but a #### good and infomative one.

The old Central thread was just about as long.
Then JJ started this one and eventually everyone moved over here.

I was giving a best case scenario on the 65%. I would rather be wrong on the positive side and not the negative. Especially since we have allot of new drivers on here.
And I am sure allot of the ones that leave the company they start with go to another OTR company, and quite a few will go to local construction type jobs and others. So I gave 65% as a basis of those that kept driving. It should be fairly close. Though many will only drive for a couple of years and then go on to greener pastures.

They keep talking up this "driver shortage" thing.
I am still in the group that believe that this country has never had a driver shortage. Just a lack of driver pay.
If the pay was high enough then they would have no problem at all retaining drivers or getting new ones to stay. But with the work and hours the average OTR driver puts in, making less than 50k a year is a joke. And that is just to start.
Starting driver pay has only gone up about 10 cents per mile since I started driving 19 years ago. So at 120,000 miles per year (which is easy to get), that is only an increase in pay of 12,000 per year.
Inflation has caused prices of everything to go up at around 4% per year that whole time, and we have not even tried to keep up.
I mean, the average price of a car has gone up almost 20k in that time frame. And all food prices and housing etc has done the same.

So they may be starting to have a hard time finding drivers soon. But it is not due to any shortage of drivers. It is all about the pay.
They have at least a few million drivers that have a class A, doing other work as I write this. They would love to get back in a truck. If the pay was worth it.
But instead of raising pay the ATA will do what they did in Canada. They will beg the government for more work Visa's. So they can hire foreign nationals to work at cheap rates. Since they cannot find enough Americans to do the work for this pay.
I give it 2 years max, and you will see this occur.

Might be a lot of UNEMPLOYED Canadians applying for those work VISAS as they are getting pushed out of their jobs North of the Border by the Um NEW CANADIANS

That is why I mentioned Canada, since they already pulled this stunt.
Then it will happen here, and we will eventually be applying for jobs in Mexico. Since all the Mexican drivers will have filled our seats.
I have a nice spot near the Ocean picked out to live south of the border lol.

Originally Posted by ChromeDome

That is why I mentioned Canada, since they already pulled this stunt.
Then it will happen here, and we will eventually be applying for jobs in Mexico. Since all the Mexican drivers will have filled our seats.
I have a nice spot near the Ocean picked out to live south of the border lol.

I am thinking you might be running under a new company name of Cabo trucking or something to that toon, lol

Always wanted to TRUCK on a SMALL island , then sit and brag how I did a COAST to COAST turnaround 3 times a week.

Do you think the Central trainer would let me wear earplugs to protect my hearing?

When would you need to worry about loud noises?
Maybe when you are outside the truck and inspecting, or working in the yard backing.
But otherwise when driving it is not loud. Trucks are pretty darn quiet when the windows are up. Especially the pro-star's.