Can you be a really good truck driver and still be bad?

The people that are surprised they aren't home after they get into trucking cannot be helped. Not every job is suited for every employee. If an employee won't ask the right questions or do enough investigation to learn what they are walking into, they need to be under adult supervision or accept what the world gives them. Neither you or I get to decide for other people if they go into trucking. It's not the government's job to decide who should go into trucking. It's not the government's job to decide what our schedule should be or how often we should be home. You decide for you. I decide for me and the ATA yells "driver shortage." Maybe it's an oversupply of trailer and trucks and freight, a freight glut. Maybe the price of shipping freight by truck is so low that it attracts more freight that would have gone by railroad or river but at these prices it goes by truck. It's nobody's job to manage the economy and adjust how many people or companies work in each industry. Because there is no quota for truck driving jobs there is no shortage of drivers in trucking. There are exactly the number of drivers willing to do this job as the pay & conditions attract.

 

one is either Good.....or..........Bad.....

can't have it both ways.

sorta like the late sports caster, Howard Cosell.....

you either liked him......or hated him..........there was NO other choice.

 

Do your own dang research. I'm not your employee and you not knowing or seeing something doesn't disprove anything or cast doubt on anything. In 5 minutes I found the numbers I used from either govt sources or professional organizations monitoring the industry. You can also find them. Produce the more accurate number if my numbers are wrong, but also produce your links and sources otherwise they don't exist. Did I do that right?

I'm saying the ATA claiming some magic number is just a claim. It is not some ideal carved in stone. It's their opinion or their calculation. Well, other people have other opinions or calculations. By accepting the "driver shortage" argument we accept the ATA calculation as gospel. I AM THE ONE ARGUING NOT TO DO THAT. A driver shortage is the same as too many trucks and trailers and freight for the proper number of drivers. If you start with the perspective that all freight must be moved by truck, and the industry isn't up to moving that much freight then you can claim "driver shortage." If you start with the perspective that the number of drivers working now is about right, then it's easy to support the claim of too many trucks, trailers, and freight. They are the opposite sides of the same coin. Both claims explain the same facts. I don't believe the ATA is the authority or King of trucking, just a trade association for the big employers in trucking. Big Corn will claim not enough people are eating corn. Big Oil will claim not enough people are using oil. Big Tech will claim the world would be better if everyone used more technology.

 

Low freight rates and driver shortage can't both be true at the same time. "Nobody goes there, it's too crowded." Freight rates are low because there are too many available trucks, trailers, drivers. In a real driver shortage driver pay would be rising steadily, not lagging the rate of inflation.

 

Actually you didn't provide anything and you're doing exactly what people who chirp the ATA statistics do.

If you follow Footnote 7 that you linked earlier or even Footnote 6 for the info related to, I think it was Quartz, then you still don't have the primary source.

Footnote 6 where the claim is specified in an NPR article has a dead link for that claim.

Footnote 7 the FMCSA pdf document doesn't provide it either when searching for those related terms.

Even more to the point, your own document that you link lays out claims of a driver surplus...

All you're doing is a giant semantic circle jerk with yourself trying to explain some obscure philosophical argument to explain something that is already explained well enough.

It's really simple
1. Sometimes there's a surplus
2. Someone there a shortage
3. Very rarely is there equilibrium

 

Feel free to show me where I said what you attribute to me.

 

That's a nonsensical comparison.

The category of total truck drivers is uniform and there is no corresponding category of freight rate to compare it against.

Which all goes back to the point that rates are the signal of the difference between consumer demand and capacity.

 

Ok man....however you feel. I still like your avatar though lol

 

He was a great heel, which is a dirty job, but much needed.

I was originally going towards The Undertaker when I made the profile with Asphalt Farmer being a stupid depiction of The Tombstone Piledriver.

But afterwards I thought Ted was better suited for trucking especially if you remember Virgil...

Either way, I got to stay full heel

 

There's truth to some of what you say. I definitely could put up with the BS for a million dollars a year.....hell I'm putting up with it for 70 k or so a year. Lol. I don't think paying a million a year would attract more drivers. Trucking is just not sexy lol. The money may look good, but if they gotta give up too much to get it, then it's less appealing to this population. Remember, we are in an era where people don't really want to have to give up that much to get to where they want to, and as constructed, trucking would require that.