Sounds like a “pay shortage.”
How come when there is a material shortage and prices rise, it’s expected, but when there is a labor shortage and higher wages are needed to pull in labor it’s a “quandary”?
Lets see, driving 11 hrs a day and working 14 hrs/day and maybe somedays making less than minimum wage....gone for weeks on end, bathing in public showers, and eating garbgage for weeks............ gee... I wonder why???????
Let them do what they did in the 90’s: empty the prisons.
What a load.
The truck drivers coming in to the business in recent years are a scary bunch.
They can’t do logs (DOT requirements), they can’t follow directions (i.e. read a map), they cannot back up a semi w/trailer into a marked bay, and they won't touch the freight once they finally do get a trailer into a dock. Let some teenager working minimum wage get it, and break his young back.
The truck driver shortage has been forecast for a long time now.
I guess that we’ll all be needing a good supply of Mexicans, and a lot of road signs for Spanish speakers.
Good luck posterity.
Something the article doesn’t state is that any driver hauling hazmat has to undergo FBI background checks and are barred from driveing due to certain criminal background. Homeland Security doesn’t want criminals and nuts hauling hazmat, but this depleats the driver pool even more.
In my local circualrs and weekly advertisers there is at least 1-2 dozen listings for people with CDL licenses.
Time to lay some new train tracks?
Probably due to the rising price of cocaine...
Amnesty agenda propaganda
Sounds like they’re laying the groundwork to whine about how we need mexican truckers imported, since Americans won’t do it... at least not on their terms...
I’d say let the rates get higher and higher. THen maybe the railroads will start to take some of the business away from the trucking and ease up some of the traffic on our roads.
As a former trucking executive I can tell you the best paying jobs in the industry go to drivers who work for companies like UPS, Yellow, etc.. In other words union drivers ... they bid runs, work shorter hours and can have a home life.
I drove for about four years in the early nineties, I got paid enough to stay, but Government regs were making it really tough. The PSC pulled me over for inspection at LEAST once a week. I decided if I was going to work for the government, I should be getting government benefits, so I left and dropped the CDL from my license when I renewed.
Why is it I get the same feeling reading posts here its like when I hire drivers?
I read well over half if not 3/4ths of the posts do not have a clue what truck driving is and are just posting here because they are too lazy to get the facts right, like its too hard to substitute real knowledge in a forum with a quick Google search?
I have had my CDL for 14 years now, I manage a concrete batch plant, supervise, drive a mixer truck and hire, teach and eventually fire all kinds of drivers, my dad was a long haul driver most of his life starting as an owner operator and I lived in a sleeper, ate at the truck stops and loaded or unloaded the rig.The trucks nowaday cost more than most homes and offer almost everything a person could want, I have even seen a jacuzzi in one once.
The last couple of years its been a nightmare hiring decent drivers, I usually get seasonal drivers that drove school busses or fresh out of a school, the requirement for this skill area is actually demanding as delivering concrete requires not only the ability to drive a heavy turning top heavy liquid load it involves being able to offload it in a safe and timely manner that is extremely varied from sidewalks to runways, back yard porches to bridges, post holes in a backyard to underground vaults, its very demanding on the driver to jump into totally green, at best it takes a smart guy at least a week to handle the basics, it took me to years to master it.
As far as the trucking industry fuel charges is of course the problem, and after that its the need for profit margins, the days of drivers of loading their own rigs for the most part are gone because theses trailers are too big and most loads are palletized anyway so its too much for a single driver to handle, as a kid my dad hauled me and my two brothers with him to load/unload USPS mailbags or crates of motor oil, if I was told I had to load a 48 ft. trailer now in many states turnpike doubles or B-trains like here in Alaska I would just laugh and say what the forklift guy got a hangover?
And yes after 9/11 security got tighter but after the majority of drivers got screened, got their endorsements they got the wages, anybody here check out what the actual pay is first, if its low its probably a company skirting the edges anyway and are hiring cheap to pay cheap and we all know most people have different levels of skill. Truckers by and large are uniquely skilled and in the last decade are threatened by groups from all areas from those that hate big rigs and the noise, the green groups, the stigma that truckers are stupid greasy fat rednecks and I will go out on a limb and say to me the biggest threat is the most common fear of the other driver and his/her lack of attention because they are distracted while on a cell phone.
Good drivers get good wages, bad drivers get less wages and I think the ratio of jobs is that its an economy thing and everyone is pinching the belt, they want drivers, the drivers are there but who wants to load a rig, pay for the fuel and get paid idiot cheap wages, I sure as well won’t, its the 21st century now.
Will the trucking industry go cheap like Walmart? it could starting with hispanic drivers, I’ll really get scared when I see Chinese truck drivers appear, then I know the end is coming.