The ATA has just published a paper titled “Truck Driver Shortage Update” written by Bob Costello, Chief Economist and Vice President for the ATA which you can see here. While I’m sure Bob is a very nice person who is doing his best with the information provided to him, anyone who is familiar with the industry will see more than a few anomalies in the report.
The ATA is claiming that on average, the industry will need to generate 96,178 new drivers every year. Since I have no information to the contrary, I will accept that as fact. What follows is a little more dubious. They claim that 36% of the shortage is caused by industry growth, 16% by non-voluntary departures (firing), 11% by Voluntary non-Retirement departures (quitting), and a whopping 36% by retirements. Now I’m starting to question their data gathering methods. According to their data, over 3 times more people retire every year (taking with them the boatloads of cash they made during a long, happy career) than leave to go work in another industry (because they know those boatloads of cash don’t exist).
Perhaps the ATA didn’t count the drivers who are fleeing by the thousands from an industry where they’re chronically underpaid, exploited, and generally trashed. Perhaps they think that there truly is a lack of people who want to work in a growing industry, not just a lack of people who will put up with the way that drivers are treated. Perhaps they think that there really is a “driver shortage.”
When explaining why the shortage exists, the report states that it’s the fault of the HOS rules and safety regulations that were put in place in order to keep companies from exploiting their workers and putting them in unsafe conditions. While some of the regulations in place –particularly certain aspects of the CSA program– are unnecessarily overbearing, the real reasons for the shortage are the issues that every driver is intimately aware of.
The report says that by 2022, there could be a shortage of 239,000 drivers. It laments that the trucking companies can do nothing to improve their state of affairs without the repeal of government regulation. Well, Bob, I’ve got great news for you; you and the other trucking companies can fix this driver shortage today! Pay drivers a livable wage so they can support themselves and their families, and stop treating drivers as if they’re the least essential part of your business. It’s entirely in your hands.
Next Story: Family Sues Drivers and Companies After Horrible Crash
Source: fleetowner, ATA
You must be wrong. I’m sure the shortage is from all those drivers who have bought villas in Acapulco with the money they made from those generous trucking firms. I still think this industry is a prime example of one that is begging for a union. Although I am sure the AFL/CIO is bought and paid for by large trucking firms who don’t want them nosing around. Since labor is a dime a dozen to these companies NOTHING will change. Kill an innocent family because the load was JIT and the company will always blame the driver. They want you to run until you are literally and figuratively exhausted then they want you to run some more. And you might as well forget about going home, no matter what they say on their liesite (website). Just read some of the posts around here and you’ll see. And how much did this clown from the ATA (Anti-Truckers Association) make from the companies for painting such a rosy picture?
why are the comments now the only place to get your real news and information, and to gather the truth?
The ATA is no truckers friend. They claim to be but in they end they are just a tool to help mask and cover the ills of the trucking industry. When companies typically admit to turnover of 100% at times I think much of any driver shortage is more due to not having enough “suckers” anymore willing to spend thousands on trucking schools only to go to work in such conditions that are poor in pay, working conditions and respect. Working conditions riddled with regulations, big brother type monitoring and the lack of a quality lifestyle that should represent a professional position. All we are doing lately is going further down the food chain to find drivers anymore to hold steering wheels.
The reading of this article has just reaffirmed my feelings about the trucking industry. I have a class A with all endorsement. I obtained this in 2003 and worked full time for about 5 years. Then I backed away from the industry, and to this day I can almost wanna puke wen I see a truck on the road. Trucking companies drive their drivers into the ground. People say “hey but you make $700 a week, but what they don’t consider and I always make sure they know is that $700 (if your lucky) is for a 24/7 week. The trucking company will say “oh you don’t work 24 hours a day. My response is “would I be sleeping in the back of a truck that smells like diesel fuel, in a truck stop parking lot that smells like urine (if your lucky to find a spot)? If I was at home with my family, I’d be sleeping in my own bed, eating a good healthy home cooked meal.” From what I saw with the 4 companies I have driven for the average out time/home time was about 3 weeks out, when I was told 2 weeks out, then wen you are finally routed home I usually arrived there early Saturday morning, and the calls would start Sunday afternoon to jump back into the seat because they have a load of Gatoraid that will save lives. While out on the road, the load were so closely planned that even one small problem along the way would cause a late load. Absolutely no cushion of time for the unexpected. Don’t even THINK your ever going get to a doctors appointment, during your career for health problems because its never going to happen. No one ever seems to know exactly where the place or dock is located your driving to. Its just expected that you will search for an address in downtown environments driving an 80′ truck that has zero tolerance for wrong turns, and misdirections. In conclusion drivers are chronically lied to, stressed, stressed, stressed out, considered totally responsible for EVERYTHING associated with the load, forced into unhealthy life styles with no health care, and sucked of their life blood during their career. Realistically they should do a study and see how many people right now have class A licenses, and capable of being hired. I imagine it would at least total the whole driver shortage for the nation if not exceed it. Then they might have a better picture of why there is a shortage. I myself don’t drive tractor trailer anymore, and have no plans of doing so unless I m totally homeless and have no choice.
I have been driving for two years when I got in to this I was told By trucking schools that I could expect to make 42m to 46m the first year over 50m the second. The truth is the first year you will
be lucky to get 30m the lucky to get 42m and that is only if you never go home. That works out to less then minimum wage. Then the bigger lies start the company I work for promised me 2600 to 2800 miles per week out 5 to 5 1/2 days home every Friday or Saturday some times Sunday. Well I average 2000 miles a week when I do get home every 2-3 weeks sometimes longer I am home usually in the middle of the week then forced back out 34 hours later getting no real family time. There is not a day I don’t ask myself why I do this. I would be just as well off being a door greeter at Walmart after account for the on the road expenses. That is what is wrong with this industry lying is just part of the job for trucking companies. How about they give us the money or the home time. I need a reason to keep living in this truck. That being said the company I work for is better then most….but they all suck.
Trucking companies are like any other business, they’re out to make a profit! I don’t begrudge them that. Drivers complaining about poor working conditions should just do what I did, get out of the trucking business and do something else. I’ve owned my own trucks and I can tell you that it’s a very tough business to be profitable. The last thing we need is more gubbmint regulations, that’s the problem now. The government needs to get the hell out of it and let people with common sense run themselves. The company wants to run you when you’re tired, just say no. Quit hauling cheap freight and keep the damn unions out of it, they’re as bad if not worse than the government. If you want to organize or collectively bargain, do it yourselves. You don’t need some union goon to do that for you. But that’s why I decided to go Galt, people won’t stick together anymore. They’d rather ride up and down the road and bitch about it on the CB radio. Every time there was supposed to be a shutdown, I did it and didn’t worry about if I had a job or not when it was over. People need to start sticking together, especially with the current political climate. People had better start getting to know their neighbors and helping one another. Things are going to get bad folks, REAL bad, better start getting prepped now!
I am 30 yrs plus driver clean record and will never driver a truck again. Will not encourage anyone to get into this joke of an industry in fact would advice against it. There is no safety for the drivers or protection if it aint the trucking company blaming us for things we have no control over it is the cops and cvsa using us as atms. The people that design the hi-ways and by-way do not plan for truck to be on them and then say they are doing the best for the safety of people. Car are always pulling stunts around us as if they were play grand theft auto and when it goes wrong they point the finger at the trucker with out even considering the facts or call us liers when 99% of the trucker are the most honest people on this planet and will stand up out of pride and say they were at wrong when they are.So here is hoping that no other person ever gets his truck licence and both Canada and the U.S come to a grinding halt.
As a former driver, I can tell you, the time put in, and lack of respect of my time, wasn’t compensated decently. Period.
That being said, if there IS a driver shortage, why is it that most of the time, there are drivers waiting for a load, vs loads, sitting on the docks, just begging for a driver to come get them, and deliver them to their eagerly waiting receivers? With their freight rates going _UP_, to encourage a speedy pick up and delivery?
Can anyone tell me of a major carrier that thinks a driver is shade better than a recap tire? As a unemployed driver (the company I drove for folded) with 12 years experience I have been looking. All I find is we love to have ya! As how they pay and its, duh what? Excuse me but with 12 years I happen to know there are different ways of pay, PCM, Rand, Hub, empty/loaded, detainment, break down, holidays off/pay. You can just about see their faces like drop like that f a driver with blue lights in his mirror. Orientation I see now where they won’t even buy supper, just the hotel breakfast and possibly a cold sub for lunch. I kind of wonder if we get a food stamp application in orientation at that rate.
With todays tech a idea would be to set up a national data load base. One would only have to look at scheduled delivery runs from a manufacturer of a product to a receiver, do the horse trading to make a 5 day work week with decent pay and it would help.
For an example I boycotted a product that contracted out to Hogan, In all the loads I pulled out of that facility Motts at Aspers Pa I never saw a Hogan unit on the lot! Hogan underbid held the loads brookerd them out still made money while doing nothing. Result drivers get less while a desk jockey gets rich.
Na face it at .34 cents a mile in a good area a pizza delivery driver could earn more!
The free market works. Companies are still moving their freight and making a small profit doing it. At the time that there is more freight to move than can be easily moved(i.e. not enough drivers) the pay for drivers (and/or the benefit/treatment of them) will improve. Yes, it really is that simple.
Well said fellow drivers!
