THINKING OF GOING TO LAS VEGAS FOR INDUSTRY WEEK?

REGISTER THROUGH US AND SUPPORT YOUR ASSOCIATION AT THE SAME TIME!
YOUR CODE IS "27"

The National Automotive Trades Association has partnered with the Automotive Service Association (ASA) in conjunction with their Automotive Service & Repair Week (NACE and CARS) for the purpose of promoting more Canadian participation at North America's premier annual auto industry event. NATA will have a booth at NACE and will receive credit for every new registration generated through our special online registration link.

REGISTER NOW!

For more information:
www.NACEexpo.com
www.CARSevent.com

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Auto Repair Firm Fined $46,000 For Tire Disposal

AAA Auto Parts Mechanic & Wrecking, Pierre Sleiman and Tony Aoun were fined a total of $46,000 and levied a victim fine surcharge, for depositing used tires on a property without an approval and for failing to comply with a provincial officer's order to remove tires from the site. After receiving a public complaint in June 2005, the Ministry of Environment inspected a site in the township of Edwardsburgh/Cardinal and found more than 5,000 tires illegally stored on the property. A provincial officer issued an order requiring the company to reduce the number of tires to less than 5,000 by September 23, 2005.

The company failed to comply with the order and was charged following an investigation by the investigations and enforcement branch. All three parties pleaded guilty to violating section 41 of the Environmental Protection Act. AAA and Toni Aoun were fined $10,000 on each count, for a total of $40,000, while Pierre Sleiman was fined a total of $6,000; they were given six months to pay the fines. The court also ordered Sleiman and Aoun to remove the tires by June 25, 2007. Charles Assali, the manager of the property, was given a suspended sentence and will be required to remove the tires by September 1, 2007 if the other defendants do not do so by the June 25, 2007 deadline.

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Many, many years ago waived deductibles was brought up at a meeting and I offered a word track to help the collision repairers deal with the customers that want their deductibles waived. The track went something like this:

Phone rings. Shop owner answers, "Highest Quality Collision Repair how may I help you." Customer, " I've had an accident, but I have a $500.00 deductible and I wonder if you will waive that deductible if I bring my car to you?"

Shop owner, "I would be happy to take a look at your car to see what we can do about your deductible. Can you bring the car in so we can take a look at it?" Everything the shop owner says should be said in manner that makes the customer think that the shop will waive the deductible. When the customer arrives at the shop an estimate is written and then the shop owner sits down with the customer. Shop owner, "Mr. customer I have written a detailed estimate on what it will cost to repair your car. Each repair item is listed along with the price." [Shop owner turns the estimate so customer can easily read it. Shop owner, " Mr. customer the way collision shops are able to waive deductibles is by either short cutting repairs or not doing all the repairs that need to be done. If you will outline the repairs you don't want me to do we can then calculate how much of your deductible I can waive."

The customer will either leave the car because he is convinced you told him the truth or he will drive away. At least one shop owner that I have known for a long time is still using this approach. Does it work? Sometimes,.. but sadly not often enough.

But Miller, senior officials stand by licensing department
Apr. 24, 2006. 07:02 AM
LINDA DIEBEL
STAFF REPORTER

The former executive director of Toronto's licensing department wants to know how two recently slain Bandidos bikers managed to get towing licences from the city.

In an interview with the Star, Pam Coburn, fired last fall and about to sue the city and Mayor David Miller, called for a full investigation into the licensing department. Though she helped write the 2004 rules for vetting applicants — and these two particular licences could have come under her four-year watch — she said "obviously the system needs a tuneup."

There has been renewed concern about alleged biker ties to the towing industry in the wake of the slaying of eight Bandidos bikers in southwestern Ontario, two of whom worked for city towing shops.

Questions were first raised about the industry last fall during the city hall scandal which ultimately cost Coburn her job.

While both Miller and senior city officials say they are satisfied with the licensing department, Coburn claims employees, including inspectors, have told her about problems.

Among them, Coburn claimed, was an account by a licensing office employee who allegedly "had witnessed criminal records being deleted from the computer files in order to release licences to people the individual believed to be bikers."

Coburn claimed the individual "reported this to management and was transferred out" of the department. The individual apparently didn't specify whether other city licences such as taxis were involved.

Richard Mucha, city licensing manager, said the allegation was news to him, adding that "we do a criminal record search as a matter of course."

