Posted on 03/30/2022 4:35:11 AM PDT by MtnClimber
There is a trucker shortage... and it's worse every year.
This is not news; this national driver shortage is no shock to businessmen or policymakers. Our driver shortage contributes to empty store shelves, idled assembly lines, retail price inflation, a reduced Gross Domestic Product, and the global supply chain crisis.
This is not just one industry’s problem; it’s everybody’s problem. What is odd, however, is that so many people believe the trucker shortage is caused entirely by not enough people choosing the profession of truck driving as a career. While that is certainly a part of it, it's not our real problem.
In fact, our truck driver shortage is caused primarily by a series of destructive government policies at every level.
Let’s begin by considering our own personal experience with transportation. When you move your kids into college, if you have two drivers and two minivans or SUVs, the family can move the student on the same day, in one trip. If you only have one driver, you may need to make two trips -- both on opening day in the fall and on move-out day in the spring, doubling the time it takes to do the job.
Or consider our daily commutes to and from work; a half hour drive at non-rush times might become a one-hour drive at rush hour, or a 90-minute commute if there’s both normal traffic congestion and road construction making it worse.
All these same issues apply to commercial transportation. Road construction, traffic congestion, and bad weather contribute to make commercial transportation take more time -- and therefore more man-hours -- than it ought. To the extent that these issues are unavoidable -- like traffic at rush hour -- that's life; there’s nothing to be done about it.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
The Vaxx mandates in California and union mandates in some areas don’t help matters.
Why would a young person get involved in a business where replacing your job with computers, software, and sensors is just around the corner? Of course, fusion power is also just around the corner, also.
Note to self: review
I’m in a hotel breakfast area reading this article (Yea, I broke the rules and actually read it.)
It’s a subject close to me. I frequently pull a commercial trailer for my job in marketing and have to adhere to the hours of service and log books.
I’ve been randomly pulled over by DOT police.
One of my kids is a full time trucker.
The rules are very complex. I have a college degree and can barely understand the minutia.
Many of them were clearly devised by non-drivers.
I forgot the whole point of my post. Just after I finished the article, a guy sat next to me at the hotel breakfast area. He’s a trucker and was saying everything the article did, without me asking.
Well at the rate of distribution, someone is making a tidy profit on products purchased/delivered to port 6-months ago once they hit the stores. Of course it is not the small business or individuals who buy small amounts, but the Walmart sized corporations can profit on delay to some extend.
That article is well written. Corruption in road repairs at the local level are a big problem in North Carolina, where the same outfit fixes the same asphalt every two years in places that don’t freeze. They literally rehash two inches and it is beat by end of summer.
Working in supply chain, I must add that the problem is further intensified by the ports blocking pickup to all but certain unionized truckers. I'm not sure of the percentage of truck drivers that belong to unions but heard is is around 15%. Is this correct?
30 years as a Federal contractor doing project management.
MS degree, grad cert in project management and a fistful of PM professional certifications.
I’M DONE WITH IT!!!!
Sick of the people, clearances, the commute....DONE.
But mostly sick of the people and the politics.
In Oct. I’ll be 59 1/2.
Going to drive a delivery truck and if I have to, I will supplement my income with small withdrawals on my 401K
The industry is just way over-regulated and micromanaged to death. Let alone the common cultural consensus that trucks are a “scourge” in society.
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