Micro Management has grown 200%

True. Especially when some of these new people are recruited from places where having your own car or even a license to drive one is considered a luxury... and then they get suckered into coming into whatever mega training outfit recruited them and given very little training or enough time to learn English. Those mega companies flooded this industry with a whole generation or more of drivers who barely know what they are doing... and thanks in part to the recession and it's pathetic excuse for a recovery a lot of good veteran drivers were flushed out by small outfits either forced out of business by ##### rates or bought out and destroyed by the mega companies. The problem I'm seeing is it's too easy to get into the business. There should've been a requirement for new cdl applicants to have a regular license for at least two years and a clean driving record on that car license. And a minimum 1 year combination of both driving school training and hands on apprenticeship..requiring these new drivers to experience every single situation they will get into as OTR drivers.. whether it's maneuvering through hell zones like NYC and LA or chaining up at Donner. If it weeds out potential drivers even further so be it. I know for a fact some of that extra training would've benefitted me when I first started driving more of the western states a couple years ago..even after I spent a good 19 years of my career only running east of I-25.
Also a lot of these newbies coming in probably never really considered driving truck as a career until layoffs, outsourcing, plant/business closures forced them into crappy lower paying jobs, and put them into the crosshairs of the unscrupulous big-company recruiters. Myself I had dreams of doing this kind of work when I was a kid... always never missing those "trucker-flicks" on tv ("stormin' home" back in the 80's or the smokey & the bandit films), getting the various paper road maps and atlasmy parents kept in the glove compartment and pouring over them, imagining what it would be like to go through all those states and mountain areas. My subsequent trip to Phoenix for trade school and the trip back in u-hauls(amazing how I now curse those hauls lol) definitely gave me a taste for the road. So it helps when I experience my usual current frustrations with the industry that I reflect on that. The sad part is these newer generations never really experienced that.

 

While I agree that the training is often bad, You have to also consider the quality of the people entering the industry. It doesn't always make training easy.

 

You are right.

I will never have a perfect trainee.

But I shore wanted someone who grew a pair and owned that truck proper when it's time to drive. They were always in some fear, seeking some kind of forgiveness for daring to drive a 18 wheeler in a city or highway determined to kill them and me.

It's a reason I never have nice things. It's really rare to have a good student. Fortunately you can have a really bad one sent home on the slow bus in 15 minute.

 

What are you paying him/her? Miles per week,home time? Truck year,and perks,and what not?

 

I know that dude!!! He's righteous!!!

 

As I said before and will say again, we are own worst enemy.

We asked for is all.

We let things go and decided not to be professionals as a group.

We don't hold others accountable for their actions within our profession.

We don't demand a licensing system that is hard to get through nor want to, so we end up with marginal/very poor drivers and then cry about things that are needed to correct their behavior.

We don't demand that the carriers have to show a means to pay us or demand that the FMCSA/US DOT/Congress tighten up the requirements for our own protections like written regulations on what is and isn't allowed.

We forget that we are in a customer driven industry, we cry about the shippers holding us up, how we "waste" time dealing with them and want someone to come to our rescue so we can crap on the very people who provide us the means to our profession.

We are own worst enemy.

 

@Ridgeline
If you could be in charge of determining who would be able to become truck drivers, (OTR & LTL), from the very beginning, what would be your criteria?

NOTE: (1)
I do realize that if I could pass the D.O.T. physical, I would be DISQUALIFIED under your standards.
1) I had 1 no fault accident back in 2014 - on the insurance records, not reported to the police.
2) I had 1 no fault accident back in 2010 - on the insurance records - was reported to the police.
3) I had 1 no fault accident back in 1997 - on the insurance records - was reported to the police.
4) I had 1 at fault accident due to speeding and running a red light - on the insurance records - was reported to the police.

NOTE: (2)
1) I have NOT had any tickets or moving violations since 2007, (10 years).
2) 2007 and prior to 2007, I have had several speeding tickets, several running red light tickets, 1 failure to yield right of way ticket, and 1 passing a school bus with red lights on ticket.
3) For the last 10 years, (since 2007), I have been slowed down considerably and have become much more cautious. By the GRACE OF GOD, nobody was ever hurt or killed due to my previous ways of driving. I am VERY THANKFUL for this.

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

OTR & LTL - over the mountains - through the woods - coast to coast - sea to shining sea

The OTR & LTL truck drivers of America are positively the driving force of our economy.

 

All our fleet managers were recruited from MacDonald's and Wendy's. The qualification for accredited truck driving schools seems to include people on medication for suicidal thoughts, heart attack victims, and alien abductees who had their DNA altered to see in the dark without headlights. If you have a nervous twitch and occasional seizures with inability to walk or multiple felonies and just released from prison where Bubba was your boyfriend the trucking industry is recruiting to their 14 hour behind the wheel training courses and only charge $5,000.00 taken from your paychecks in payments with 300% interest on the school loan. Even the FMCSA passed section 5301 for cameras to watch you with lot lizard in your 4x8 foot sleeper cells.