Fareed Amin, city deputy manager, also said he hadn't heard about it but would look into the matter.

But Coburn said that alarm bells should be ringing.

"I believe that, with what I've been told and in the absence of a full investigation and public airing, the city's licensing system is susceptible to biker influence, and I think the fact that the two bikers involved in the murders had towing licences is proof."

Coburn, 46, believes she was fired because she tried to investigate alleged misconduct in her department. She was fired Oct. 5 for the stated reason of improper hiring practices in what Miller described as "a sad day for the city of Toronto."

Joseph Carnavale, then 33 and working for Coburn as head of investigations for the licensing branch, was also fired. The two had a relationship, which Coburn insists was not sexual, but it was not cited as a reason for their dismissal.

Her lawyer, Murray Klippenstein, is in the final stages of preparing a wrongful dismissal dispute on Coburn's behalf.

Last fall, Coburn referred to Carnavale as her "soulmate" during a news conference.

She was suspended after having been questioned by Amin, who showed her an exchange of emails with Carnavale, highlighted in yellow. Coburn said the emails were lifted from her personal email account, which she supposes city officials accessed through her home computer's link to her office.

"The term Big Brother doesn't do justice to what they did," she said. She described her treatment as a "lynching."

She believes the real reason for her dismissal was her decision last July to suspend three managers from the mobile investigations unit because of alleged misconduct.

Last July 15, Coburn interviewed two licensing inspectors who reported cases of harassment, including by individuals running and working in a towing company which, according to a memo she wrote to her superiors, "was under police investigation by the Biker Gang Unit and in relation to `chop shop' allegations."

Coburn claimed the three managers did not support the inspectors who had been harassed and did not co-operate with officers from the biker squad who sought information from the licensing department. In Coburn's words, the police were being "blown off" by the managers.

"It started to hit me how serious this was and the potential implications of the situation," said Coburn. "The question in my mind was, `What would motivate supervisory staff to leave their own staff at risk in favour of a bunch of bikers and towers who were under investigation by their own unit when they should have been supporting their officers?'"

Coburn said that, at the time, she spoke to a police officer from the biker unit and promised to try and ensure that the information being sought by police would be made available.

She claimed the two inspectors were frightened. They told her that the towing company problems were just the tip of the iceberg in her department; that harassment of licensing inspectors was ongoing at many towing operations; that officers didn't feel safe and others would come forward if the complaints of these two were taken seriously by senior management.

"Allegedly many people wanted to speak," said Coburn.

Three days after Coburn filed her memo, "a concerned employee" sent an email to city auditor Jeff Griffiths saying she had suspended the three in order to hire her friends.

In early October, she was fired and, shortly thereafter, it was announced the three managers would be returning to their jobs.

Coburn claimed another employee said there was a probe but that "the report was buried."

Griffiths said yesterday he was satisfied the matter was handled properly. He said employee issues were handled by the city's human resources department and "anything involving the police was turned over to the police."

He didn't elaborate except to say: "I haven't heard back (from police) and I don't expect to."

Amin said "an investigation was carried out (into the allegations in Coburn's report) . . . and we didn't find any evidence."

Miller recently described city protocol for granting licences to be "stringent." He reiterated yesterday through his media office that he is satisfied with the licensing and standards division under Coburn's replacement, former Guelph police chief Lenna Bradburn.

Coburn said it was "incredibly ironic" that Miller stands by the system she helped create when she sees such problems with it.

Before 2004, criminal records were checked for potential licence-holders but there was no basis for evaluating at which point somebody shouldn't get a towing, taxi, hotdog stand or other city licence. She worked on the report which described how to apply administrative criteria for granting licences.

She said the first thing that must be done is a system audit to see how the two Bandidos bikers got city towing licences, stressing that "it shouldn't have happened and we've got to see how that whole process works and how it did ... the system obviously needs a tuneup."

Coburn said another way to stop biker involvement is to have police biker units examine licence applications. "There must be proper checks and balances because you can't just have police saying they don't want to give a person a licence," said Coburn.

But she noted there is a right of appeal where evidence by which a licence had been denied would have to be produced.

She doesn't understand how Miller can say everything is fine when, in her view, "there was no resolution" of the complaints of the two inspectors who came to her office last July.

