Award of Honor recipients are all employees who have met the minimum requirements to be considered for a much larger award, the 2011 USPS Joseph M. Kaplan Safe Driver of the Year Award, the winners of which will be announced in November.
These requirements are
• Nominees must be full-time drivers whose primary responsibility is to operate buses, trucks, passenger cars, or other motor vehicles on a regular basis in the performance of their normal duties.
• Drivers who have been involved in an accident during the award period will be declared ineligible, unless it was ruled as a non-preventable accident.
• Nominees MUST meet the minimum requirement of 15 years or 100,000 miles driven without a preventable accident to be considered.
• Nominees must have been employed by the U.S. Postal Service for at least 1 year (12 consecutive months).
• Nominations must be made by someone familiar with the nominee’s work history, such as a supervisor, coworker, or professional peer.
• Nominees CANNOT nominate themselves.
Duncanville Postmaster Patricia Bolling was the first to invite Postmarks to showcase her two award-winning drivers, Rural Carriers Yvonne Watts and Kay Christian.
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| Duncanville Rural Carriers Yvonne Watts and Kay Christian |
Only six employees work at the Duncanville Post Office, so to have two of them receive the award shows how focused the Duncanville staff is on staying safe.
“Here, we work as a team. Everybody works together well, and everybody participates in our safety talks, " said Bolling.
"When I’m doing driver observations, I see that all of my carriers do an excellent job of following safety rules; these two are the ones with the most years."
"This office has been accident-free for the five years I’ve been here and, I believe, for about 5 years prior to that," Bolling said.
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| Yvonne Watts, Postmaster Patricia Bolling, Kay Christian |
We asked Yvonne and Kay to give us some pointers about how carriers can remain safe on the road.
Yvonne: “Watching the other fellow is more important than anything. You really have to know and pay attention to your surroundings. On the highway, you have to always be aware of the people behind you, too."
Kay agreed, and added, "You always have to be alert and especially watch out for kids."
Yvonne also wanted other employees to know how important saving her sick leave has been for her. She recently had back surgery and had to be off from work for three months. During that time, she didn't miss a paycheck. "And I still have 20 days of it left," she said. "It really does pay to save your sick leave."
Congratulations to Yvonne and Kay, and hopefully, over the course of the next month, we'll be able to share more pictures of Alabama's safe driving superstars.
