Smoking Cessation

Smoking Cessation

Smoking cessation programs make sense and save dollars. Nowhere do they make more sense than in the trucking industry. Take a look at some raw numbers. The driver turnover rate hovers at about 100%. The average smoker spends approximately $2,000 per year on cigarettes. About 50% of OTR drivers smoke. It costs a trucking company about $5,000 to turn over a driver. The average smoking cessation program costs less than $1,000.

The company that I am leased on with www.papertransport.com offers a free smoking cessation program. Even if this program was completely motivated by profit, so what! It is a win win idea. The trucking company shows the drivers that they care. The cost of the program is less than the additional annual health care costs of a smoker. That means that the program has less than a 1 year payback. Even if it does not reduce driver turnover, it pays for itself before the average driver turns over.

What if the program actually reduced turn over? If a driver gets a warm and fuzzy feeling and stays an extra year, it will save the company $5,000. The driver will have saved a few grand not buying cigarettes. The insurance company may even pay for it. It seems like a pretty good investment.

I am known for approaching (attacking) company executives with ideas for making trailers more aerodynamic. Skirts, at a cost of $2,000 per trailer, will improve fuel mileage by about 6%. Fleet fuel costs are about 60 cents per mile. Skirts would reduce fuel costs by about 4 cents per mile. That means that the skirt will pay for itself in approximately 50,000 miles. The average trailer might run 40,000 miles per year. That means each skirted trailer has an annual return on investment (ROI) of 75% give or take. I wish my IRA could do that. That pales by comparison to the ROI of a smoking cessation program.

The government estimates that 70% of smokers want to quit. Only 6-7% who try to quit cold turkey succeed on their first try. Smoking cessation programs quadruple your chances of successfully quitting. Those odds still are not great. That is why you can't give up. Keep quitting. Your chances keep increasing.

Smoking cessation programs ROI are easily better than 100%. Trucking companies save money. Insurance companies save money. Smokers save money. Health care expenses are reduced. Dollars and cents wise they are a great investment. Then we can add in the human cost. Ask yourself, would you rather dance with your grandchild, or keep smoking?