"Then they bring the three managers back. That sends a signal to staff that the city either doesn't believe them or is not prepared to do anything.

"The more they talk, the more they are at risk."

The Toronto Star

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Rogue tow truck operators and body shops are preying on unsuspecting motorists, charging exorbitant fees and holding vehicles hostage, a Toronto Star investigation has found.

With cutthroat competition for lucrative roadside hook-ups, a violent turf war has broken out. During the past two weeks a tow truck driver was murdered and there have been two arson attacks in the industry. Police are investigating.

Industry insiders say city inspectors, charged with regulating the industry, are failing to address the problem by enforcing city bylaws.

"You got bikers, you got crack addicts, you got drug dealers," said John Long, a 37-year veteran of the towing industry and one-time owner of Downtown Towing who has sold all but one of the 60 trucks he had on the road several years ago.

"The problem is nobody wants to dig deep enough and get to the bottom of what's going on," Long said.

Insurance experts say tow truck fees are "out of control" and causing insurance rates to rise. In Toronto the cost of a tow is a regulated, set price, but hundreds of dollars of "storage" and other charges can make a tow bill top $1,000 or more - and there is little motorists can do to protect themselves.

"Fraudsters are attracted to easy money and that's exactly what they've got here," said Mark Yakabuski, a vice-president with the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

Police sources say some tow truck companies are connected to violent biker gangs such as the Hells Angels.

Doug Nelson, executive director of the Provincial Towing Association and the Ontario Recovery Group, which represent several hundred tow truck companies, said hundreds of rogue tow truck operators are in Toronto who take advantage of a regulatory vacuum.

"The Toronto area is the worst of all," said Nelson, who has been in the industry for more than 30 years. "There are no operational standards or qualifications to which an operator must meet before they tow for the public. The number of renegades and accident chasers is in the high hundreds and a lot of these chasers are unqualified and don't have insurance."

Recently, there's been an outbreak of violence in the industry.

A little more than a week ago, tow truck driver Gordon "Sonny" Best was beaten to death by two men wielding a baseball bat. Police sources say they are investigating whether the murder in a parking lot at Woodbine and Cosburn Aves. was a "payback" for something the veteran tow truck operator had done.

Last Sunday, there were two cases of arson in the industry. Police say such vehicle fires are serious acts of revenge.

The first, at Kennedy Rd. and Highway 401, happened at about 4 a.m. Spyros Arniotis awoke to find his 2004 GMC Sierra tow truck on fire in the parking lot of his apartment building and a man fleeing the scene with flames on his body.

"I look down (from my balcony) and my truck is on fire and I see this guy running away from it with flames coming from one of his arms and his leg. He had a (gas) can in his hand, running toward a silver Sunfire. There was another guy driving and they took off."

About 12 hours later, two cars and a tow truck sitting in the lot at the Eglinton Collision Centre in Scarborough were set ablaze. One belonged to a customer, the other two were owned by the shop, said owner Nazo Dabbaghian.

Surveillance video from the shop's security system shows a shadowy figure spreading liquid over two cars and a pick-up truck in the yard. Seconds later a huge fireball explodes.

Eglinton Collision was the body shop at the centre of a scandal that has shaken the city of Toronto's licensing department. Last year, a city inspector tried unsuccessfully to lay charges against the unlicensed body shop that is home to a small tow truck fleet. A dispute broke out, angry tow truck operators threatened the inspector, but charges were never laid. The spinoff from the dispute led to the suspension of two senior licensing officials who allegedly had not backed up the first inspector. Those officials have since been cleared by the city and reinstated.

Eglinton Collision owner Dabbaghian said he believes the fire was an attack by an upstart body shop and towing company trying to muscle in on his territory.

"There's going to be a turf war," he said in an interview. "Whatever is going on just got worse. ... I told the police they better put a stop to this before it gets out of hand. Torching people's trucks is personal."

Police and industry insiders agree the stakes are high in a business that operates on "commissions," which can add hundreds of dollars to the cost of a basic tow.

While the rate for a roadside tow in Toronto is set at $150 in the city and $170 on highways, rates for storing a vehicle or moving it from one body shop to another are unregulated.

Many unwitting accident victims have their cars towed to the nearest shop on the recommendation of a tow truck driver only to find that getting it moved the next day to a different shop approved by their insurance company can cost $1,500 or more in various fees including "secondary" tow, storage, administration, "consultation," fuel and insurance surcharges and "after hours" fees.

