Why are new drivers......

No thanks, made $48000 first year out of school, $51000 second year, local, home every night, off weekends. You take the pain if you want, ill pass

 

Perhaps, but the younger generation is the one where everybody wins and everybody gets a trophy. How are people supposed to learn to overcome adversity if they're never allowed to fail in the first place?

 

Can't fault them ... they've made the effort to aquire a skill ... they are completely within their rights to pursue the most value they can for that skill ... its the American way.

 

Oh ... and one more thing ... before you get to down on this generation ... remember, they're ones on the front lines and dying in this war. And they're there voluntarily.

 

It's the recruiters and schools selling the snake oil of an "easy" career where you make "lots" of money.

That, and millennials being taught that they are all winners, and are entitled to anything they want, without competition, is giving them this idea that they can step into anything and "win".

 

Well it is easy, compared to many other jobs, and there is money to be made. No lies there

 

To this day I think the baby boomers were the worse. I was born in 58 on the tail end of that generation. Honestly I don't think they as a generation ever appreciated just how good they had it.

 

I paid my dues. I did 4-1/2 years city P&D starting on three ton body jobs and working up to day cabs pulling pups running to local towns. Then got into highway trucks pulling refers to regional customers, then ran team all over North America.
Used to be nobody would let you near a highway truck until you had at least two years straight truck.
Now you can go on the highway straight out of school, with no idea how a truck should be loaded and hardly any skill backing up.

 

Easy for people who like to work hard and lots of money for people willing to take on tough assignments.

Even my trainers in school were selling a $50K starting salary like it was easily achievable and the "norm". At my best (running 600-700 miles a day, 5 days a week) I was on track to make $35K on the year (all CAD).

And I was working my ### off, pushing myself into a state of near nervous breakdown... over what ended up being, after I became a regional driver, about $150 more per pay cheque (which will disappear once I get my wage increase later this month).

It's very hard to make it through the first year for most drivers, and no one, school or company recruiter talks honestly about these things. In my 5 months since coming off OTR, I've seen about a dozen new-from-school drivers come to our company and quit in that same amount of time. Not only are they not ready for life on the road, but they think deck work is going to be easy (a couple were people in their 50's moving into a new career field).

I think a good way to help curb this stupidly high turnover rate might be to restructure how new drivers are compensated. Mileage pay for people not used to running 11-13 hours a day is a major problem. They are not used to the idea of donating their time and get easily frustrated when there is a delay. It also encourages drivers to rush with securement, which could lead to catastrophic problems. Instead of taking the time to do it right, they just do the bare minimum and get rolling.