This organisation I drive for now has had its driver turn over rate quadruple, in 15+ years I have been here, it gets tuffer to stay, with the per diem pay and sliding pay scale? New drivers are told very little or even incorrect info pertaining to how to get paid, and most new hands are asking senior drivers how to do daily electronic upkeep. The cheating and lying are off the scale but drivers keep showing up due to other companies being worse, one driver from CRE said that at least he would be getting a pay check. Can’t argue with that, and with the new obuma tax hikes that are in the very near future, the per diem pay may be the only way to keep a pay check that can pay a few bills. It aint gettin any better anywhere, but like one guy said, at least I know what kinda BS there is here
Have run my own business for 25 years. Went to work for an Oregon trucking company in April. Had a lunatic for a trainer. Treated like scum at headquarters. Driver manager wouldn’t even acknowledge a driver new to the company. Listened to three weeks of trainer’s bitching, moaning, whining. Driving was fine. Enjoyed it. Dealing with company personnel … well, that was a whole different thing. Seems like the companies are made up of all ex-military (largely Marine Corps) personnel who act as if they’re still in the military. Billy’s right. But, maybe even a recap tire is a more-than-generous comparison. These clowns sitting in their offices with their condescending BS forget that without drivers they have no trucking company. It’s incredible to me to imagine that these folks really don’t grasp who it is who’s making the money for their businesses. After being cheated on mileage pay, thrown under the bus by the trainers, compliance officers, breakdown managers, maintenance personnel, and treated like crap by DMs, it took me no time to figure out that this was a stupid business and only truly desperate drivers with no other shot at another job opportunity would tolerate being treated like this, I got out. In the process, I gained a whole new respect for the truck drivers on our highways and appreciate the hardships they put up with to stick with their work. Clearly Bob Costello hasn’t a clue or is being bought off by trucking companies. His report is hog wash. There are plenty of drivers out there who would be happy to work for a company that showed even a minimal amount of respect for their most valuable resource. I didn’t need the job. I did it to help a family member out. Much happier doing my own business, making five times the money that driving would have paid, but wished trucking managers would get a clue and reset their attitudes for the benefit of the under-recognized, under-paid and over-worked drivers out there on the road.
FOURTEEN HOUR RULE
get rid of it. I am more tired and make less money now with that rule.
I agree with what others have posted so I need not add anymore.
I was a new driver in 2012. I completed all testing (written and over the road testing) in the top 96 percentile of my class. I understand basic diesel mechanics because I had good CDL-A teachers. The crime syndicate of USA trucking companies is very obvious to new drivers. I was basically informed by my fleet manager “work for free” or “die.” I promptly drove my truck to my home terminal and will never return to the trucking industry, again. I speak on behalf of many new drivers. Truck drivers are grossly underpaid on a national average of blue collar wages. Long haul truck drivers need an annual salary + percentage pay per load (nothing less than $50,000 per year) for the trucking industry to regain the trust of USA working class citizens. We would rather starve then work for the USA National Trucking Crime Syndicates as slaves. Never in my life (I am in my early 50’s), have I witnessed such obvious and incredible slavery by USA national trucking crime industries. It is federally criminal and many trucking companies need to be indicted in federal criminal courts before the trucking industry will be respected enough to gain qualified drivers.
there are many, many bad companies out there. i have worked for many of them. fortunately there are a few good ones. i have landed a position at one of them and am quite happy. i don’t get pressured to drive tired or illegally and safety is actually a concern and not a topic of lip service. this company has also won many ‘on-time’ awards from it’s customers. it is possible treat drivers fairly and pay them well. if more companies were like the one i work for i would probably get paid even more than i do, but the big publicly owned companies and brokers keep freight rates low. we need regulation on freight rates and pay for the truck industry. any company that puts profit ahead of safety should be closed down.
oh, i forgot. any trucker who thinks the trucking companies would treat them or pay them any better if HOS or safety rules were relaxed is fooling themselves. the DOT and regulations are the only things keeping you from being little more than a serf trapped into driving a death trap.
Well Gentlemen, after reading the report generated by the ATA I see why the ATA is so worthless. If this is the best report that Bob Costello can produce then the ATA is in real trouble. I did however like the colors that Mr. Costello used in his 5th grade level chart. I find there is no supporting documentation to Mr. Costello’s one page report that is as worthless as a tick on a dogs back.
My response to the ATA , is ” This is the best you can do with this worthless report? Close the doors and do everyone a favor.”
It is no wonder why we can not fully lobby in the government ruled industries with their passing of “industry rules” , with support networks like the ATA representing the trucking community in Washington.
I do GSA Schedules now for products and services, have 11 Companies that obtained a GSA MAS, IDIQ contract this year with my documentation and presentation skills.
Bob I don’t think you could even understand the GSA Solicitations outline if you had to. There are 39 various schedules for products and services.
This goes to prove that the Transportation Industries Drivers out there hold a lot more education than is thought. I am working on my Masters this year also, no more Mr. Truck Driver operations for me. It was fun back in 1975 when I drove for Carolina Western Express and yes I worked at Monfort also. Those were the days.
Best Regards to all,
Ed Holman
Bob Costello is obviously part of the problem because he endorses the USA national trucking companies. I worked with good drivers over the road from diverse nationalities and cultures. The USA national trucking companies strategize slavery and crime syndicate methods within their business administrations. It creates economic dependency of their truck driver slaves and directly influences the livelihoods of the American family domestic structure. USA National Trucking Companies are ruining are country because they plan truck driver slavery and the very illegal management of their long haul drivers. The entire crime system of USA national trucking companies needs to be totally overhauled and criminal indictments against USA trucking companies need to include company owners and mid-level managers of dispatchers and fleet managers. No one trusts Bob Costello and his friends who make millions of dollars from the slavery of drivers in the USA truck company syndicates. God be with my friends who were fellow USA truck driver slaves in this industry……they need to form a solid and good union and demand annual salaries + percentage pay per load equating nothing less than a $50,000 annual salaries.
I’ll reiterate pretty much what everyone else has so far said. I won’t just put it down to the fault of only the trucking companies, though.
There’s too many middlemen in this industry. Far too many – so many, that it is making it increasingly difficult for trucking companies to make a profit.
Tell me. Just what is a broker?
It seems to me, that he is just this guy, who shippers call when they need to move some freight. The broker then gets a truck staged to get that freight moved for the shipper.
I may be oversimplifying things here, and I may have my facts a little wrong, but doesn’t that strike anyone as counterproductive? But let’s look at this with a really oversimplified example:
You want a pizza delivered to your home. You call a pizza-delivery brokering service. This brokering service then looks for the best deal for you, then calls a pizza company for you and orders the pizza. For this service, they charge you $1.00. They also charge the pizza company $2.00.
So then, for $3.00, this service just did something you could have very easily done yourself, by picking up a telephone book and doing a little calling around to find the best deal on your pizza, yourself.
Isn’t this what broker services are doing for shippers and trucking companies? A shipper is the guy who wants a pizza. Trucking companies are Dominos and Pizza Hut. Why can’t the shipper call around to the trucking companies to see who can give them the best rate? Why couldn’t trucking companies do a little more to impress their customers with pricing and availability of service? If either of both of these could start happening more, the middleman could be taken out of the picture, eliminating this – what I see as an – unnecessary drain on profits. But instead, trucking companies and shippers are paying people to do nothing more than phone work for them – pay they could instead be funneling to drivers for the work they are performing.
As to this business of the HOS rules and other federal regulation that effect companies, I for one am glad they are in place. If you’ve got a modicum of skill with managing your time and have a good work ethic, you can make good money under the current rules. It isn’t the rules that are making it difficult for the driver to make money, it is that too much money is being made by people who are doing none of the driving work.
It’s an age-old tale of greed and doing nothing for money. Maybe the D.O.T. could make drivers a lot happier by cracking down on how these middlemen do business – by how trucking companies and shippers do business with them. Until the middlemen are taken out of the picture, or at least their influence on the industry is significantly reduced, it is going to be extremely hard for drivers to make money in it.
I agree completely. I tried my hand at truck driving for three and a half years. I loved driving the trucks, but quickly got tired of being treated like just a body behind a wheel by the company I worked for. They acted like I was a slave that could be replaced at any minute. On top of the constant, ceaseless work with virtually no home time, the pay was terrible, and the cost of living on the road eats up most of what you make. Having my truck governed at 62 mph also really limited the money I was able to make.
With government awarding company’s $6500 to 7500 bucks a student to train to drive, they’ve open the doors to anyone 23 or older to try there hand at a job some criticts have labeled medial at best,, its become lucrative for company’s to install that revolving door and maintain a consistent turnover of wanna be drivers, hence the treatment , harassment , manipulation of drivers,
As for these new mandated requirements set forth by FMCSA to install e logs and their reasons for doin so, is a lot of government manipulation in order to control the industry and destroy any chance of future independents to operate a business, .
Considering the future from my perspective , I can only imagine the tie ups and relays nessasarry to complete a task that has been executed by qualified drivers without the problems that exist today because of government interfering with free enterprise,
If e logs become the future in maintaining HOS, maybe they should include the private sectors as well, I wonder how many commuters would agree to this, imagine an 8 hour business day with only 3 hours to drive within and do it within 14 hours, HA! That would be interesting to watch,
Just imagine the battle ground!!
I have a truck driving school and the statistics of my students are no match for these statistics. With my students, the overwhelming majority quit and go work at another trucking company. Now granted, most are not going to go into the industry if they plan on retiring in the next year or two but I can still say there is a huge difference from those that get fired and those that quit, getting fired is minimal. Maybe “retirement” means that they left the industry for good, that would make more sense. Yep, 36% could easily leave the industry and not look back. As for the shortage – it began as self inflicted; companies didn’t raise their pay, treated drivers as disposable, didn’t attempt to improve living conditions and continue to do business as usual BUT now the shortage is becoming a serious issue. Enrollment in most truck driving schools is down, less people are entering the industry and more people are leaving it, (around 36% I guess, lol). If this continues the shortage will be critical and we will all literally pay. A rebuilding of the industry is required and must come from the trucking companies themselves, government regulations just chase more truckers out. Reports that say the companies can not react themselves and are not to blamed is not only increasing the shortage but putting our country in harms way. We all know a truck brought it, but what we forget is that a TRUCK DRIVER drove the truck that brought it. Let’s start treating these men and women like the professionals they are, they have a skill, admire it and respect it!
Drive safe,
Tanya
What is missing on the part of the ATA, is how they, TCA, ADSS, and others are pushing to have trucks micromanaged via Electronic Logs and speed limiters and how that effects those wanting to remain in trucking. Oscar Wilde once said, “Their are two tragedies in life. One is not getting what we want, the other is getting it.” Seems like ATA might want to consider how their actions affect the outcome they are crying about. They wanted their members to have a tougher time attracting and retaining good drivers, now they are upset that the situation they fought for is upon them. I only had just enough Psychology in college to be dangerous and their problems are beyond my training. I suggest they seek professional help.
