Central Refrigerated Truck Stop

You get to SLC on Sunday

 

Q

CD,
Think you're optimistic about the year mark, but then again I am at the one year mark. In this year of polls etc....LOL. We started with over 45 Monday a year ago. I can only account for about 5 left. + or- who knows how much, but I will guarantee not more than 10 remain.
Talking with other carriers that excel in the entry arena (you know the players) Central does not differ too much from their record. It ain't for everybody. Motivation was high among all that started, but reality does set in fast....even for those that endure.

NOTE: Those not with Central still may be driving in another circumstance. Do know of a few who returned to Class B or scored local Class A runs.

 

Please don't sugar coat so much

 

And I still can't believe it. Especially Wal-mart DC's...almost like we are the enemy.

 

and walgreens, kroger, super-valu and their companies. Basically any chain. The last couple days i been racking up detention... lol 3 hrs at walgreens, 3 hrs at krogers, 3hr 15 min at burris cold storage and god forbid how much walmart in olney, il is going to give me.

 

a lizard???

 

#### this is a long thread

 

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