“is that drivers are looking at the fact that they can make $70,000 “and stay home a little more.”
Ya, instead of once every 5 weeks at home, you’ll get to be home once every 4 and a half weeks.
AND..you just have to take out that load from the west coast and get it to the east coast two days before Christmas eve.
It looks to me like the future for trucking will be:
Driver drives from one terminal to the next. Drops his trailer at that terminal, hooks to another trailer and pulls it back to the original terminal. Driver in that town hooks to the original trailer and takes it to the next terminal.
That way he is home every night. UPS works that way and I think Southeastern does.
I see quite a few container trucks at a truck stop I visit, same trucks every morning at exactly the same time.
Obviously that will not be the case for loads that are destined for cities far away from the ports, but still a relay system would be a way to keep drivers.
Of course riggers, specialty truck services will never be able to operate that way and will be paid big bucks for doing their specialty.