Misinformed business owners and consumers blaming truck drivers for the supply chain problems are way off base. Despite a 2019 Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) report that concluded, “there is no driver shortage in the trucking industry” and White House pressure to run containers out of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach 24-7, the industry needs more qualified CDL holders. The true facts are that truckers are the long-term solution to supply chain bottlenecks, not the problem.
What the BLS report fails to articulate is that even a robust workforce requires a growing number of truck drivers to haul freight regionally and across the country. In recent years, retirements and drivers shifting to the comforts of last-mile positions thinned the ranks of OTR truckers already down 61,000 men and women. The consumer goods boom coming out of the pandemic has exacerbated that number to upwards of 80,000, according to the American Trucking Associations (ATA). Recent reports coming out of truck driver training schools support the ATA’s position and highlight the shortsightedness of the BLS report.
“We have trucking companies calling me every single day, calling our schools every single day, trying to figure out how to hire more drivers,” Brad Ball of Roadmaster Drivers School reportedly said.
Truckers across the country have been voicing similar frustrations about impediments that have plagued their efforts for decades. Delays at ports and freight yards too often cut into their federally-mandated hours of service restrictions. That detention time and logistical SNAFUs reduce truck driving efficiency. Bill Aboudi, president of AB Trucking, reportedly expressed his feelings about unnecessary West Coast port delays.
“It’s the terminal operators that are not managing the workforce properly and don’t realize that they had a problem with a computer system until it’s too late,” Aboudi reportedly said. “It’s often the longshoremen and the truck drivers that pay the price and are forced to sit because of the terminal operators’ mistakes.”
CDL professionals in California generally agree that wait times have become excessive. And some trucking company owners have arrived at the conclusion delays are caused by a labor shortage.
“I don’t think the terminals have enough workers,” Antoine Freeman, owner of YNOT Express, reportedly said. “We used to arrive early, get in line and try to get out of there before it got real busy. Now, you show up early and wait in line for hours, and if you miss your appointment time because of delays, you have to start the process all over again.”
But even if California ports and terminals had sufficient staffing, warehouse space shortages and other logistics congestion have a suffocating effect on freight movement. An overwhelmed supply chain may function less quickly, but the only solution is to get out of truck drivers’ way and let them do their job. Freight doesn’t haul itself.
Pay them more money 🤑 otherwise by cutting corners by hiring just anyone off the street will lead to more accidents and death by inexperienced and/ or poorly trained drivers. Saving $1 by losing $3 is going to lead and has already lead to disaster.
When was the last time the federal government got out of ANYBODY’s way? Expecting it to do so in this situation, even though every intelligent, knowledgeable person knows that is the solution, is just a pipe dream. California continues to enact more and more legislation making trucking a less attractive job there. This is the result. Even if the products could get off the ships, who can afford them today with prices increasing so fast under chairman babbling bumbles?
I agree with Jude. I know, that’s scary. Two truck drivers agreeing with each other! But the government needs to go set down and stay out of the way for a change. Why are those people enacting laws when they don’t know the first thing about the industry other than what some so-called “expert” told them? Ask us. We will tell you the simple and most cost-effective path to ending this problem. Don’t add to it. Just take what we tell you and do it.
LET’S GO BRANDON!!!!
FJB!!!!!
That’s right. The Government needs to get out the way and let truck drivers do they job. Government is the problem not the drivers.
The problem is shipper/receiver taking too long to load. 9 hrs to pick up 15 pallets and 6 hrs to get it off loaded
Broker transparency is an issue for independents when it comes to driver shortages! Diesel in some areas are $4 a gallon but freight rates continue to drop! Carrier’s have all the equipment, does the work and takes all the risk, yet has to bargain with a foul mouth pencil pusher about rates! Brokers will lie and tell shippers there’s a driver shortage because they cannot get loads moved for pennies and that causes a driver shortage in itself!
Drop??? Rates are crazy high right now. If I click on a load in the Internet Truckstop right now I’ll get an almost instant phone call from a desperate broker.
My last load paid $2500 for Portland to Reno- that’s over $4 cpm.
My in-house freight is paying $5-$7 per mile. It’s insane.
I just quoted $3500 on a 1 pick 1 drop load of Christmas trees from Salem to Reno- I didn’t want the load so I quoted high- and a couple of days later they came back asking if I was still available 😂.
Guess I’m doing trees again this year.
I’ll match that up with a dry freight load from Reno to Salem for $3600 and have yet another knock out round of three days work, 1025 miles, and over 7k gross.
I don’t know what your typical gig is but if you think rates are dropping you need to change what you’re doing.
Guess this proves our point about brokers lying about rates.. not all of us have the authority to access load boards and sign off on loads. Therefore creates lying ass middlemen, in the way of doing business.
When I started driving in 1977, I doubled my pay as a teacher. Today that would be at least 60 cents per mile. And I wasn’t doing a high-paying trucking job at that time.
There is no driver shortage. We know that because we know that even today, there aren’t new 40,000 loads every day sitting on docks and in warehouses that will never be delivered. ALL the freight eventually gets delivered, so the 80,000 driver shortage doesn’t exist.
