Let's talk about the 'driver shortage'.

Exactly. If someone don't know what no bun, no onions, no ketchup etc is but wants to make 15 bucks a hour. Then I want 40 bucks a hour cause I know what a low bridge is at least lol

 

Asking for 5 years of experience is ridiculous. I have been driving for a year and a half and would have no problem doing that job. No wonder you have people trying to pad their resumes. Get real. Anybody with 5 years experience should have their own Trucking Authority by then and make far more than what you pay. I hate OTR! I would love to have a local job like that and see my kids on a regular basis but can't because of stupid companies like this that ask for the Moon.

 

5 yrs isn't asking alot. If the payscale is reflective to the experience. 5 yrs is a drop in the bucket to veteran drivers. I don't see a problem if a driver doesn't work nights or weekends. It's not his lifestyle. There is life after trucking.

 

Requiring five years of experience has paid off very well, both in the company I was talking about and the one I work for. Most of our drivers have much more than that when they apply but we figure five years is a good cutoff point.

After five years a driver has pretty much run through the list of bonehead mistakes that cost money and time to fix. We figure that a driver can learn at somebody else's expense and tear up somebody else's equipment and by the time he gets to us he's got enough real experience to not be a liability.

We're just a mom and pop outfit, twenty five power units and maybe forty trailers that include flatbeds, pneumatics, fuel tankers, lowbeds, and end dumps. We do a lot of off highway work in the mountains, in all kinds of weather, building logging roads and hauling logging machinery
Most of our drivers are cross trained to be able to haul anything, with any kind of trailer, that we're called to do.

You have a year and a half's experience. A year and a half of cruising on the interstate is fine and might be a good way to prepare yourself for something better. But if you came to work for us...and you won't because we have no openings, the last guy we hired was two years ago, and the next guy to retire isn't scheduled to do so for over a year...you'd be in over your head.
Good luck to you.

 

Lowboy off road, fuel trucks and end dumps. You'd need all 5 years of experience just to get your foot in the door.

 

Yes that makes sense now. Another three and a half years of cruising the interstate and I'll be magically qualified to pull every trailer in your Fleet. I don't blame you for wanting somebody with more than five years of experience and able to do everything on day one. I'm just saying this isn't rocket science and it wouldn't be that hard to train someone. By the time I have 5 years experience I will own my own truck and be leased to Landstar.

 

Training only does so much. Real life experience is the main reason they ask for someone with that much experience. One you've been in the seat ten years + you'll understand.

 

My contention is that you could drive for a mega carrier for 10 years and be no wiser then if you just driven a year and a half. I've been out here long enough and I'm just getting a day older and no wiser as there's only so much to learn. Maybe if I quit and hauled flatbed or something else besides van I'd learn something new other than where the best barbecue places are that have truck parking.

 

My opinion only. The driver shortage is a myth. Think about it for the majority of trucking companies. Drivers are constantly Sitting Waiting for Freight. If there were a shortage of drivers this would not be happening. the only thing they are short on is Mega trucking companies with thousands of trucks don't have every seat filled to full capacity. So companies are screaming driver shortage. If there were a driver shortage every driver in the industry would be getting 3000 plus miles a week. There is no shortage of drivers just too many da*n trucks.