Quite often at TruckersReport, we find ourselves relying on statistics and studies that have a lot to do with “the industry,” but very little to do with actual drivers. A study on driver turnover cites how many seats are left unfilled and how many more millions of tons of cargo there are to be moved this year over last, but most fail to hear from the people to whom those statistics matter the most: truckers. A new survey has been conducted and published as a joint effort between many different groups and individuals including Desiree Wood, Hope Rivenburg (Champion of “Jason’s Law”), and just shy of 4000 truckers nationwide.
The title of the study is “2013 Safe Truck Parking Survey,” but the information found within reflects on more than just the truck parking issue. The data collected includes a breakdown of the surveyed truckers by many categories including gender, age, carrier type, and many, many more designations.
Some of the information inside surprised even us at TruckersReport. For example, one page tells us that of the drivers surveyed, only 57% were paid by the mile. A full 20% of drivers said they were paid a percent of the load, 9% said they were paid hourly, and 10% said they were paid by the load.
Another page gave a breakdown of the amount of time drivers spend on the road at a time, showing that 11% of drivers spend more than 2 months on the road at a time without going home.
Take a few moments and check out the slide show below.
Next Story: If You Bought It, A Truck Brought 73.7% Of It
Source: slideshare
Are the majority of drivers really 11+ year veterans?
I’m an 18yr veteran….62mph truck, and I run right at 150,000 every yr….always have. I’ll never say it is easy to do.
11+ year veterans who drive 125k miles/year?
So true. And Wal-Mart is the biggest offender of them all. 3+ hours to unload in some many cases even when you tell them ahead of time you are short on time. And when they finally finish you tell them you’re out of time, it’s “too damn bad, move or be towed”. And it isn’t like they don’t have the space to spare in most of these DCs. They just want to be dicks because “that’s Wal-Mart policy”. Factor in their stores have actually started putting in barriers trees rocks etc just to keep trucks out. Why do we even deliver their crap?
While I agree on your point concerning unloading time and being kicked off the property, truckers have only themselves to blame. While most are good, enough ruin it for everyone with their improper disposal of trash, urine containers and feces.
Just look at most truck stops after everyone gets up and leaves in the morning.
There was a solution in the original CSA regs that provided shippers and receivers that took more than two hours from the appointment time had to provide parking for those trucks out of time.
But Walmart got that one out before it ever became law.
It use to be fairly easy to get around in the days of paper logs, but now EOBRs have created a mess.
to add to that since I used to deliver to a Wal-Mart DC if you miss an appointment, they won’t let you in and you have to make another appointment.
makes you want to say, “hey, you order it, if you don’t want it, i’ll take it to somebody that does”
It make s you really Want a dump trailer.
I had a customer pull that one on me once. I told them I would be putting their freight into a US Customs Service warehouse at the nearest airport. (All airports handling international fights have them.) They would just need to wait until Customs sent them the paperwork after the load was released and pay the bond (refunded if no other claims after 6 months) to get their freight. I was unloaded within an hour and banned form that facility. Broke my heart.
Let us add how bad the pay stinks. Most truckers struggle to get 700 a week by my conversations with other truckers after taxes and expenses they are actually coming home with around $500 a week. With some exceptions this industry is by far the worst paying. I know some do way better than this but not by following the rules.
IT’S NOT BY NOT FOLLOWING THE RULES, Robert. THE SECRET is to NOT HAUL CHEAP LOADS as an Independent. Don’t know about company drivers as I have never been one.
I run electronic logs….a 62mph truck. And I still put down close to or at 150,000mi per yr. I don’t fool around in truckstops or waste time. I’m out here to earn a living. When I see a group of drivers, even at my own company complaining about miles, I wonder why aren’t they out tryn to deliver their loads early, then *resting* to be ready to bust their ass on the next load. Instead, they stand around in a pity party, and then when they get a load, they are to tired to drive. Go figure. I’m no supertrucker. I just do my job and spend every spare moment looking for ways to make up for what the constant changes to our regulations take away from me.