One thing to consider is the fact that driving a truck is the closest thing to running your own business then actually running your own business. I’ve worked in corporate settings around other people in a building and for me it was much worse then dealing with the issues in the trucking industry. Yeah the pay to responsibility ration is incredibly off but for me the fact is I don’t despise driving a truck like I did doing a regular 9-5 job. If you can get over the pay and the disrespect it’s really a tolerable job. You think your dispatchers are hard to get along with try working in close proximity to them every day in a office environment lol.. Drivers stay driving because the alternative is much worse..
I will say ,3 days of shut down protest,let’s them feel our power
I suffered through years of OTR with large companies to get to a smaller (5 – 10 trucks) local company. The whole time thinking “It’s not this way in a small company.” I was so wrong. It’s worse! Don’t fool yourself, you are just another part of the truck and can be changed out as easy as changing the oil. I would join a union with teeth in a heartbeat.
I started driving back in 1962 ,and feel that Dave’s post pretty much hits the nail on the ahead. I will disagree with the article’s support of HOS rules ,particularly the new HOS rules, they have been destroyed not improved. Under the old HOS rules when I stopped my time stopped AS IT SHOULD!!!! I wasn’t forced to “race against the clock” so to speak, and have everyone trying to find a parking spot at the same time every day.
Well said Bryan, Ive got 35 years in this myself. The ATA is not a voice for truckers its the voice for large greedy fleet owners, who look at their drivers as part of the equipment. And it would be nice (safer two) to be able to stop and take a nap when you feel sleepy or the traffics so bad you cant make time.
Up here in Canada conditions are the same if not worse. We deregulated the industry a while back with the same results, but our situation has been mutated by factors which you don’t have down there.
We have out of control immigration policies up here. Per capita, we take more 3rd world immigrants and refugees than anything other developed country in the world. Unfortunately, by government policy put into law in the ’70s, we have officially mandated “multiculturalism”. That means immigrants can come here and say to hell with learning our customs or even our language. Now there’s a specific immigrant group from the Indian subcontinent that has flooded in for well over 30 years. They have taken over a variety of industries up here, but the trucking industry is the one they almost virtually own now. They buy up the cheapest trucks and badly maintain them. They play musical company names to try and stay ahead of the DOT and other regulatory bodies. They all undercut the rates by bidding everything into the ground. The try and only hire the same ethnic group as themselves, usually buy specifying a specific language that nobody would speak in North America on their own. Which nibbles at the edges of discrimination laws but the government turns a blind eye to that because they are also smart and have a virtual lock on the politic parties. They hire drivers that have no experience, and operate license mills. They have even started to take advantage of new government immigration programs by running ads for drivers that state no experience needed, only a visa and that within 6 months they could bring the rest of their families over from the old country. During the annual safety blitz the highways are rather unpopulated because a lot of them keep their fleets off the roads.
I could go on about that subject because I feel it is the one thing that has destroyed trucking up here. Other factors include ludicrous fuel costs (today it translates into almost $6 per US gallon), very poor highway design and laugh out loud (or cry) crappy road maintenance. In my region (British Columbia) the terrain, poor roads, bad drivers driving unsafe rolling DOT magnets combine to make it far more unsafe than most other areas in North America, including the Dalton on that bogus show Ice Road Truckers.
I myself have been trucking since the late ’70s. I have been an owner/op and now I’m just a lowly company driver. I sold my last truck a few years ago because of the fuel costs coupled with the low rates. I had settled into a nice gig doing challenging driving into the interior of BC and back again nightly. I was getting $300 a day, and because of my experience and knowledge, the boss said treat it like your own, and I was able to park it out front of my house and get the repairs done when they were needed, and done right. But he let one of those immigrants drive it only one time. Promptly rolled and laid the trailer on top of a car with someone in it. Great no job again. So I’m back into the crap of gig hunting. It’s scary up here. So you Americans should be very wary of what the feds are doing down there and how the Mexican companies and drivers are flooding in. They will drag the industry down into the sewer.
Final thought, I’m making less as a company driver now than I did 25 years ago.
Further to my last posting:
This is a typical ad run on our local Craigslist:
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/trp/3389226947.html
This is another ad that mentions the LMO government program ut doesn’t include the usual stuff about bringing their familes over in 6 months:
http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/rds/trp/3346743100.html
Finally, the website for that government program:
http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/workplaceskills/foreign_workers/ei_tfw/lmi_tfw.shtml
I have been in the industry for 40 years and have seen it change for the worst. The goverment has tightened regulations on drivers so that one does not have any recourse to actions taken aganist them. Sure you can appeal them, yet when you do the CSA and FMCSA state they only report what is received from the individual states and cannot change what is in the report, even though they reqiuer a written statment from the driver in some cases. EXAMPLE; I was stopped in Minn. at the scales. They found 2 -1 oz bottles of tequlla in my suitcase in the side box under my socks I explained to the officer that they must have come from a plane trip over a year earlier and were over looked or not even thought about by my wife who packs my clothing for me. I was shut down for 24 hrs and had the report placed on my CSA rating. I contacted FMCSA as required, gave the same explaination. FMCSA accepted my response, yet said they could not remove the the report, that I would have to contact the state which issued the report to have it removed. I did so, their response was “You had it in the truck We report it” and would not remove it. Then there is the ever inceasing enforcment of no parking on an On-ramp, Yet WHEN you can find a parking place in a Rest Area, some DOT Officer knocks on your door and wants to do a Level 3 inspection. Try to ignore him because you are “OFF DUTY”, as I did and WHAT DO YOU KNOW here comes 3-4 more patrol cars and they want to search your truck for wepons and drugs. I have retired and tell anyone who ask me about getting into the trucking industry to “Not make that move it will be the worst thing they can do these days”.
I have 35 years in this miserable industry!
There is such a pinch for drivers in these blowhard companies, that now, the first state Virginia, and more States will follow as the Feds apply pressure, has eased the licensing requirements for our Veterans coming back from the wars. While I personally do not have a problem with the concept of easing the regulations for our Veterans, I do have a problem.
These trucking executives will do absolutely anything to save their spineless hides, even resort to bringing the people who fight to keep our freedoms, into to this worthless industry, label them a driver and continue to feel good about how they abuse them.
As soon as the EOBR is mandated it gets parked and the for sale sign goes up.Tweenty years of this is plenty. You have to love that Trucker News paper. I read an article about the increase in bridge hits in New York and the Governor blaming the GPS. Fact is Insurance companies big brother, The ATA and the oil companies have the vets of this industry fed up. Nobody is going to be around anymore to coddle the kiddies around. 10-4
Driver shortage right.I see too many trucks on the road.The problem is big companies abuse of drivers,and regulations causing a man not being able to make a good living.Im on the road a average 70 days at a time,and if i get a 3000 mile week the surprise might kill me.I say lets form a big ass union and take over this world,the fuel companies brought people to their knees,so why dont we do it.ooida wont organize the drivers because they are scared of goverment shutting them down.We have the power just have to use it.BE SAFE DRIVERS.
I am now retired,but after having over 30 years in the business it has been a good life. There good companies out there that treat and pay you well if you know what you are doing. I’ve been o/o and company. I think the days of the o/o ending in the 80s, deregulation took the money out of it. The last 20 years I worked with 2 companies, one got everyone home at weekends, ok benefits and $50-60k yr, the other when you had some seniority you got to pick your home time, great benefits and $60-70 yr. Both companies had very low turnover. They ran you hard, but legal and anyone that lasted the first 6 months generally stayed. The good jobs are out there but you have to do some homework to find them.
Let’s hear from the other side of the fence: A small (75 trucks) trucking Co, operating since the 40’s. We haul dry freight in a 900 mile radius and our Co. drivers earn a wage in the low-mid $50’s. Paychecks weekly. Paid vacation, paid holidays, and PAID medical/dental, vision and a 401K. Because we run north/south on one corridor, every driver has very good home time. 75% of 34 hour restarts are at HOME. They are usually at home 1-2 nights per week, if they live “in between” our main points. All of our freight is no touch. Oh and the oldest truck in the fleet is a 2008, with the most recently purchased being 6 sparkly new 2013’s.
That said, from our point of view the driver shortage is caused by the LACK OF QUALITY drivers. We’ve had drivers steal fuel, steal parts (right off of the truck), steal pallets, just plain tear up trucks with abuse, go AWOL for days at a time, and in TWO seprate cases, let some “lot lizards” use their (OUR) sleepers to ply their trade. And that’s after they’ve been hired IF they don’t have 2 recent DUI’s, 2-3 FTA’s, and a couple 10-over tickets and can PASS A DRUG TEST. Not to mention, IF THEY SPEAK/READ/WRITE ENGLISH. Then there are the ones that have come and gone because they fail a random, (just one last week) or irritate a customer to the point of being banned from a facilty (just happened yesterday).
Yes, they are Companies out there that abuse their driving staff but that’s not the ONLY reason for the driver shortage.
Patrick you couldn’t be more Right! Who is John Galt!
After 14 years in the industry, seven of which were cross-continent long haul and seven of which were local around a major city in North America, in the prime age of 38 I decided to put my family threw a couple of years of hardship and went to get a higher education. This is how much I began to hate the industry and everything that revolves around it.
The companies say not their fault there is driver shortage? I’ve heard the violins about driver shortage since I started driving in 1997! Throughout that time the companies instead of improving the industry for the driver, lobbied the Canadian and US governments to allow foreign drivers in on a work visa and because most European drivers, preferably from a third world country, so they don’t complain too much.
There is a strong and ongoing lack of respect directed at the drivers not only from the public ( which we can live with ), but more importantly from the companies themselves, from the law enforcement, inspecting agencies, law makers and most bewildering – from other drivers. The pay is not keeping up with the rising cost of living and DOT fines. There is more and more regulation, truck speeds are starting to be governed at 65, drivers are still being payed by the mile, which means they only make money when the wheels are turning, but the wheels are turning less and less, because of the rules and enforcement. There are only so many people in the world that will agree to be away from home, family, friends and a social life for a week or more at a time, put up with so much stress and pressure, live in a plastic box for long periods, eat crappy, greasy food, miss holidays at home, not see their kids grow up, inhale diesel fumes and expose themselves to constant dangers of the road like weather and other users of the road making mistakes. The pool can’t be that large.
