they realize how much it's affecting risk? It might be more. of business efficiency. But in my eyes, they're shedding risk by appropriately figuring out how do we most effectively get out of the yard in the morning. Engineering controls. I love seeing this. Like when I go to all the landscape expos, organization, just I get drawn into it. So when people are organized and Things look nice and clean. My eyes draw to it. So when you've got your trailers or your trucks fitted with the right tools for tying down burlaps or securing your equipment while you're moving from job site to job site, those are areas where you're engineering the vehicle or the trailer to more appropriately handle the risk that you're bringing over the road. Obviously, dash cams and GPS would be types of engineering controls, and we'll talk a little bit about that later. Kind of along the lines of exiting and entering into the yard. I've walked many landscape yards that have arrows pointing in certain directions. This is the way I want you coming in. This is how you're going out. This is where you stop to drop off your equipment. How detailed can you be so that your crews know exactly where to go and where to be and try to eliminate that exposure at the yard again?
I'll keep moving on the administrative controls. That would be like the implementing cell phone policies or having certain policies, drug and alcohol policies that are going to try to eliminate, you know, HR related issues that could be coming from drivers. Having your drivers perform vehicle inspections, that would be an administrative control. How often are they walking the truck to make sure tire pressure is good, fuel levels, oil, windshield wipers, everything looks good. Blinkers are working. Hitches are attached. Those would be administrative controls. And then on the personal protective equipment. You kind of think about PPEs from a work employee standpoint, but with the vehicle, landscape companies a lot of times wear those high visibility vests, and that makes a lot of sense for any use case, but especially working along the roadside. If you've got an employee who's parking their vehicle along a major roadside and they're getting out PPE in that case, that vest, high visibility vest would be very key. Cones, signage, making sure you're... your parking in the right spot. Those would be areas that PPE would apply. Hillside parking, so safety blocks, having the safety blocks under the truck so they can't roll back, that would be considered somewhat of PPE. And so the list could be endless. These are just examples. And a landscape company could probably tell you much more that it would go into. But from my own observations and research, those are areas where each one of the areas would apply.
AB: Yeah, so you noted that many of the biggest improvements come from engineering controls, such as telematics, GPS, and dash cameras, combined with strong administrative controls. So how do these technologies and management practices work together to create a safer fleet culture?
DG: So those two are very hand-in-hand, administrative controls and then the engineering controls. And when we look at dash cams, GPS, and telematics on commercial landscape, trucks and fleets. Those are critical pieces for efficiencies and idling times, but it's going to to give you a lot of driver behavior information. And so that's where the administrative piece comes in. I guess to kind of back up a little bit, you start with strong administrative controls. So you're bringing in the right candidate for a driving position. You're doing the formal MVR, maybe running them through a drive test, a visual drive test, talking about your fleet safety program. So you're kind of going through all of those controls so that when the driver gets into the seat of the truck, you feel confident that they're capable of handling that vehicle. And then you're using your telematics and your dash cams and GPS units to collect the driver behavior. Are they idling too long? Are they harsh braking? They're following distance. They're speeding. Those are now all areas that you can work with that driver to improve their behavior so that they aren't putting themselves in a position to get into an accident. And that's where those two pieces coincide and they work together. Having one and not having the other, there's a little bit of a gap there. But by bridging those two together, you're going to create more of an effective fleet safety program and hopefully coach to the behavior of the driver as opposed to just being punitive on waiting for the accident to happen and then reacting based on that.
AB: Yeah. So one thing that you said I really enjoyed or I like that you acknowledge that many of your landscape companies are already doing the things that are outlined in the hierarchy of controls. But it's just a matter of identifying that when you're talking to a carrier and you're presenting this landscape company to them and their exposures that you're saying, They're already doing these things. And I think being able to identify that really can set your clients apart from their competitors when they're competing for pricing with the carriers. So I think that's something that's really important for our clients to know that. We understand those things and to share what they're doing with us because it can really help.
DG: Yeah. And that's what's most interesting about what I get to do is, you know, beyond the insurance stuff and, hey, fill out the supplemental and let's get the last runs. Those are all things that we're going to have to definitely look at when we're coming into. reviewing risk history and insurance and pricing. But there's so much that's going on in the operations that I can relay to an underwriter that I only benefit from that because I have that conversation every day. So I get to talk to many landscape companies and I ask them how they operate their business. And we get into the details of what the work looks like. I'm hesitant to like give examples of that because I feel like there's some advantages, you know, with my own experience and knowing how the business works and how they have become very efficient in what they do and ultimately. how that drives down risk for the company.
I was just literally right before this podcast, I was on a phone call with an underwriter who was asking me some questions about a landscape business. And I was talking to them about how they're operating their business and how it's reducing a certain risk. And she said she had never thought about that as a way of risk mitigation. And when you look at loss runs, she's not coming to those conclusions. And so that's those aha moments for me where I feel good about what we're doing because my own knowledge of the industry continues to grow. We don't have the answers, but when you get to ask the business owner how they're doing these things, it really opens up some possibilities to share some key information on the underwriting side to hopefully put them in a more favorable position.
AB: Yeah, absolutely. So Drew, if listeners have questions about managing their risk, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
DG: My email, and that's drewgarcia@ranchomesa.com.
AB: Drew, thanks for joining me in StudioOne™.
DG: Thanks again.
AB: Thank you for tuning in to our latest episode produced by StudioOne™. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share this episode and subscribe. For more insights like this, visit us at RanchoMesa.com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.