Or, at least, there’s no problem that couldn’t be solved with more pay and better conditions. Every company has a long (and I mean, REALLY long) list of ex-drivers who quit driving while in good standing who they could call and offer them what they need to go back to driving. It would take some serious incentives, and perhaps some special finagling with the FHWSA to get them quickly back in the seat. For example, I’m retired, but I could probably be tempted back into a seat, if they arrange for me to pass a physical. And I know dozens of other former drivers who are being kept out of trucks for problems that are long gone.
I have great credit would love to buy a truck and haul cost to cost. however with the cost of fuel, low payment settlements, high insurance cost, not to mention the layovers due to not being able to get unloaded, the bad attitudes of DM’s, shipping receiving clerks, all the ridiculous regulations imposed on drivers and finally not enough available overnight parking.. who would want to Drive OTR nowadays ;-( Maybe the Federal Government should start a program that helps Drivers buy new trucks? then again with all the emissions problems with newer Vehicles after 340,000 miles why would anyone want to get burned in the end by that too ?
I have a 2014 Pete. I bought it brand new. It’s paid off and hasn’t given me any major issues in the eight years I’ve been running this rig.
As I posted to ‘S’, rates are crazy high right now. I don’t know where you guys are getting this “low settlement” stuff from unless you’re a lease op that only gets paid by the mile.
As far as buying a truck goes?…. good luck with that…. they’re very hard to find and you’re looking at the third quarter of 2022 on a build time.
Getting a truck is easy! Keeping a truck is hard, everyone wants a piece of you! Mechanics, bookeepers, DOT, load brokers, Uncle Sam. Your best advised to get a gold plated contract first before you buy a truck!
Now is a great time to own a truck. But the challenge now is getting one. Build times are out almost a year or even more.
Money, money, money. Pay drivers $2000 per week and you’ll have drivers coming out of the woodwork. All that other horse caca, benefits, time at home doesn’t mean squat if you pay truckers $2000 per week guaranteed.
^^ This
This is because Biden threw us drivers under the bus. Those ships setting off the port have nothing to do with truck drivers we can’t drive our trucks out to those ships loaded and drive right back into the United States and deliver it I keep telling people this is a China move, China wants to take over the world Biden is in the back pocket of China, China owns and tells Biden to hold products for Americans off shore to make Americans suffer and obey a movement of Communism and socialism to starve the people and to make them obedient. I don’t care if you believe it or not it is true Obama is also playing puppet master the world is trying to destroy America. And with Biden at the helm America will be a third world country very soon. It’s too bad the American truck driver wouldn’t shut down we could show this country who really runs it
You are funny. Trump thru you away like his wives. Trump made China greater as evidenced by the sea freight from the third world labor centers where he manufactured his clothing lines.
We are waiting 3 years on the last steep of consulate for drive on usa…. 3-YEARS!!! and stilll waiting today witouth hope… We are professional truckers with experience.
The problem not is on your country… the problem is on the USA consulates arround the world.
I need to point out an error in this article. The BLS report did NOT say that there is np need for more drivers – it said that the trucking industry is not exceptional to other industries and that it can attract new drivers with more attractive pay. The catch-22 of it is that increasing the number of drivers during a period of higher freight demand usually translates into lower wages in a couple of years when the freight slows down. The trucking industry simply doesn’t rapidly scale to the demand peaks and then subsequent valleys.
Sheeeeyet. I knew there wasn’t a driver shortage, although there may be a shortage of good drivers…
Even in the ’80’s, just before I started driving big-truck, they were hollering about a driver shortage, and ever since.
Any time ZOG says anything, I am at the very least, skeptical.
I worked the piers of NJ for seven months until it finally dawned on me that was too much aggravation to put up with (locating a working, street worthy trailer to place to container on) for loads paying less than $1k. You would not begin to believe what those union member dock workers got away with and how they treated drivers whose only mistake was going thru all of that red tape because they needed a job/a load.
With as many owner-operators as there are across the country it seems too hard to believe they all wouldn’t be lined up tire to bumper to pull those loads if those loads were paying a decent amount. Those loads aren’t paying anything and THAT is why those containers are sitting there. Who wants to bother with loads where you have to go back empty to return the tailer? Those loads aren’t worth it and THERE is where the problem is. Most trucks you see coming off of ANY pier are all battered and taped up with duct tape and harden mud.
Well here’s the deal THERE IS NO DRIVER SHORTAGE the SHORTAGE is on the drivers pay and another thing this is for all of you 9 to 5 workers I don’t care if you get any supplies or anything I been out here driving 43yrs when you go to a customer you are back up to a dock for hours on end waiting to get unloaded or loaded and these company’s don’t want to pay you for that so there you go. But I don’t have a problem getting food and supplies for me and my family mater a fact when the pandemic was going on I run coast to coast so when I got home I had 15 big packs of paper towels and 15 big packs of toilet paper and all the food I could get in my truck and for all you that are stuck in one town as far as I am concerned you can go hungry lmao 🤣 😀.
No driver shortage, just low wages keeping qualified drivers doing other jobs, instead of trucking their lives away.
I’m glad many of you know this truth. Keep saying it, the leaders aren’t listening, but other drivers are, and we tell our families. So, eventually, maybe, the truth will bubble up to the surface despite ATA propaganda articles.
Bullshit
Yea my wife wants me to quit trucking. It’s too stressful