Dear trucking companies, ATA, OTA, CTA and all the others: You want to keep drivers? change your dispatcher’s attitudes first, change the culture in your companies, start paying drivers $25 per hour for first year starting wage city driving, with increases and bonuses every year, $30 per hour long haul, living subsidies while on the road, with bonuses and increases according to experience and seniority, start showing loyalty to the drivers, appreciate them more, lobby the governments to back off from the unnecessary and mean spirited enforcement style of the DOT.
Otherwise you will keep losing good, safe, experienced drivers like myself. But then maybe that’s the plan?
Just a comment, i have over 20 years of trucking with a perfict record but i took two years away from a very demanding industry and now i am told that i am know longer elegible to drive becuse of insurance requirments. I would just like to thank the insurance companies for forcing me to reconsider getting back ino the trucking industry, it is a thankless, lonely and underpaid job. You deserve the drivers that you get out of training schools goodluck this winter.
i have a 22year and a couple of million miles and its been a love affair with the highway from the getgo…….i used to get so pissed off when being dissed by us drivers as unworthy! But you know i now see their point……as an owner operator i was constantly, constantly forced,yes,forced, to take loads, read lumber here, into the the usa for way way less than cost. I call this practise dumping and if its illeagle in other regulated trade why is it tolerated in trucking? Slavery is a pretty accurate term. On the east coast of canada lots of companies are whining about drivers shortages without respect to the plain simple truth that they drove them to leaving
Dave, you are very wrong and your attitude reflects a bigger picture: american individuals feel that someone else is responsible for their wages, health, happiness or their overall existence. Starting with the health, nobody stops you from buying a bench and two dumbbells and work out three or four times a week, while having the most beautiful scenery of all the gyms. In terms of food you need to educate yourself and understand calories, proteins, carbs, vitamins etc…and then youwill see that even a modest Pilot has healty food; also stop at Walmart and buy your water, fruits and vegetable; Petro has a good buffet; also there are millions of restaurants on each side of the road. On the other side, if your talking about money, I start driving in 2003 and after 1.5years I saved enough money to pay for my first 2years of college. Graduated college in 2007 and I couldn’t find a job for almost 1year and get back into trucking. I run my own company now and I have 2 trucks, but I cannot find drivers even if I offer min pay of $1000/week. I think you can make a lot of money working hard; last year one of my drivers averaged $1600/week. I’m still looking for a driver and if you are interested I offer a minimum pay of $1000/week.
I’ve heard those stories of fuel and parts theft by drivers and those drivers are like any other thief. Need to be locked up. OTOH, when a company gets a good driver, new or experienced, they need to recognize and work to keep the good, reputable folks with good character. The problem is that these companies will hire anyone. Then they treat them like crap. Then they wonder why the bad ones will steal from them. That’s a no-brainer. I’ve seen trucks that don’t get daily inspections and trucks that have been run dry of oil. So, for crying out loud, when these DA companies get a good and reliable applicant, maybe they should make an effort to keep them.
James C you said it, this is the biggest problem in this industry. Small trucking companies are underpaid by these middleman and in a lot of cases also lied to. This is something that most drivers don’t understand.
The comment “36% shortage caused by Industry Growth” is absolute B******t because the industry now is less than 80% of what it was 10 years ago and has been on a continual decline since the recession started in 2003, becoming a depression in 2005. We in the trucking industry are the first to recognize when the economy takes a nosedive because the loads go way down and we end up sitting for days instead of hours on end until the drivers quit to go find construction jobs because their companies were trying to make them quit, or would use bogus reasons to fire the drivers, then trash their DAC to prevent them from reentering the industry, like happened to me.
When i was injured on the job in 2007, and doctors would try to help me but the company would call them to “change their mind, their will and their diagnosis and treatment plan for you” (as one nurse told me that my company did) and Interstate Distributor Co called me as i arrived in my hospital room in December 2007 to fire me over the phone 30 minutes after my surgery, for no reason they have ever been able to answer, after a work-related injury surgery they knew I was having… i then knew that the trucking industry was going downhill if a huge company can fire an injured driver for no valid reason just because they were starting to unload 3,000 of their 3,800 trucks in a hurry because the industry has tanked, hit bottom, nose-dived.
(By the way, their unjust trashing of my DAC and that firing has cost me more than $350,000 in lost wages and they left me completely on my own to get my own medical help over these last 5 years.)
The problem with the big companies is that they feel like they are untouchable. They feel like they can treat the drivers however they want, trash their reputation to protect themselves, and feel free to potentially spend $100,000,000 of Owner Operator contractors’ pay on very high end prostitutes if they so desired… and hide it by letting a company take them over in an attempt to hide the illegal actions… and get away with it… and somehow come out of all that with a clean record while the destruction that is the lives of the former drivers and owner operators is left in their wake…
… then, **HOW** can a little guy like me have any justice at all? I had been living in my car, harassed by cops, lied on by family members, had death threats from various sources because people are afraid of what they don’t understand- a homeless guy whose life was destroyed by a trucking company, only receiving aid (food stamps only) for a little more than a year over that entire time, ending almost a year ago. After my vehicle was stolen, and all of my personal belongings stolen, because I could not go where the death threats were coming from… I lost the benefit that allowed me to eat, and nobody gave a s**t about a homeless guy… Oh if I could write a FACT-FILLED BOOK about all of this… call it, The Tragedy That Is Called “The Trucking Industry” and even make it a movie… exposing the injustices of the modern trucking mafia…
This homeless guy has no criminal record, never had a ticket or an accident or even a preventable incident in a truck. This homeless guy has 1.1 million safe miles with 3 big companies since I began driving in 1999. I have service awards, safety awards, and much respect and pull with the customers i delivered to. I used to help people on the road, carrying a floor jack-and-4-way lug wrench, tire patch kits and many tools that would not fit anything on my truck, so that I could get car breakdowns going again, even giving $100 bills to several elderly people to help them when they looked like they could not afford the repairs or towing…
And a company, bent on clearing its own name, destroys my life and not a single attorney or government agency will listen to me because they are afraid of this trucking industry giant.
And they think they are reborn without recourse or judgment…
I say “Watch out. God’s eyes are upon you, IDC, and Saltchuk cannot save you now. Better to repent of your evil and fix the damage you have done than to bury and hide it with the corpses that you have made.”
What goes around comes around. Watch how this all unfolds. I will watch as a bystander/victim as God begins to unleash His judgment on them and other companies in the industry.
The problem will never be fixed, the world will never know the level of evil that the trucking industry has attained, but it will see unusual “anomalies” be dealt with in a supernatural way, without the interference of me or any man, just the hand of God Himself working the devil out of the details…
I see a lot of angry trucker here. I have been driving for almost 2 years. Let me tell you guys thats we re not doing the best job in the world. But it is not bad at all. Go work at the mac donald 8 hours a day for 8$ an hours. We make sometime in one hour what they make day. So yeah we dont see familly everyday but im sorry for what i know there is a lot of company runin local with pretty decent pay…. Now one more thing. U guys are complaining but let me tell you. I am from france and over there and in all the weastern europe the truck industry is dying. Why? Because since europe open border to eastern europe. A lot of company hire driver from over there and give them run to france spain etc so they pay them around 3$ an hour witch is great pay for them… When an french driver make around 15-20…. So the concurrence is rude really rude. Then. Driver cant work week end in summer time because of traffic. Driver are limited to 55mph Everywhere!! Fuel is around 8$ per gallon. Their pay is ridicul compare to america. And more people are gettin fire everyday because all the freight is given to eastern now… All because europe opened border. Its like if america had open border with mexico…. SO ok we have poor work condition and are underpay. But me personnaly i see the bright side. For right now i see the country witch i beautiful. I work with music. I stop whenever i want , and i make good money. So please stop insulting our ancesters by saying that u r slaves. Thank. Bye everyone be safe
I tried driving. This industry is a total joke:
1 Liability. Driver is responsible for EVERYTHING most of which is out of his control. God forbid a driver get into any kind of an accident or get cited by the DoT. Chances are that it will ruin your life no matter who’s at fault. If not jail time you may be in debt forever paying for a situation that wasn’t your fault and that you have no control over. It’s just not worth the risk for Below Minimum Wage employment. I can take home more money washing dishes and have ZERO LIABILITY AND get to go home every night so why the heck would I take such a huge risk driving a truck? I’m sure there are veteran drivers out there who make a decent living but it makes no sense for new people to enter this industry unless you are homeless and have nothing to lose.
2 Big Brother; this is the most over regulated industry I’ve ever encountered.
3 Idiot 4 wheeler drivers
4 poverty line pay
5 What home time? A couple days a month, if that? Are you joking?
6 “Trainers” hahaha A new driver starting for many of these larger trucking firms are sent out on the road with owner/operators who want nothing more than a “night driver” I drove with 2 of these clowns who did a lot of yelling and screaming but very little training, I spent weeks on the road with each and wasn’t receiving the mandatory training nor achieving the mandatory skill objectives that the company requires. I feel lucky that I made it home alive and didn’t kill myself or others with this joke of a training system that this supposedly “Best in Class” company has instituted. I shudder every time I see 1 of these trucks on a freeway because I know from experience that the driver behind the wheel may have an extremely low amount of skill, rest and nourishment and is little more than an “accident waiting to happen”.
We desperately need change in this industry. I think that the best thing drivers can do at this point is:
1: Bring their tractor and/or trailer to the nearest terminal and drop it off.
2: Get yourself a bus ticket home.
3: Sleep for a week.
4: Eat a couple days worth of nutritious food.
5: Sleep for another week.
6: Get a dish washing job for a couple months.
7: Wait until American industry grinds to a halt.
8: Create some type of Association ” By Drivers For Drivers” and sit down at the negotiating table with any government agency and trucking firm who can help make the necessary changes that this industry so desperately needs.
9: Laugh in the face of the government agencies and trucking firms because of the ridiculous offers they make.
