Our Million Mile Drivers | Indian Trails, Michigan

If you’re an average driver, you travel about 14,000 miles each year. Between getting your license at 16 and probably turning your keys over at say 86, you’ve likely totaled up about 980,000 miles traveled in a lifetime. The odds of you trekking all those miles without incurring a simple fender bender? Pretty slim.

So that makes it even more impressive when we tell you that, at Indian Trails, we’ve honored 29 drivers with our “Million Mile Award” for going that distance without an avoidable accident. Even more notable is the fact that five drivers have been recognized with a rare, accident-free “Two Million Mile Award.”

For perspective, a million miles equates to 40 trips around the Earth or two trips to the Moon and back. For motorcoach drivers, it means averaging 50,000 miles annually for 20 years.

So it’s only natural that we have a button-popping pride for those drivers who’ve achieved this remarkable million mile milestone of safe driving on behalf of our company and our passengers.

Each year at Indian Trails, Inc., we employ average drivers, like you, who log miles in their own vehicles, and then start logging even more when they become exemplary drivers for us after undergoing an intensive training program that prepares them to take the wheel of one of our motorcoaches.

Before they do that, each driver learns the ins-and-outs of driving a motorcoach, including pre-and-post inspections of the bus, emergency procedures, and the safe driving skills he or she will need to rely on when we finally entrust them to ferry our passengers to and from their destinations.

The rigorous training they receive includes 40-plus hours of classroom instruction combined with three to four weeks of instruction in the bus (both course work and on-the-road driving with our driving instructors, many of whom are million mile honorees). During training, new hires gain at least 1,500 miles of actual driving experience. It’s a big reason why Indian Trails is ranked by the U.S. Dept. of Transportation in the top five percent of transportation companies nationwide for safe driving.

Tom Trinklein

1969, 1989 & 1995

Jim Vandermolen

1989

To the “Moon” and Back: Our Million Mile Drivers

Ernest Nieman

Mike Pelto

Bill Wilson

Carl Briggs

Luis Garcia

Phillip "Al" Kline

Jerry VanDeusen

Paul Sharp

Chad Schwab

Fred Nault

Clarence Baber

Jim Hale

Steve Konewko

Gene Lawson

Bernie Smith

Dave Spaedt

Russ Stroup

Bennie Travis

Bill Anderson

Pete Geiling

Stew Jenkinson

Harry Northrup

Tom Piper

Ray Preece

Ron Sukenik

Charlie Ruggles

Mike Saxton

Tom Trinklein

Jim Vandermolen

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To the “Moon” and Back: Our Million Mile Drivers

Ernest Nieman

Mike Pelto

Bill Wilson

Carl Briggs

Luis Garcia

Phillip "Al" Kline

Jerry VanDeusen

Paul Sharp

Chad Schwab

Fred Nault

Clarence Baber

Jim Hale

Steve Konewko

Gene Lawson

Bernie Smith

Dave Spaedt

Russ Stroup

Bennie Travis

Bill Anderson

Pete Geiling

Stew Jenkinson

Harry Northrup

Tom Piper

Ray Preece

Ron Sukenik

Charlie Ruggles

Mike Saxton

Tom Trinklein

Jim Vandermolen

Ernest Nieman

Mike Pelto

Bill Wilson

Carl Briggs

Luis Garcia

Phillip "Al" Kline

Jerry VanDeusen

Paul Sharp

Chad Schwab

Fred Nault

Clarence Baber

Jim Hale

Steve Konewko

Gene Lawson

Bernie Smith

Dave Spaedt

Russ Stroup

Bennie Travis

Bill Anderson

Pete Geiling

Stew Jenkinson

Harry Northrup

Tom Piper

Ray Preece

Ron Sukenik

Charlie Ruggles

Mike Saxton

Tom Trinklein

Jim Vandermolen