are they all that bad?

I think many of us older drivers share in the responsibility for the state of todays trucking.

#1 We never said NO.
#2 Those that did, were never supported.
#3 Few of us actually take the time to help a newbie. And the ones that do, rarely have enough experience to even know what they are doing.


I'll drive my point home by offering an additional FACT that goes back as far as the 70's. When O/O's ask for support bringing about a strike. Few even bothered to shut down. Union drivers just ignored it altogether.

When Union drivers wanted a strike, O/O's and a lot of company drivers ignored it...the Unions put bricks through a few windshields and got more money. The rest of us/you got zip.

Maybe OOIADA could take something away from that lesson....But I doubt it.

We will either lead, follow, or be shoved out of the way. As an industry, we have no leader. So we have no one to follow. Therefor we are doomed to be shoved out of the way.

 

We're on the same page I agree with everything you stated.

But, it shouldn't be that way. Companies should cater to us. After all we ARE human, and we do have families to support, and we do want as much time as possible with them.

An issue we may have a differance on: I do see companies starting to cater to drivers wanting more home time. This seems to have occured with the change of HOS and the fact they can not get enough drivers.

Serious Long haul trucking is a thing of the past for solo drivers. And I blame the cry baby new breed for this.

 

I got out because drivers don't have any solidarity. A lot of what you see in trucking is because truck drivers don't stand shoulder-to-shoulder on anything, save for a few safe political stands that have been thoroughly market-tested. If having a certain opinion on an issue will get a driver heaps of approval, he'll stubbornly hold onto that opinion even if it means his own economic extinction over the long run. Oh, yeah--drivers can be about as idiotic as a turkey that drowns itself by looking up in a rainstorm. Actually, truck drivers as a whole are more like parrots--let somebody else do the thinking and they themselves will do the accepting and repeating. No thank you. I turned in my CDL about 8 years after getting it and haven't looked back.

No, standing shoulder-to-shoulder is something truck drivers don't know how to do. If anything, drivers stand with their backs to each other on just about all things that matter in the industry. And I thoroughly agree--the experienced guys are at least partly at fault for this morass. The next time you hear a vet blame newbies for trucking's ills, kindly remind him that when the pot was starting to boil, when actions were being taken that would cut drivers off at the knees, when the good job that was truck driving was being driven into the ground, he did nothing to help stop it.

 

When I started long time ago, we hauled mostly produce all over the U.S. a old international c/o spring ride, no A/C, no jake, single sleeper(team) pulling a 45 ft belly mount reefer. But we made good money and had a pretty good time while we were doing it.But all things change, I guess what I miss the most is the courtisey that used to exsist. Was a time you would never see a driver on the side of the road alone. The important things now seem be= big truck, big foot, big radio and mouth. Stay SAFE

 

I had an uncle who drove from 59 to 79, and he got out just as Teddy was starting to bring his grand idea of deregulation to the table. Uncle made a great living driving. His driving paid for a house, sent two kids to college, and allowed him to retire in a bed of roses. Of course he was union, too. That helped, and IS helping even today. Pensions are nice, boy.

Uncle used to leave the east coast with 20 bucks in his pocket, do a 10-day turn to the west coast, and have change left over from the 20 when he got back home. Today a cup of coffee will run you 2 bucks and up. A cup of ice costs you a dollar. You can spend 20 bones in one day while on the road. Plus you make a lot less today compared with what you could make in the good ol' days of yore. Trucks are nicer, sure. But this is by design. No fool would run a cab-over Mack with spring suspension, a cramped cab with a doghouse, and an ironing board sleeper at today's pay rates. The thought of a Swift driver in an R model today makes me laugh out loud.

 

Hell, I hear it every friggen day at work:

"I want something local"
"How much Experience do you have?"
"I just got out of CDL School..."

perhaps also the reason we're switching to a lot more Intermodal than we used to have.

 

The OTR "driver shortage" is contributing to wagons being pulled on the backs of trains, but the biggest reason more intermodal is being used is the price of diesel. Is the price of juice at a temporary peak, or is it gonna be a long plateau? Who knows.

Some believe the Saudis and the other OPEC boys are telling us fibs about how big their reserves are and claim those reserves are a lot smaller than OPEC is letting on, meaning high oil prices are here to stay. Maybe they're right. Maybe 6-dollar-a-gallon diesel is coming. But maybe they're full of bull. Either way, in the here and now it's just more economical to put wagons on trains.