10:Go back to our dish washing jobs.
11: Wait until the inevitable looting and rioting subsides when the populace gets tired of having no food or supplies in their local stores and learns that in fact just about EVERYTHING they use in their daily lives is delivered to them via TRUCK and, THEMSELVES start to demand of the government that the necessary changes to the trucking industry be made.
12: Get back behind the wheel when a majority of truck drivers agree that we’ve reached a fair deal.
If any of you truck drivers has a better idea I’d love to hear it.
Oh, and as an addition to my first comment: I spoke to a driver from New York a few days ago. He told me that he owns his truck and is signed on to a Bosnian company. He said the Bosnians are taking over the industry by the droves, and I believe it. I have met 30 Bosnians over the last month who are in the industry. They are hard-working and they and other owner operators are snapping up freight at a dollar per mile (fuel is 70 cents per mile!) when no one else will, which is hurting the industry.
This driver also told me that he had gotten himself a return load from California to NYC where he lived, frozen seafood load. It paid $3,100. In the process he called the shipper and got the owner of the company, by pure chance, who complained to the driver how much the load was costing him. The driver said, “Well, I’ll do the load for $1,000 less than CH Robinson is charging you. Is that OK?” The owner said, “OK. I’ll call them and cancel. You got it. Is $6,000 OK?”
CH Robinson was charging this shipper $7,000 plus other charges and was only paying the trucking company $3,100, the driver was going to get 80% of the load, which was a mere $2,500 more or less. Now, the driver, paid directly by the shipper, was going to make $3,500 more by working directly for the shipper. The middlemen are raping the industry. CH Robinson is huge, they are in Europe, in South America, all over the North American Union, and are the biggest force in getting loads because if a driver fails to report they can call someone else and get a driver to a shipper in 30 minutes.
In 2008 i worked for a very young guy in my former church who was a thief but I didn’t know it. He paid me 40 cents per mile for 200 mile reefer runs, and I spent more time in the docks than i did on the road, all unpaid time. To add insult to injury, he shut down his new company and laid me off after only 3 months. When i called him in 2009 about my W-2 and W-4 stuff, that i needed to file my taxes, he said “F*** You. I put your tax money in my pocket. Pay your own taxes. I’m broke.”
Well, i had to get my CPA involved, we got the IRS to do a SS-8 workers determination, which proved I was an employee, but we had no way to show that the owner of the company had stolen my tax money that he had withheld. So…. I cannot file my 2012 taxes until my 2011 are filed. I cannot file my 2011 taxes until my 2010 taxes until my 2010 are filed. I cannot file my 2010 taxes until my 2009 taxes are filed. I cannot file my 2009 taxes until my 2008 taxes are filed and the asshole punk kid i worked for in 2008 has the attitude that he is simply not going to do anything about it. Even though the IRS has determined that he was my employer, that my copy of my W-4 that was copied from HIS copier in HIS office, and the fact that my records show a pretax pay of $8000 for the 3 months and actual pay received was only $6,500 for those 3 months of hell… and because we reported to the IRS that my wages should have been $8,000 they want tax money on the $8,000 not on the $6,500 I received. And they want it from me because they can’t get it from him.
I have no pot to piss in, how am I going to pay that?
This all rolls back to Interstate Distributor Company and their unjust firing of me while i was on a hospital bed after surgery for an on-the-job injury. I might have misstated the amount for 5 years, i didn’t take the time to add it up… but I have lost $50,000 per year for 5 years- i guess that comes to $250,000 in wages lost because of unjust firing and slander that I cannot get back in the industry.
These trucking company owners just think they can do any GD thing they want to and get away with it. If it’s a trucking company with 3,800 trucks like Interstate or a fly-by-night false Christian with one truck they treat people like crap and no driver is exempt. If you kiss ass you might get by with only a little damage. Otherwise, they will rape you like the mafia that they are.
Your 2 years of experience are very, very plain and evident.
If you add up all the hours you work, you make half of minimum wage. And you’re never home. What part of that is nice and fluffy to you?
I know a Bosnian driver who drives in Italy (Italy is my home country) and makes the equivalent of $7,000 per month. That is much more than we make here. Do you make $7,000 per month or more? In 70% of the time you have to work in a month?
Nice try, but your comment is totally and completely ignorant.
@Romaine. Oh I get what you’re saying. “Because the trucking industry is in worse condition where you come from than it is in America we should be happy with the intolerable conditions that exist for truck drivers in this country” Right? What I want to say to you I can’t publish in this forum however I’ll put it this way. Your logic is seriously flawed. I’m glad you’re a fan of servitude and slavery. Enjoy being a slave while continuing to be a part of the problem with Americas trucking industry.
This reply right here explains everything, just as with drivers not watching each others back,neither would these carriers.(This former owner quickly dismissed any culpability) They’d eat each other alive if can, but know there has to be some cooperation to keep the drivers situation from imploding. Guarantee, one click down on the employment rate, wholesale implosion pending!!
After 28 years and 3 million miles I had to get out before I lost my mind. Sure wish there were company’s that really understood how drivers would like to be treated overall and there wouldn’t be any shortage.
Shortage,really? been laid off for 2 weeks now from my local job and no calls from apps sent in,been otr driver for 20 yrs with a clean driving ,no spotless driving record but trainees get hired on the spot
There surely is no greater group of corporate welfare bums than the trucking companies. They continually cry to get government to pay for their truck drivers with training and subsidies, and if that doesn’t work they try to import them from foreign countries. It is about time the public money tap was cut off and the scoundrels and liars are force to pay their employees a real living wage AND the corporations who hire companies are force to pay a fair market price.
In order for that to happen, a certain number of superfluous trucking companies will need to go bankrupt, but that is a self-correcting problem. There are too many of them already. Let’s get government subsidies OUT of the transport industry in both the United States and Canada. Let the free market rule.
Edit: Just remember, only when there is a true driver shortage will the wages of drivers go up. That’s why government should stop all subsidies, tax write-offs, and end the import of foreign drivers.
I’m not a Driver, …but have always been in awe of how Drivers are, as word spreads, on the road for days at a time. I do quite a bit of driving in my small 4-wheeler from Dallas to Boston many times a year. In some odd way, I’m amused by how y’all drive 70mph, side-by-side on the Interstates at night, monstrous boxes of metal, some with more lights on them than the White House Christmas Tree, but just as pretty. Wasn’t until lately when I began to notice “Opportunity Awaits” signs on the back of the trailors you’re pulling, that I thought, “Geez, …all these Driver jobs up for grabs”!!?? Finally dawned on me that those same signs are permanently affixed. I knew then there was something wrong with that. That, along with the advertisement on this website from PAM Trucking offering Driver positions for “UP TO” $40K a year. …Chump change.
i agree that compaines should think more of thier drivers, they haul you frieght take your b.s.
for a so called wage. i work for a owner thats runs expedited frieght pays the truck 1.20 a mile plus a measley 29 ct fsc. but you only get very low miles.they charge up to 3.50-4.50 prem on the loads and then pay us 1.20 pml. this is a joke. compaines will take advange of you and hang you out to dry. what would happen if all truckers refused to haul for 3 days. they the companies would go belly up. only you would never get the truckers to do this.so i guess we will keep on getting stomped on by the companies.
i really forgot how big a bunch of crybaby whiners truckers can be. if you don’t like it, leave. why you would work for a company that treats you poorly is beyond me. must be a self image thing. as for those who have been “wronged” by regulations, DON’T BREAK THE RULES the guy with booze in his truck shouldn’t ever drive again, the guy that doesn’t pay taxes, should be in jail, the guy that thinks truckers would actually do a work stoppage is an idiot. i have worked for bad companies, companies that changed my contract mid term, i quit. companies that deadhead me home over 800 miles, i quit. i tell them up front i am not afraid to quit, and i don’t drive illegally. seems to work fine. you will only be a door mat if you let them walk on you. grow a spine, play by the rules, and quit belly aching.
There is NO shortage of drivers. There is however a shortage of human beings that are willing to be treated like caged animals that can be poked, prodded and kick everytime someone hiding behind a computer has a brain fart (that includes the idiots in D.C. that make up rules about an industry they have no knowledge about).
Not to mention the DAC reports that are used as harrassment tools. Was the false info that is typically placed on them mentioned by the ATA? Those drivers are unfairly prevented from driving for another company. Perhaps, the ATA prefers foreign drivers. Funny that most people on this planet do not own cars and only learn to drive for the 1st time when they come to this country. Carnage on the highway with foreign drivers!
After 17 years of safe driving I got out. I hated it so much I found a factory job and took a 50% cut in my wages. I left because I am so fed up with of the over regulation by the government, the rude, incourteous and unsafe drivers, and list goes on and on and on. In my opinion the Mc Donald’s and me generation has taken over, what happend to the restarants? Their is no professionalism out there any more. All I see out there any more is a bunch of highly ill trained, unprofessional, “professional” steering wheel holders, and half of them don’t speak english.
I hope to god I never have to use my CDL to earn a living again. It will be a cold day in hell when I get behind the wheel of a CMV again
I drove for 20 years and put up with the shippers and receivers treating me like a second class citizen everywhere I went. I put up with the brokers treating me like I only had a junior high education. This is the major reason for the driver shortage. Treat drivers with respect and they will respond. We need to change the overall thinking about transportation. Without trucks nothing moves. The shippers and receivers need to treat everyone with respect, the lumper services need to go away and the goverment needs to regulate how much money the brokers get to keep instead of taking it away from the trucks. Only then will there be enough drivers to fill the vacancies.