I have driven over 20yrs now but the ELOG Mandate let me see the “writing on the wall” and I got off the road and drive a Switcher at a Fortune 500 Company. This company does not allow overnight parking and does mandate appointment times however, they are pretty good in getting drivers unloaded and if someone does not show up or gets there early/without appointment will work them in as soon as possible. I still encounter drivers on a frequent basis that show up with less than an hour on their logs and have no recourse but to tell them to either wait in line or go away and come back the next day as much as I hate to do that.
I find that a great number of drivers have as much experience as this survey shows but they drive for smaller companies. The larger ones (Swift, SNI, Ozark, Western Express) rarely have anyone with more than 6 or 7 yrs on the road. The bigger the company the less experience the drivers have.
BTW: everything in the survey is very interesting but one thing it did not concentrate on enough is the pay. 20+yrs after I started in this industry I make the same money. Inflation is there but my pay in real dollars has declined every year. Couple that with extended time away from home and of course experienced drivers are leaving. Who wants to work for less pay year after year?
It also does not concentrate enough on shippers/receivers. As long as companies will keep you there 4-6hrs after an appointment with no repercussions drivers are going to continue to have all of the problems mentioned. One company that comes in to the plant I work at gets unloaded at their appointment times every time. Why? Their contract states that if they are held more than 1 hr after the set apt. the plant is charged $150/hr. Equipment breaks down, things happen we all know that. But we can also point at the companies that are notorious for requiring delv/pu times but unload when they feel like it. Associated Grocers anyone?
They’re able to detain drivers because it doesn’t cost anybody but the driver. If drivers were paid for all of their work, by the hour like everyone else, we probably wouldn’t even need H.O.S. regulations. As you point out, when it does cost them money, they get you loaded/unloaded, pronto. As it is, everybody feels free to waste the driver’s time because nobody is paying for it.
I see truck drivers as their own worse enemy, which is resulting in parking areas being closed. You only have to look around & see all the piss bottles & trash left behind when a trucker pulls away. A city lot I used to park in while waiting for a delivery to a Wal Mart distribution center in New Mexico, was closed down due to driver neglect. The city even went as far to putting dumpsters in the area for truckers, however, they still continued to trash the area. It was finally fenced off. This trashing doesn’t stop in the parking lots either, it carry’s on into trashing the rest rooms & showers as well. All of this is cost to a business, & it’s the lay person who is responsible for cleaning up our mess. We all need to remember, be courteous to our fellow truckers, those are the ones who get hurt by our actions. Yes, I to get pissed off at poor service, however, I have to remind myself, it wasn’t my fellow trucker following behind me who was responsible.
They love making up regulations so much, they ought to mandate that manufacturers equip all sleeper trucks with an APU, and something to piss in. Instead, the go at it backwards with anti-idling laws. And mandate that truck stops and rest areas have facilities for disposal. Sheesh, they do it for RVs.
Instead of blaming the victim, let’s make living in a truck a little easier. You can bet that that would be how they’d approach the problem for any other group. Truckers are easy to ignore, or push around, because we’re not organized.
The parking shortage is all about the game of cost shifting.
1. Major truckload carriers (Hunt, Schnieder, Con-way, Swift, Prime etc, have fleets with 10’s of thousands of trucks, and do not own or lease the infrastructure to park them, certainly not in the operational areas they frequent. They dump the problem wherever and save $millions because of it.
2. Natso has successfully spread enough money around Congress to prevent the commercializing of rest areas directly on the interstate, fearing the competition to the truckstops at the exits. But the # of them is declining rapidly, the independent truckstop operator with full service parking, restaurant etc is almost extinct.
3. The state highway authorities have had a policy for many years to control all access to all highways. Theoretically for safety reasons they have systematically eliminated “wide spots” which used to be common where trucks could park. Localities are even worse.
It is against the law in Irvine CA to “sleep in a motor vehicle” of any kind anywhere in the city limits, even on private property. The cops there routinely enforce this, as do most cities in Southern Calif
1 Solution:
Increase the $550 federal use tax to $1000 on sleeper equipped vehicles. Use the extra money for many decentralized mini parking areas on all major roads. This is how the Europeans address the issue.
2 Solution:
Allow the development of commercial rest areas( like in Europe) with paid parking for trucks. Use your ez-pass transponder to open the gate and cameras to bust the people who drive through it and destroy the property.
I have other ideas, contact info above.