"I had a customer call me once asking me if I could come up with $2,100 cash to get a car out of a body shop because the insurance company didn't want it left there," said Tim Gardiner, manager of Diamond Towing, which operates about 40 trucks in Toronto and Whitby. "It's getting crazy out there."

Richard Mucha, manager of licensing for the city, said most towing fees fall into a "grey area" that isn't covered by city bylaws.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Several industry representatives said it is standard for body shops to pay
drivers under-the-table kickbacks
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Our division gets complaints regularly about overcharging," he said. "It's a common statement."

In one recent case, a woman rear-ended on Highway 407 in October had a tow truck driver show up and take her car to a nearby Woodbridge auto body shop. When she tried to move the car the next day to another body shop, she received a bill for more than $1,000 - including a $775 tow bill, a one-day storage fee of $180 and a $75 "consultation fee" for showing her the shop - along with a demand that it be paid in cash

Jeff Pitcher said the owner of an Ajax body shop demanded $872 cash before he would release his car after it was towed there following an accident on the 401 on Nov. 14. Included in the bill was a $300 "administrative fee" the owner charged for coming to the shop after hours and opening the door, and a $200 storage fee for the 12 hours the car was on the property.

It was only after he called the police that the owner reluctantly released his car for just the $250 tow fee.

Joey Gagne, owner of the largest tow truck company in Ontario, Abrams, said that a typical tow within 20 kilometres should cost no more than $400. In fact, the average rate, he said, is about $300 which his 150 drivers are told to stick to.

"These body shops are paying off these tow trucks handsomely to bring them vehicles," says Nelson of the Provincial Towing Association. "And if they don't get the repair, they charge all kinds of unorthodox charges."

Dabbaghian acknowledges that he charges hefty fees to customers who want their cars released from his property to be taken to another body shop. But everyone is doing it, he says.

"I'm no angel. I do it too," he said. "I charge people storage fees and administration fees that can get pretty expensive if you want to move your car and go somewhere else."

Several industry representatives interviewed by the Star said it is standard for body shops to pay drivers under-the-table kickbacks of between 10 per cent and 15 per cent of a vehicle's final repair bill. The more damaged the vehicle, the more lucrative the commission.

The two victims of vehicle torchings - Arniotis and Dabbaghian - have been in a financial dispute that entered the courts this month.

Dabbaghian issued a lien against Arniotis's truck seeking more than $3,000 for what he claimed were unpaid repairs he had done on the truck.

Arniotis, who denies owing the money, filed a $10,000 small claims lawsuit against Dabbaghian, his wife and Eglinton Collision Centre earlier this month alleging that Dabbaghian's shop "had failed to complete the work in accordance with the appraisal of his insurer."

The allegations have not been proved in court. Both men deny having any involvement in the torchings.

Prior to having his vehicle torched last Sunday, Arniotis says that on at least two previous occasions someone attempted to tamper with his truck while it was parked outside his apartment building. On Nov. 11, he says his wife found a Molotov cocktail near the truck.

The city's municipal licensing and standards division regulates and inspects the city's 900 licensed tow truck drivers and 900 operators.

But the Star's investigation raises serious questions about how they handle rogue players.

For example, Eglinton Collision has operated without a licence for two years.

Bill Blakes, acting director of investigations for the city's municipal licensing department, said that while Eglinton Collision continues to operate without a licence, inspectors laid bylaw charges against the operation in September.

Blakes said he was unaware of the vehicle torchings or any turf war.

For the public in need of a tow, industry experts say they should remember the car owner has a right to have their vehicle towed to a body shop of choice.

Insurance Bureau of Canada vice-president Yakabuski said the industry needs firm regulations on what they can charge.

"In the end, it's all of the drivers of Ontario paying because it's adding to the pressure on insurance rates," said Yakabuski, whose agency pays $2.7 billion a year in Ontario for collision-related payouts.

"(Body shops) very, very substantially pad the cost related to storing the vehicle, many of them charge an environmental levy for a small drop of oil that might have fallen from the chassis of the car. It's all quite ridiculous but it's adding enormously to the cost of towing and repairing vehicles."

"If you had a regulated rate for towing and all of these related charges they apply, you'd frankly get the scoundrels out of business," he said.