I have been driving for 25 years, 16 as an owner operator. I bought my first truck after I got tired of being lied to by dispatchers. You have to remember that the ATA represents large carriers and the shippers who use them. The ATA was in favor of the weight limit being raised to 93,000 lb. and also speed limiters in trucks. Guess what companies would be in line first to purchase three axle trailers to handle the new weight limit? Not knocking any of the drivers here, but there would be a lot of inexperienced drivers on our highways driving those heavy rigs. No owner operators are going to purchase a tridum just to keep up unless the revenue is there to match the investment.
want to know where the problem lies with driver shortages. i think it government intrusion. ever since government started regulating licenses and figuring out ways to take them away, also all the taxes, requirements, and on and on it seems like the industry was better without all their intervention back in the early 70’s. back then i made over 400 a week and back then that was not chicken feed for a driver. yea the work was hard, no air cond. no power steering but also no hastel from government like there is today. the more laws and regulations the more problems. trucking companys used to regulate who they would hire . today it’s the insurance company and state that regulates it. over the years i have seen it getting worse till the independant is almost forbidden to run or run out of the business because of laws and regulations. one thing i have learned in life is that no government intervention is good because once they get ahold on something they don’t stop. been messing with trucks all my life, now i am a self employed mechanic with my own business working on them. always home now and more money per hour.
Yes…$40 K / year is “chump change” especially when you add the hours of “sit time” in to the equation. Truckers on the average make less than minimum wage. Couple that with being away from home for days (sometimes weeks) at a time and expected to live in an area that’s smaller in square footage than what’s allocated to people in prison…is it any wonder there’s a driver shortage?
Came out of your cave. Only caveman can really think this is the only country in whole world driving cars.
well, got ta tell you buddy, your just as big a crybaby. yes your now cryin about the rest of our attitudes towards the pressence of bad employers.
the problem as you well know about quiting , is getting the next job. quit a few and there isnt a next job. Makes me wonder how honest your quip is actually.
employees are protected by laws (not so much) only if still employed, “labor and industries, WA state”…. no enforsment of state laws against large trucking companies…cost of state revinew….
and this is the way truckin is ” thats truckin” attitude by other drivers who put up with it is a problem.
in other words, if you hear me cry faul, please dont cry about hgaving to listen to me again…..help me do somethin about the problem.
23 year driver. currently in road construction. hourly.. fighting for fair treatment and pay.
here the ploblem is getting paid for all the hours, the correct pay “prevailling vers, regular…”
and being treated as eaqually vallued workers, not transient disposable labor.
I right to the company about the existence of the problems on site. Often they have no idea, an are suprized that a forman or reginal super has put there company at risk of litigation and loss.
simply educat your bosses about the advantages of long term profit drivin employees and you will become a valued asset
after all the grass is always greener where it is watered the most
Reminds me of “The Grapes of Wrath” – – how the Joads strike out from dust bowl Ok seeking work in the fields of Californa after promises of 8000 jobs. They get to one camp and are told 5 cents a bushel at first. Once the owner gets enough pickers he adjusts the rate to 2.5 cents and everyone slowly quits because they can’t afford to feed their families for 2.5 cents. A whole new group of desperate migrants are allowed in at 5 cents a bushel and then cycled out again.
There’s always a shortage of pickers – – see how it works? It’s their business model. Keep cycling desperate and naive people through to keep wages down.
Point well taken. It is very likely the driver shortage is a combination of sub standard drivers and nefarious trucking companies. The last few years I drove ,after nearly fifty years I discovered the company owners etc. were people whose father’s I had taught the business. I owned my own trucks for many years,but I treated everyone else s as my own. Most drivers in this day and age don’t know what it is like to have to buy the tires they don’t check, drop ten -fifteen thousand or more dollars on an engine rebuild. I have driven some other owner’s trucks and put five hundred to six hundred thousand miles on them before they ever required breaking out a wrench. It is so easy to see the decadence of the quality of modern drivers,simply by listening to the c.b. radio ,which I came to despise many years ago. We see drivers park at a fuel island, fill the truck then go inside to eat ,shower ,and watch television all the while his truck blocks the fuel lane. Not to mention drivers taking up two parking spaces (just because the wheels have stopped does not mean it’s parked guys)Sometimes it seems I’m nit picking to others ,but when one comes from a totally different culture of drivers it’s embarrassing to be associated with the rotten apples of the crop. My drivers were treated very while when I was in business,but I did not condone gear grinders and brake smokers ,let alone project an undesirable image. We were there to do a job ,not to perpetuate the miscreant or Neanderthal species. Oh well that’s the rantings of an “old timer” . You honest to good companies keep up the good work. The inferior drivers will tend to gravitate towards the inferior companies. Maybe once they are all together we could swat em like one giant fly….. or maybe not.
Driving a truck isn’t the easiest job in the world. I started in 1996 (late in life) and was mature enough to know that I was using someone else’s property, not mine, so I took good care of it. Most (maybe) drivers couldn’t care less about the company’s equipment. When I went through driving scool, I noticed there were guys who were able to physically handle the job but were extremely immature (partying was top priority for them). The shortage of drivers exists for many reasons, all more or less valid, but the kiddies and nuts need to be weeded out, if possible.
otr 1995 thru 2010. I made it a point to ask shippers and consignee if they had trouble getting freight in or out of their facilitys and not one ever had any complaint as to availability of svc’s.
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What else it’s new in the world of “spin the facts” ?
Truth doesn’t matter anymore! It’s all about the craftiness of the one making clames spinning the facts.
This is evident in all aspects of our society. Politics and govenment, law and justice, business, media, everithing, even in the individual day to day living.
Spin, spin, spin till you loose it and go down crushing!
Mr. McQween, there used to be a time when people chose and learned a trade from the ones with a lifetime of experience and usually people stayed in that trade that they chose for a lifetime of commitment. That’s how one becomes good at something, by practicing an occupation and improving over the span of a lifetime.
These days we have a society formed with people highly educated and knowledgeable of many, many thing and trades, but, good at nothing. No dedication for anything except for self gratification……..and we all know that, this usually degrades to the lowest common denominator.
You say “the kiddies and nuts need to be weeded out”, and I appreciate that you also aded “if possible”.
I’m afraid that the society has reached a point of no return in the terminal velocity free fall towards total collapse.
It is said that you don’t need a parachute in order to skydive. Only if you want to skydive a second time. The problem here is that the society engaged in a free fall “skydive” without “packing a parachute”. These societal attitudes we started to see taking place, are only the beginning pains of this free fall towards an unavoidable demise.
Is there anything that can be done in order to reverse course?
That, I don’t know!
It would probably take a miracle, an act of God.
When you have a system where responsibility is shifted to the lowest common denominator, blame is shifted to the weakest defendant, where even the institutions that were invested with power refuse to take responsibility for anything, it creates an atmosphere where the individual gives up on the long term interests in favor of immediate self gratification and a careless existence.
You’d probably say that there are some that still care.
The problem is that, when those that care are in the minority, the weakest link is the entire system, and no amount of “getting rid of” will be enough to remedy the problem.
No amout of legislating and over regulating will bring any stability in the system as long as corrupion and special interest are the decisive factors.
In all honesty, if we were to breake down the process of regulating this industry(or anything else), you’ll find out that special interest lobbying plays the most important part in this process, with atmost disrespect to safty and moral practicess. We’re all dupped into believing that everithing it’s done for our good and safety. (The masses are the asses that will believe anything)
The truth is that you can’t regulate and legislate morality. Morality has to be a patr of ones caracter.
The problem is that, in every aspect of life, including business and yes, the trucking industry, imoral practicess are the norm and responsibility it’s always shifted to “someone else”.
PS: If ya’ll think that what I’ve wrote is a bunch of gobbledygook, then, read it again and give it a little thought before you disregard it!
I have been out here for almost 30 years and I am hanging it up. When I started, you and I could go from point A to Point B and have a ball every step of the way. Now, it is just
plain hateful whereever you go. The Customer’s are hateful, The Companies are hateful, and the other drivers are hateful! We lost something somewhere people. I feel sorry for the new guys just starting out…they will never know what “the good Ol Days” were like.
This last 5 years I am now classified as a “Job-Jumper”….These companies lie thru their teeth to get you in a truck and then everything changes. When they can not provide everything they promised you and you tell them take that job and stick it…they really act surprised and this amazes me. My Daddy always told me that a man is only as good as his word…if his word is no good, that man is no good, and the Company behind him is no good.
You might want to keep that in Mind during your next interview.
Hope y’all have a good one and continue to keep that Rubber side down !!!
Maybe we need a one day national strike to get the greedy companys attention??
Or parhaps a whole week??
Yea that ought to do it.
Steve I hear you ..I tried to get out of trucking over a year. Sold my last truck couldn’t take the constant degrading of rates ..And in my area of the country ..What I saw was the devaluing of the worth of our labor as more and more immigrants are willing to do it for nothing. Sorry that’s not being cruel that’s just fact. To them they think for short time they are living the American dream ..Well until the motor goes .. Doing the constant squeezing of a drop of fuel spending money hand over fist for super singles, or reducing your speed to a turtle pace isn’t going to make up a Jason or Chad at CH Rob you saying well I got 50 other non or barely speaking English drivers that do these loads all day for scraps…..Fine …Fight what …A lost cause.. Or some major truck line that is doing nothing more than supplying a human with no place else to go in life a rolling apartment…No that’s not being a trucker that’s just being a under paid idiot who it cost around 10% of what they earn just to be out on the road today…Now how stupid is that…The three major issues that I have seen degrade trucking to this point have been …(1) Truck went from being a work environment to a home on wheels …(2) The drivers never standing up and saying …No this is what I would need to be paid ..To be away from home… (3) The list of endless useless brokers who do nothing more than supply depressed rates to the industry… And finally .Each and every trucker should stop for one minute and give this some thought…Do you think for one minute any member on the board of directors of any corporation in America who’s product you are going to haul for delivery to their customer ..Would come to your house sit out in the driveway for hours waiting for you. and not get paid..No never would happen..And that goes right back to my first point…Being paid per driving mile is only one aspect of what compensation should be to the driver. And until people wake up it will only get worse .
Your points are well taken…I have comments on the bottom ..But I also like you believe that one of the major aspects to the disintegration of the industry came when a “Truck” went from a work tool and work place to being used as a homeless housing project. Yes I often get people upset with the comment, but it is the simple truth.
