Let's talk about the 'driver shortage'.

Investment banker requires a four-year degree in finance and a lengthy Internship and wearing a suit and tie and kissing a lot of ###. I'm plenty smart to do that but I'm 46 and already have 2 useless college degrees. I also hate suits and ties and incapable of kissing ###. If this profession continually challenges you to maximize your potential tell me one new thing you learned in the last week. All I am saying is everyone always Demands a ton of experience and nobody ever wants to train you to do anything.

 

Well move to mn, ive got a job for ya! Local everything

 

You sound like one of those guys who's been in the industry for a year and a half but with at least 60 years of experience. That must count for something right.

 

You are in for a rude awakening..... if you last long enough

 

Takes away from payload capacity. Might as well put a full size living room and a shower and while you're at it. What do you want a mobile motel room ? Or a tool to do your jobs ?

 

I believe there is not a shortage of drivers. Orientations everywhere are full of potential drivers.

What we are short of is possibly a enviornment that allows the drivers to be paid properly considering the value to the Nation, given good equiptment without excessive snowflaking or helicoptering and the freedom to do the work properly with a eye towards making sure that load is delivered on time and safely.

We left the industry back in 2001 OTR work at what I would then consider the very top of pay near .50 or roughly a mile and everything was good, strong detroits, no camera in your face and so on. Speeds were reasonable, could get up and run in a 85 mph state if you had the room to do it lawfully. Making time but still limited. Everything We saw in that year was a bright future.

Fast forward to today. I already expressed that there are changes coming and not for the better. It's the people now who must adapt. If the labor force is unable to be 21 years old, in charge of a half million dollars of truck, trailer and cargo with a complete freedom to run potentially three Nations where necessary at a moment's notice in this part of the free world then we did something very badly wrong with our Young people.

That has to be fixed.

I fear Companies are looking to buy Otto and end the issues with People entirely. That will fix em... so they think.

 

It is relatively easy to enter the field and if you look around plenty of jobs for 60K and up. The ever shrinking manufacturing and construction sectors will draw people to trucks as the wages are better from those of gas station clerks. It is rather adjusting and accepting this lifestyle that makes it difficult rather than acquiring driving skills. For ordinary labor class folks this is good money. Some carriers legally hire drivers on contracts from 3rd world countries to offset the shortage. Wonder what they pay them... This country has a tremendous mass of people relying on menial skills, I don't mean to belittle them, but they're not going to Yale for a Law degree. So either production comes back from overseas, or the decline will be so severe that people will become hungry and we'll see the scenes from the Walking Dead I am afraid. I can't believe so many dilapidated, half dead towns and villages I can see outside big cities. Real decay. Manufacturing, Construction, Production, Mining jobs is what is needed for the type of society here. Only so many trucks can move the freight

 

Some of you are talking I KNOW. EVERYTHING after one year.

One frigging little year. Don't be stupid.

Im over 50 and frankly there are some days I learn something new. And even up to the end of my hauling days out there I was still learning.

The first year is the MOST DANGEROUS because you know nothing. Im not talking about what you already know, it's what is waiting for you on the other side of the mountain you are fixing to climb.

 

That's what the newbs don't get. Being new in trucking and having the mentality that they have already seen it all makes then a danger to themselves and others around them