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This week I spoke with a shop owner who gave me the same line I've heard dozens of times before: "To do well in the body shop business, you need insurance DRP (Direct Repair) status with several companies. Otherwise you'll never make it!"

Only obviously this isn't true. I've dealt with hundreds of shops during the past fifteen years, and can attest that many of them were doing fine with absolutely no DRP relationships at all. What people who say this are actually saying is, "I don't want to have to work at bringing in business. I want to just sit here while someone else refers and sends me the business."

It is true that it takes far more work to generate an adequate volume of business without a powerful referral source like a major insurance company. But one of the benefits of doing it yourself is not having to make radical concessions demanded by an insurance company to get that business.

Getting Further Business From Future Customers

I've noticed that one of the most neglected sources of additional business is the current customer. If a customer is happy with the repairs on his or her vehicle, the time to obtain another job from this customer is when he or she picks up the vehicle.

We did a special "Thank You" card for one shop that was designed to bring in vehicles from his or her friends, family and -- perhaps more importantly -- employer or company. Here is the text on that card:

"We appreciate your business

As our way of saying "thank you" for being a customer of ANYTOWN AUTO COLLISION CENTER, we have arranged to provide you with a free rental car for up to three days - if you have damage on your vehicle again and bring it back to ANYTOWN AUTO COLLISION CENTER for repairs.

If you already have rental car coverage, we will treat this "thank you" as a $75.00 coupon that you can use as a credit against your deductible, to be deducted from a self-pay repair amount. Or you can reduce any towing charges that are not covered by your policy.

Additionally, if you refer a friend or family member for a repair, we will honor this "thank you" coupon for them on your behalf. If you or your company have company vehicles, we will further extend this coupon offer to the first three vehicles that are brought in to us. This will apply to the repair and refinish of any scratches, dents or dings on the vehicles that
could be giving the company a bad image on the street.

Again, thank you for being our valued customer. We are pleased to offer these return visit and referred visit rewards. When you are in need of our services, call us toll free at (800) 555-1234. For towing, call 555-123-1234.

At ANYTOWN AUTO COLLISION CENTER, we appreciate your business and look forward to continuing to provide you with excellent service.

Sincerely,

Andy Shopman, Owner

"ANYTOWN AUTO COLLISION CENTER"

Notice that a "thank you" message of this kind is designed to prompt further business. When he saw this card, one skeptical owner said 99% of his customers wouldn't even read it. They would simply throw it in the trash on the way out. This indicates that this shop doesn't employ sales-oriented estimators. Any estimator whose pay is based somewhat on performance and who has the slightest idea about how to sell a job, can turn this card into a tool to generate future business.

To begin with, a sales-oriented estimator who is expected to follow a job from start to finish -- contacting the customer along the way and delivering the car when it's finished -- will not rely on the customer to read this "thank you" message. He or she will read the key parts to the customer, explaining the fact that the free rental car bonus, or $75 (or $100) credit
can be applied to friends, family, or company cars. This way there is no confusion or misunderstanding what the incentive bonuses are.

The estimator already knows if the customer has rental car coverage or towing, so this is an opportunity to ask if a friend or someone in the family could use the discount to get some old damage repaired. Also, the estimator might mention that the term, "friend," could apply to anyone the customer knows: his barber, her hair-dresser, doctor, lawyer, dentist,
pharmacist, etc.

Generating Your Own Referral Sources

When I suggested this "Thank You" sales strategy to another client, he said, "I'm not interested in retail. I only want wholesale referrals." We did put a lot of effort into getting insurance people to come look at his shop and succeeded with a few. Unfortunately, his shop didn't really measure up to the quality of many competitive shops in the area. In this area, insurance company direct repair coordinators can choose from shops with multiple spray booths, multiple frame machines, multiple high-speed spot welders, offices
as big as some hotel lobbies, and many spotless, covered work bays. A couple of insurance people who did come look at this shop weren't impressed with his ancient cross-draft spray booth, one frame machine, no spot welder, and a half-dozen messy work bays.

In his area, he had little chance of getting a DRP relationship. He should have been excited about a program with a high potential for developing a lot more "retail" business by capitalizing on every customer's connections.