Politically, there are limitations on labors right to bargain collectively. However, truck drivers are very smart and resourceful. It CAN change. It MUST change. Long Haul Truck Drivers = Annual Salaries + Percentage Pay Per Load (nothing less than equating to a $50,000 annual salary). John Stuart Mill said, “Every great social movement must experience three stages: ridicule, discussion, adoption.” I’m at the third stage. I’ve been ridiculed by my slave owners (National Truck Driving Crime Syndicates). I’ve discussed it. Now, is the time….it needs to be adopted. Truck drivers are very intelligent. It’s just been so long and so hard to consider the collaborative efforts to form and agree on a good and true union practice. If every USA long haul driver had to have their engines replaced on Monday….by the following Wednesday, national trucking crime syndicates would be very willing to negotiate. What happened??? Everyone of my drivers needs a new engine and can’t move freight. Oh, well, what’s the problem? We want Annual Salaries + Percentage Pay Per Load (or a negotiable $50,000 annual salary)…or our diesel engines are going to stay broken…
And get it written in a legal contract. No messing around. Get back to your home terminals and get written salary contracts from your slave owners (National Truck Driving Crime Syndicates). Read the contracts to each other to confirm the validity….and don’t give up. Truck drivers are some of the smartest people I have ever had the privilege of knowing. I will never return to the trucking industry because the national trucking industries will kill me….but those working truck drivers who are vital and fundamental to our USA domestic policies have the right to move this mountain and demand appropriate blue collar wages and legal management through honest dispatchers and qualified fleet managers. You want Annual Salaries + Percentage Pay Per Load = nothing less than a $50,000 annual salary.
I totally understand. With worse expected divergent QE’s in 2013 comparative of the 2o07 Bear Market…the floor is dropping for our lovely USA national trucking crime syndicates with SEC investitures. International investors have lost too much to regain any false sense of trust in the volatility of USA trucking investments on the SEC market. Their investments in USA publicly traded trucking companies are gone…forever…they won’t get them back. 2013 is bleak. In 2013, less USA long haul drivers (trucking slaves) on the road means more success for uniting a unionized agreement to strike. It can happen quicker and more effectively with less USA long haul drivers actually on the road. When there is such a shortage of drivers, is when a unionized agenda can be more easily agreed between the drivers. If every USA long haul driver needs a new engine on Monday, national trucking companies will get nervous by Wednesday and will need to agree to negotiations to get their freight moving again. Long Haul Drivers want $ 50,000 annual or better.
I’ve been driving trucks for seventeen years. Everything has been relatively ok, I guess. Must be so because I can’t remember a day of it. Every day in a truck has cost me one day of a normal, memorable life. I’m not complaining. It was my decision to drop out of society and hit the road. Back then I referred to that as freedom. I just want the wanna be’s to understand what they’re wishing for, not freedom but self incarceration in a mobile prison cell. I’m 55 years old and I keep wondering when I’m finally going to be fed up with this so-called ‘profession’. It looks more and more like the U.S. DOT and Public Citizen are going to make my mind up for me.
AMEN BROTHER. when companies pay real safe drivers what they are worth there wil be no shortage .if the government want’s to do something for drivers {which is doubtful} they should ban brokers ,or regulate what percent they can keep,as it stands now super brokers like ch robinson charge full price rates to customers 2.50 plus per mile and pay the people who haul the freight a measley .85cpm to 1.25 cpm and they keep the fuel surcharge . now big companies are following the lead and paying owner ops crap pay while they charge full price and tell owner ops. load pays 1.50 cpm plus fsc. and they take an additional 25%out of the rate .they put newbies through school give them a job where they make 400.00 per week and they think they got it made. at this rate there will be no owner opps. because we cannot keep our trucks safe ,because we cannot afford to maintain them when fuel cost’s 80 cpm where is the maintence coming from.
to all drivers company and owner operators ,when you are getting fuel take a look at the trucks that are fueling ,the tires are bad on half of them ,leaking oil,beat to heck and back,trailers are ragged ,tires are bad, lights out ,where does it end. i have seen big companies with ragged equipment, there are driverrs who when coming up on construction speed up and lay on airhorn.Trucks take as long to stop as they do to get up to speed,and yet drivers are in such a hurry they drive too fast ,operate unsafely and after 2-3 tickets they arre gone ,if they don’t hurt themselves or someone else. this insanity will not stop until someone important gets killed by a former mcdonalds employee who becomes a driver. Don’t get me wrong i believeeveryone should better themselves ,and with proper training become good safe drivers.But big companies do not care about safety,they care about profit and that is wht they when they have great trainers they will not keep them.when an employee has been around long enough to recive benifits and more compensation than a new hire they are expendable,just like safety and our lives!when profit is more important than safety something is seriously wrong.
driver shortage? do loke everyother industry, hire then train, truck gods think people are magically trained and given experience at some truck driver training candyland and show up at your door perfectly prepared, name another industry or profession like this. if your insurance doesnt cover new drifers spend more money on insurance. few newly licenced drifers get work. the rest discover an industry that has no mechanism for intake that does not involve abandoning your wife and children fir a life on the road. the drivers are there but you wont hire them
My Fleet Manager tried to coerce me to driver faster in construction zones, traffic and road hazards. When I told him (in detail) that driving faster would be extremely dangerous and against all DOT regulations, he was hostile and refused to pay me for my load deliveries. (Unfortunately, this situation is common and truck drivers have to argue for hours to get paid a few dollars that the national trucking crime syndicates refuse to pay them.) Furthermore, most drivers I worked with over the road were in another similar situation with me; we received false W-2’s and pay statements of income that was never issued to us. To reduce their own federal tax liability, the national trucking crime syndicates issue income statements to their drivers of income that has never left their Operating Accounts or was diverted. The pervasive criminal activity and commonality of it in the national trucking companies is not tolerated by new drivers….or new investors. USA national trucking companies have dug their own graves. There won’t be anymore QE’s for national trucking companies. The feds are fed up. Now is the time, for truck drivers to take control and make demands for appropriate blue collar wages. No more slavery. Slavery was abolished a few years ago in the USA.
If anyone doubts that having good drivers and retaining them is up to the companies, you should read the editorial in the September 2012 issue of HDT (Heavy Duty Trucking) about Nussbaum Transportation. It seems Nussbaum has dialed in on the fact that drivers are what makes a trucking company money. So instead of reducing wages and cutting back on long hauls during this economic recession, they offered a mix of regional and long hauls to their drivers along with pay raises, incentives and more training! Guess what? Their profits are UP!!! Other companies should take note.
i hear a lot of discussion about pay, wait time ,and lack of respect. that is in every career in the US. rich man dances while the poor man pays the band. raising the weight limit to 96,000 would be a good thing. our tires are rated at roughly 1t 120,000. we are in the logging business. we would be legal most of the time at that weight- not always. my son owns 3 logging crews. he respects me but not what i do. he is no different from all the loggers or trucking companies. i told him yo drive for 3 weeks then tell me hoe easy it is. i live in the town that used to be the home of mcclendon trucking. ole man glenn would be in the resturant at 4:30 eating oatmeal and we would talk trucking. he had 12 dispatchers and 450 trucks. he knew more about where his trucks were than 75% of his dispatchrts put together. hev also made them go back on the road for 5 weeks each year. he said to keep them abreast with what the people that supported them were up against. yall behave.
The solution is simple make driver subject to the same rules as the rest of the work force
As a small fleet owner I appreciate my drivers and compensate them to the best of my ability and would be happy to pay them more then the 50k many of you have mentioned if I could
The fact that drivers are exempt from most wage and hr rules lowers the playing field for all .
I understand everybody has to start somewhere but everyone that goes to work for the swifts of the world drives it down for all of us and the only way is to make us all adhere to treating folks with the value the deserve 40hr week and time and a half would change the whole industry for the better
I think every truck company should be UNION !!!!!!!!
Wages would be good . Good health insurance. And good home time. And no more sleeper trucks !!!! Company would have to put you up at HOTEL !!! Only day cabs !!!! 56 cents a mile. You break down 23.00 $ a hour. The companys will get you going really fast !! Payed Hoildays. Payed personal days and sick days 5 sick 5 personal ….. Thats how you get companys to respect you !!!! If it wasn’t for you they wouldn’t have there nice little chairs playing golf on there computer !!!! While your out there busting your butt !!!!! Also they would pay for your health insurance not you !!! Just think 20.00 dollar co – pay and not 123.00 a week out of your check for a family plan !!!!
Hang in in there ATA. The human genome has been almost entirely mapped. Great strides have been made in bio-engineering. Your meat robots are on the way with latest version of HOS pre-installed.
There is no driver shortage. Drivers are a commodity like hay, corn and soybeans. When there is a drought the value of the commodity surges>driver remuneration had not surged and in fact it hasn’t even kept pace with inflation. Fleets suffer from driver churn. If fleets would spend more time scrutinizing applicants and hiring qualified applicants their churn would subside. Because fleets have that “meat in the seat” mentality they have this constant cycling of drivers. One more point about there not being a driver shortage>If in fact there was a driver shortage why would carriers allow their equipment to be detained at docks for extended periods of unproductive time?
That is how the CDL school mills flourish, suck them in and spit them out; repeat the process as much as possible to the companies benefit.
One of the most frequent questions I was asked 2 decades ago when I drove OTR was, “You’re a truck driver?”
Followed by, “I’m not used to seeing clean shaven, dressed well drivers’!”
Quite simply one of the biggest reasons’ I got out of it was from the lack of respect. Listen, you crap out of the same hole I do. You’re no better than me regardless of what you think.
THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF DRIVERS !!!!
There is no shortage of drivers !!!!! i believe those whom know whats going on out here are tired of all the goverment regulations, and companies not paying as they should, knowing if you dont do it someone else will!!!! that we are getting tired of working long hrs. for free. as for the people whom say dont let a company step on you? quit !!!! i,d like to know what planet he fell off . that makes no different to the companies.. there is always going to be a cheaper person out there, whom will do it. hey let the goverment find drivers, they want to run the show. maybe some day i,ll be able to get back into it, as for now i,m making more money where i,m at. after 20 plus yrs. of safe driving// i got sick of making someone else rich.
