Let's talk about the 'driver shortage'.

How do you stop this bad habit?

 

Sounds like an O/O with his/her own authority

 

No.

 

after all what is anybody married with children doing over the road anyways?

 

Get a different career

 

This is a really double edged sword situation.

1) In one respect, the married man or woman with a family to feed may have taken the OTR job due to economic desperation. He or she may have either been laid off of a job due to a severe cut back or the company may have gone out of business.

2) In another respect, the OTR truck driver who is diligently trying to feed his or her family, is IRONICALLY running the risk of losing the ability to be a part of the family, due to extended periods away from the family. SADLY & UNFORTUNATELY, many veteran OTR truck drivers have divorced and missed out on a lot of their kids growing up years.

3) Also, single or married, anybody with eldercare responsibilities, (elderly parents, elderly parent-in-laws, elderly grandparents, elderly aunts and uncles, or other elderly relatives), would be very hard pressed to drive OTR.

4) The way OTR trucking is set up, it is most suitable for a single person with no children, a husband and wife team with grown children out on their own, along with these 2 groups of people who also do NOT have any eldercare responsibilities.

God bless every American and their families! God bless the U.S.A.!

 

Opinions being what they are, let's talk about the a-hole shortage. Never heard of such a thing...

 

I am talking about ANY company any driver doesn't think meets some minimum level of acceptability. That's to say, EVERY driver should decide which company is unacceptable to them. Nobody should decide for someone else. Some of the big companies would improve if there was not an infinite supply of new drivers with the attitude "all companies are the same I'll be the ONE driver that has a good enough experience" and then quits when the inevitable happens. The govt can't decide which company is OK for a driver. This country is burning to the ground while everybody decides somebody else should do all the hard work and deliver a good choice on a silver platter.

 

We've brought in a few new people in dispatch. 2 of them transitioned from Driver to dispatch and seems to be working out well. 2 of the "questionable" dispatchers have move on to other companies.

 

I can't say enough that having a dispatcher (or whatever euphemism is being used to describe a dispatcher) that has experience on the road is invaluable. A dispatcher with that experience has never tried to saddle me with a load that can't be done legally, is often a source of good information, and will apologize for giving you a #### load and WILL make up for it with a premium load.

On the other hand dispatchers without experience in absence of checks and balances tend to become Little Hitler at times. The power of being able to tell a driver what to do, combined with the weakness of not being able to tell a customer what is possible, gets everyone in trouble.

IIRC a survey found that a bad relationship with a dispatcher is THE #1 reason for drivers to quit.