Promoting new business is more difficult for a body shop where people only come when they have a damaged vehicle, but "difficult" doesn't mean impossible. Mortuaries only get customers when people die. If they can generate business, there's no reason why a body shop can't do as well when it has the advantage of selling to people who are still alive. It just means the shop owner, manager, or estimator has to look at each customer's
potential worth and recognize when he or she has a "live one."

Tom Franklin has been a sales and marketing representative and consultant for forty years and is the author of the books, "Business Battlefield Marketing for Body Shops," "Tom Franklin's Top 40 Marketing Tactics for Body Shops," and "Strategies for Greater Body Shop Growth." His marketing company now provides marketing solutions and services for body shops and other businesses. He can be reached for questions or comments at (323) 871-6862, by fax at (323) 465-2228, or by E-Mail: tbfranklin@aol.com.

1. Turn signals will give away your next move. A real Toronto driver never uses them.

2. Under no circumstance should you leave a safe distance between you and the car in front of you, or the space will be filled in by somebody else, putting you in an even more dangerous situation.

3. The faster you drive through a red light, the smaller the chance you have of getting hit.

4. Never, ever come to a complete stop at a stop sign. No one expects it and it will result in you being rear-ended.

5. Never get in the way of an older car that needs extensive bodywork. Ontario is a no-fault insurance province and the other guy doesn't have anything to lose.

6. Braking is to be done as hard and late as possible to ensure that your ABS kicks in, giving a nice, relaxing foot massage as the brake pedal pulsates.
For those of you without ABS, it's a chance to stretch your legs.

7. Never pass on the left when you can pass on the right. It's a good way to scare people entering the highway.

8. Speed limits are arbitrary figures, given only as a suggestion and are apparently not enforceable in Toronto during rush hour.

9. Just because you're in the left lane and have no room to speed up or move over doesn't mean that a Toronto driver flashing his high beams behind you doesn't think he can go faster in your spot.

10. Always slow down and rubberneck when you see an accident or even someone changing a tire.

11. Learn to swerve abruptly. Toronto is the home of the high-speed slalom driving thanks to the Provincial Highway Department, which puts pot-holes in key locations to test drivers' reflexes and keep them on their toes.

12. It is traditional in Toronto to honk your horn at cars that don't move the instant the light turns green.

13. Remember that the goal of every Toronto driver is to get there first by whatever means necessary.

14. In the Toronto area, 'flipping someone the bird' is considered a polite Toronto salute. This gesture should always be returned.

15. At least four more cars should proceed on a left after the light turns red. If you fail to do so, you will be rear-ended.

16. The highways can also be used to dispose of any messy garbage that may be lying around. These items are better off cluttering the side of the road then cluttering your car's interior where they may distract
you and cause an accident.

17. If someone cuts you off you should return the gesture by speeding around them on the right, pulling in front of them and slamming on the brakes. This works even better when your car is of lesser value.

18. Never make eye contact with another driver when passing through Scarborough. Enough said!

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When a vehicle arrives at a collision repair facility or when a towing service picks up a vehicle with bloodstains, it raises serious concerns. These concerns are with diseases that can be carried in blood, called blood borne pathogens (BBP). These include HIV or Hepatitis B viruses. HIV can live up to 30 minutes, or longer if the blood is pooled. Hepatitis B can live up to two weeks in a bloodstain according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is well aware of the risks involved in handling blood. There is a separate OSHA standard for BBPs (29 CFR 1910.1030) that establishes specific requirements for labeling, containment, and disposal of waste material contaminated with blood.

The BBP standard states that no employee can be placed in a position to be exposed to blood spills without first:

- receiving BBP training.
- having a written BBP exposure control plan. The plan is written by the employer and must be reviewed and updated annually.
- having been provided personal protective equipment.
- having been offered the Hepatitis B vaccine, and exposure evaluation and follow-up.
- being provided with a method to remove and properly store the bio-hazardous waste in properly marked containers for disposal at an approved site.
- OSHA (Canadian version is WHMIS) has the potential to fine facilities for failure to have policies in place. Fines can range up to $70,000 for willful offenses.

The Problem With Blood

The problem with blood is that it is hardly ever safe to handle. Like any waste, fresh, wet blood carries the highest risk of infection. But dry blood can flake and be inhaled, or can become liquid again when contacting moisture, such as moisture from your eyes, nose, or mouth. Because dry blood can go airborne, cleaning a vehicle with bloodstains requires removal of the air ducts and cleaning them separately. Airborne particles also requires the wearing of respirators and eye protection when cleaning up blood.