Never let a driver who will call you a whiner have any credibility…… Instead ask them to make the situation better…you will find that they are part of the corporate mentality that says” I’ve got mine,too bad for you” , a way of thinking of corporate America. Yes, there are a lot of old and new drivers that trash the equipment that belongs to some one else. I cannot count the times I have detailed a truck so I could ‘live’ in it. Some one who will stand for nothing will fall for anything, including the corporate line. You can be pro-active, or reactive. If a truck stop will not tow a truck out of the fuel lines, then you know where the loyalty lies……, to the almighty buck.
NAFTA brought us the new line of business, global, one world trucking. You see the future before you. You do not see a real Congressional investigation into trucking. That is because Congress has instigated the crush of regulations, promoting the infantile propaganda that the public, as a whole, can be perfectly safe, on our motoring highways. Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act that keeps you, as a driver from a fair wage. With Congress in their pockets, the deep corporate pockets, the media and the doo-gooders and their dirty capes, America has become the country that many of you have expressed in your writings. Arrogant , narcissistic, entitled. The standing president was re-elected on those premises. This is not a republic, because those who will not be pro-active, are in-active. We have become the third world of Socialists, our enemies see it and are literally laughing.
Do Nothing, and Get Nothing
Talk Is Cheap except when your are a Politician
Then you must spend millions to do nothing.
What kind of Frog doesn’t take pride in his Pond?
If you have been in the business long you should know that the ATA is not about drivers but companies. They are on the same side, and have little or know intention of doing anyhting that will promote better conditions for drivers. Lobbyist are not on our side. If they where they would have abolished by the mile pay years ago.
OLD WOLF, elegant and plainly spoken.
Totally agree.
Been truckin since early 80’s over the road and retired in 2008 over the road. ALL DONE! Truck Lines only think of themselves but there is a few out there that are top drawer to work for and don’t just think of themselves. Best advice is to go on your first instinct when at the orientation and just leave and never explain.
If you are a student figure on 6 months on the road. After that let them know and quietly leave with notice to find one that will get you home at least 1 time a month. I can think of a few off the top of my head but I would rather not say. Good Luck!
Home once a month? Omg… Anyway, I’ve been trucking since the early 80’s too. I argue there is NO driver shortage. There are plenty of companies out there that wish they could get and keep good drivers and are crying in they’re milk because they can’t. That’s where the report of this driver shortage comes from. Companies that believe they could do so much more if only they could get more drivers. Well, if they didn’t treat drivers like they were a replaceable component of the truck they may could go somewhere. Anymore driving is just a nightmare. On the one hand the states, courts and cops have turned giving tickets out into big business. On the other the insurance companies and federal government has turned getting tickets into a career ending event. Drivers have no privacy anymore, no respect, no sympathy and no freedom. We are slaves tethered to the truck by a short leash and whipped any time any thing goes wrong. Who would want to drive a truck in today’s environment?
The ATA should have commissioned Bob Costello to write an honest account of the national USA truck driving crisis, titled, “Racketeering In Truck Driving.” Bob might have won some votes if he told the truth. USA national trucking crime syndicates are dealing with the ramifications of their own actions. Trucking companies, such as, C.R. England, Werner, Swift…etc. steal income from their drivers and provide false financial statements for public investitures. Now, senior truck drivers who bought the bullet and invested in the USA trucking criminal syndicates are wondering why they aren’t getting paid dividends. Also, the slave owners of the USA national trucking crime syndicates have lost their Quantitative Easements….and their insurance companies don’t want to insure the USA trucking crime syndicates anymore because they have fraudulently blames drivers for their own liability….and it is becoming a little bit too much of a problem with pending federal criminal indictments against several slave owners who thought they could get away with it….the slave owners who possess main investments in the USA national truck driving crime syndicates might be out on parole in 2025 if criminally indicted appropriately under Sarbanes Oxley and SOX compliance. While pending criminal indictments are occurring in federal courts; long haul drivers (trucking slaves) need to unite and gain control over demands for appropriate blue collar wages, honest and qualified dispatchers and fleet managers and appropriate health insurance…..Long Haul Drivers need to start uniting now….when the USA trucking crime syndicates are at an all time low….they have lost their QE’s (federal subsidies) and their investors have disappeared…these national USA trucking crime syndicates have no recourse if drivers start requiring fair employment regulations and pay. The Feds have cut off their supply of free money to support what was supposed to be US domestic policy…..but the USA national crime syndicates turned federal subsidies into their own pockets to establish illegal investitures on the SEC – Security Exchange Commission. The SEC won’t let it fly….these companies are in trouble…and it is not the drivers fault…..
I totally agree. I enjoy trucking but the pay is poor when yoy cobsider the actual work I do without compensation.
I really liked truck driving, too. I would have been driving OTR for the rest of my life. I had just completed truck driving training in early 2012 and, incidentally, I was a good new driver. However, not unlike other new drivers, I left the trucking industry because of the vast corruption in administration and management and the subsequent cost of it to trucker’s incomes and their very own lives. The mandated Federal Rules (10 hr, 11 hr, 13 hr…etc. etc.) and federal fiscal subsidies (i.e. Quantitative Easements) were implemented for the protection of USA long haul truck drivers, who risk their very lives for U.S. Domestic Policy. (U.S. Domestic Policy is totally dependent on our national USA long haul truck drivers for the transport of raw materials and goods within the regional continent of North America.) Nevertheless, several U.S.A. trucking company slave owners, who are the major investors in USA trucking crime syndicates, decided to “pocket” federal subsidies and use it for their own illegal financial gain. Furthermore, the trucking slave owners convinced many senior drivers to invest in the illegal process, too. These syndicated methods left the average long haul truck driver’s penniless, homeless and unable to support the domestic average US family household income. The Feds didn’t intend the implemented Federal Rules to be an obstacle for drivers; however, the trucking company owners used the USA trucking Federal Rules and made it a further expense to drivers….truck drivers who risk their lives every single day so the average American can buy food and groceries…..not to mention even, water. With over a 100% USA truck driver attrition rate in the past 18 months, the USA trucking company slave owners have pending criminal indictments against them in federal courts. All new drivers left the industry and took older drivers with them…..we truck drivers will sooner wash floors at McDonalds before we let these wealthy slave owners use us, anymore. The remaining long haul driver’s on the road should, now, recognize the importance and strategize to acquire fair incomes and management; because they are still risking their lives to complete US domestic policy logistics and transportation for our country and they are still grossly underpaid.
Furthermore, the privatized trucking schools are invested and owned by the USA slave owners of trucking company crime syndicates and issue loans to new truck driver students under false pretense. New loans are divulged through legitimate banking institutions under the presumption that the new student driver will pay ½ the loan and their employer (the trucking company slave owners) will pay ½ the loan. The loan arrangements are never under contract and the trucking company crime syndicates usually refuse to remit their portion of the payments to establish the presumption agreement that was issued under “false pretense” to the new truck driver student.
Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Werner, Mr. and Mrs. C.R. England, Mr. and Mrs. Swift, all of you men and women who are major investors and owners in the USA trucking crime syndicates:
JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN’T KNOW, IT IS CALLED “BANK FRAUD.” BANK FRAUD IS A VERY BIG “NO, NO.” CHECK WITH BIG BROTHER ABOUT THE CRIMINAL RAMIFICATIONS OF YOUR ACTIONS. MAYBE YOU WILL GET PAROLE IN 2025…MAYBE NOT.
1) I believe ATA is the problem who speaks for the trucking companies who are forcing drivers to accept 15/hr for 60-70/wk. companies such as JB Hunt are setting the wage trend and other companies follow.
2) the HOS hours despite the old thinking of the past, are NOT a hindrance, they are the only thing that is protecting drivers from legally not working more and therefor obligated the carrier a stop line. If say HOS were to have fallen to 10hrs drive time as suggested it would of forced carriers to provide a living wage within a shorter time frame of work. Before if you were to drive 70 hours the compensation lucrative by today’s standards but today shippers and carriers are paying roughly a uniform rate all across the board. This isn’t the 70’s, stop thinking the HOS are the problem- it’s the shippers and carriers wages at 15/hr to 20/hr already taking into account that the productivity of a driver should be 12hrs a day. Anything less from a driver and the carrier is not utilizing maximum efficiency from its driver. Therefor we’re no different than asses following a carrot dangling from a string in front of us…. ” come on, come on- hurry up with that load so you can get that other load. Come on” where all and all you will never bring home any more than $1250/wk if your a company driver or $1,800 / wk for an O/O today in 2013.
3) double brokering, it’s interpretation has to be revised. If CH. Robinson get awarded 15 loads from Walmart and JB. Hunt comes in and does 8 or 9 of the 15 Lds it is suppressing competition and wages. Same goes for Hub group and it’s Mode transportation division.
4) make it illegal for a carrier to lend its MC number to O/o who are given schedules, start times, etc. this also maintains driver compensation at a standard across the board of the trucking industry.
5) unions, we need them back. They are a necessary evil . Trucking is a skilled craft and wages have not only been stagnant in 20 years they have resinded and to cause further insult to injury, the cost of living , due primarily to inflation, has reache risen to a level were drivers are exiting the sector in droves. Yet corporate profit has increased every quarter since 2009. Corporate compensation has risen to absolutely unheard levels …. It’s disgusting.
AMEN!!!!! Trucking companies need to wake up and smell the real world! Without us “DUMB DRIVERS” there would be “NO” trucking companies! We would be back in the horse and buggy days!!!
the trucking companies in north america under pay and treat drivers badly,they make the highways very dangerous for everyone .i came here from australia and drove long haul five years . i got out of that bad life .i hope you all go bankrupt . you dont deserve any drivers ,
In 2006 in Canada a driver shortage was averted by a downturn and bringing in large numbers of cheap drivers. many of these drivers drove for 2 to 5 years before their families got here. These drivers are now leaving for other jobs after E logs came in as many were running over their legal hours after sitting waiting get loaded and unloaded anywhere from 2 to 7 hours unpaid time plus time lost for truck repairs. One federal labour person told me in 2006 a O.T.R. driver need to make 1.9 times our min. wage (which is $14 cd. or $11.25us per hour). A Costco employee told me last week that a lobby group from the U.S. was told that our gov. wanted to bring those wage rates before bringing E logs into Canada. This will keep us from having a truck driver shortage.