Longest Distance To Deadhead Back Home...

I think it'd be a flippin' nightmare. Too many superedumacated idiots who can't just let things be.....

 

Holy crap!!!!!!!!

 

Driving your camper on vacation doesn't count

 

Kinda sad that our industry won't adopt the Harley Davidson model. Enjoy the hi rates. Nope, we need more trucks. Many industries have realised that over production costs them in the end, driving down the price of their services. Let's see, we had record profits last year and expect the same for this year and next. Do we enjoy our market leverage and pay extra taxes...no. Do we give raises to the employees that helped us get those record profits...no. We better put 10% more drivers and units on the road to drive down the rates so we won't have to worry about paying more taxes in the future. Don't worry though, we can dump the extra drivers and units in a moments notice if we need to, plus, if we have 200 trucks and drivers strategically located at truckstops around the country after their 1500 mile week, we can jump on any new contracts that may pop up and be able to haul that for a penny above cost too. That's what a Bachelors degree does for the trucking industry.

 

I agree with everything you said except at the end where you referenced a bachelor's degree. My whole point was that they hire low quality expendable people who are not important and that is why they can pay what they pay and treat them the way they are treated. Higher quality people tend to be educated and are less expendable. But that was not the point I was trying to make. If a bachelor's degree was a requirement to get a CDL there would be far fewer drivers because a degree takes years and is very hard to get. Truck factories could build all the trucks they wanted and trucking companies could buy all the trucks they wanted but without drivers they would be expensive paper weights. Look at all the low quality people they are cranking out of the "truck driving schools", I use the term loosely. In actuality, the trucking companies with driver schools are making huge profits from the school itself in educational loans from the Department of Education and/or fees charged to the "driver". If they were to hire high quality people, treat them with respect, and pay them a living wage, then attrition would dwindle to nearly nothing and so would the need to recruit new students. The profits from their school would dry up. So is it any wonder drivers are treated and paid the way they are? The industry wants high turnover. Its a huge scam and no one seems to care.

 

About the same as it is now. There are no college courses in "work ethic," "following directions," or "common sense." On the other hand, they do usually offer communication courses so that could be an upside - those courses usually have some content on looking/acting professional, including the importance of personal grooming and hygiene.

 

That is true also but not the point I was making. I am talking about numbers. The reason there are so many "truck drivers" is because anyone with a pulse can be one, minus a medical condition. There is a huge pool of people they can dip into for new recruits. According to the census bureau about 30% of adults have a bachelor's degree. That cuts out 70% of the population right there. Then you take into account how many people of the 30% would be willing to be a driver as a career. You can see the number getting very small very quickly. They would have to pay driver's six figures to get them in the seat and treat them like royalty. Thank about it. It all comes down to higher standards and the trucking industry has very low standards ever since deregulation.

 

Oh, I understand your theory, I was making the point that the people that that already have degrees are the ones making the calls up in the front office and treating people like cattle. From what I can tell in my experience so far is that what they teach in college is to be an ***hole cause I have yet to meet somebody with a degree that I thought had anything up on me in the smarts dept. We have degrees all over D.C. and that hasn't seemed to do us much good either. I guess my theory is if you haven't figured out how to think by the time you got out of high school, any amount of college isn't going to help, and generally just teaches you how to ***K people over. Now, if one was serious about changing how trucking works, I would suggest you join your local advocacy group such as OOIDA who seems to be about the only voice trying to help us out. I wouldn't waste my breath talking directly to a legislator because as he understands your pain and pats your back, his secretary is depositing JB's donation into his campaign fund.

Oh and BTW used to deadhead from Brownwood, Hereford, Houston Tx back to Illinois on a regular basis. Gotta love that tanker stuff.

 

Actually, I'd consider that more of a union/government mentality. Increasing the regulation or barrier to entry in order to create control over the market.

What you're missing is that "trucking" is not one, big homogenous market. You choose the market you compete in. If the bottom feeders or mega-fleets are a threat to you, then maybe you're in the wrong market.

It's the reason you don't see any articles in the Wall Street Journal about the CEO of Nieman-Marcus whining about Walmart's pricing strategy, even though they are both in the retail department store business.