The air ducts, an instrument panel, or anything hard that isn’t absorbent can be considered disinfected after it is properly cleaned, but cloth seats can never be considered 100% disinfected. There are processes that can be used to clean them, but because the nap of the material holds parts of the spill, you can never guarantee total disinfection.

Rubber gloves are no longer the magical protective clothing item that protect against all diseases. Every situation needs to be handled as if the most dangerous disease was contained in the stain and doing this will help limit the danger facing the person cleaning.

Biohazard Cleaning Organizations

One way for a facility to handle blood stains is to sublet the cleanup on an as-needed basis. There are organizations that specialize in the cleanup of biohazardous waste at crime scenes, disaster sites, and (vehicle) accident scenes. Service is guaranteed usually within 24 hours. One organization has facilities located in Canada and 47 of the 50 states (www.americanbiorecovery.org).

As a service, these same organizations will provide the required BBP training. This can be done at a company’s workplace for technicians who are at high risk of exposure. Only after the appropriate training has been provided can an employer require that someone clean blood stains, contain and store the infected articles, and through the proper services, dispose of contaminated items.

Conclusion

Bloodstains and other bodily fluids are risky business. ONLY properly trained persons should handle or perform blood spill cleaning tasks.

(thanks to I-CAR Advantage) ---------------see headlines

Your employees are your greatest resource. Here are some suggestions of simple ways to show your employees how much you appreciate them.

Show your appreciation by:

- Writing a top employee a brief "thank you" note for something he's recently done.
- Offer a non-cash bonus, such as an afternoon off or some professional training.
- Send flowers.
- Give the employee a small gift for her family.
- Develop a custom award or certificate for your employee.
- Give the employee a gift certificate for some of your own merchandise or for services offered by your colleagues.
- Enroll your employee for a special workshop.
- Take your employee along to an administrative meeting that you're attending.
- Recognize your employee at a staff meeting.
- Have your employee's photo taken and place the photo in a prominent location.
- Recognize your employee's accomplishment in a memo to the entire staff.
- Give your employee a plant for his office or work space.
- Make a charitable contribution to a favorite local cause in your employee's name.
- Have a small piece of art commissioned for your employee.
- Give your employee a scrapbook consisting of mementos of accomplishments.
- Select an appropriate book for your employee and present it to him.
- Take your employee out for a game of golf.
- Offer your employee a subscription to a favorite trade journal.
- Pay professional dues for your employee.
- Take your employee out to lunch.
- If you don't want to take your employee out to lunch, give her a gift certificate for lunch.
- If you don't want to give a gift certificate for lunch, bring lunch in.
- If you don't want to bring lunch in for your employee, offer a bag of goodies, like teas or candies.
- Give your employee a statue or award that can be placed on his desk.
- Find out your employee's favorite hobby and give her a small hobby-related gift.
- Offer your employee valuable reference books he can use in his work.
- Take your employee along on a visit to one of your best customers.
- Place an ad in the local newspaper extolling the qualities of your employee.
- Name something in your business after the employee.

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The collision repair and auto refinish industry has been very active in lowering shop emissions in Canada. For more information on our activities please access the following reports on some of our work. They are available at no charge:

Roundtable on Self-Regulation, Voluntary Compliance and Environmental Protection

(www.eco.on.ca/english/publicat/rndtb11.pdf)

Ontario Initiatives in Pollution Prevention 2001

(www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/techdocs/355101e.pdf)

Management of End-of Life Vehicles

(www.rco.on.ca/research/proceedings/elv.htm)

Managing the Environment -A Review of Best practices ( The Val Gibbons Report)

(www.ene.gov.on.ca/envision/ergreport/index.htm)

Links

Glossary of Collision Repair Terms

Sectioning Letter for Customers

Hold Harmless Letter

Corrosion Costs (pdf)

More Info on Paint and the Paint Shop

Traffic Accident data for Ontario (pdf)

An American Version of DRP's

CIIA's office address is:

606 Rennie Street,
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
L8H 3P5

Our NEW PHONE (905) 545-3388
Our NEW FAX (905) 545-3340

The following remain the same:

Mailing address:

P.O. Box 47594, Centre Mall, Hamilton,On L8H 7S7
Toll free: 1-866-309-4272

info@ciia.com