True or not true: Trucking Industry Struggles With Growing Driver Shortage

There is ZERO shortage of drivers.

There is a major shortage of QUALITY drivers that are punctual, businesslike, clean, well mannered, properly skilled, and strive to take care of equipment and ensure profitability for their employers.

You can put a slobbering Neanderthal behind the wheel. Doesn't make em a truck driver.

 

Don't forget about the 500.00 Cadillac shortage lol

 

That's right, Tex.. this job WILL eventually bring the cream to the top.
You've gotta WANT to do this to keep doing it long term.
It'll chew you up and spit you out , in more ways than one.

 

I've had that happen in a rental car with adaptive cruise control. A car would pull in front of me and my car would slow down to maintain a safe following distance. That opened up a gap in front of me that another car jumped into, then another, then another. Pretty soon I was doing about 45mph in a 70mph zone of i95 and still slowing down.

Driverless cars and trucks are going to need their own roads if they are ever going be viable. I am sure the technology is currently being developed that will make more physical space in towns and cities to fit these new roads.

 

Absolutely not! No shortage! I told my boss before I left to quit crying, sit down and give me his check book. I can fill every empty seat in no time flat.......

 

Right now I know of close to 5 people that would hire a A/B CDL driver for local work today. The OTR situation is so screwed up I sometimes doubt the carriers themselves know what is what. Commercial Vehicles in general 10,001 and above in local jobs there is a shortage. However there is maybe several hundred thousand people that hold A/B CDLs that for whatever reason no longer drive.

 

TRUE. There is an actual driver shortage going on in this country.
But you have to consider the facts.
As the population continues to grow at an average of 1.25 % annually per the sensus, that means that the demand for goods and services also go up.
Companies and corporations have produced the increase in products to meet current expected depands, but what's causing the actual per capital driver shortage is wages.
As production costs go up, retail price goes up.
These companies seem to forget, that to move the product from the manufacturer to the DC eventually to the customer requires trucks.
The older drivers are retiring, younger ones coming in for the most part have no common sense, but the biggest problem, is that even though, the companies are making more, they aren't giving any of it out.
They continue to want trucks to move the freight for the same price they were getting between the mid 80's and early 90's.
So drivers are working harder to keep up with the demand, making less for the extra work, and questioning whether they made the right choice.
You can't keep increasing the demand without compensating the work force.
Eventually something breaks.
Instead of giving an incentive to attract drivers, there giving more and more drivers reasons to quit.

 

There is no shortage of drivers. Orientations fill every week.

WHAT there IS A shortage OF is Carriers willing to PAY UP.

 

IMHO it's not just the pay. There are several other issues keeping quality people (or just people in general) out of the seat, and several have already been mentioned:

• Not just a job but a lifestyle - Have a wife/girlfriend/kids/social life you enjoy? Say goodbye to all that (unless you can get the wife to ride with you)
• You'll be expected to adhere to a maze of regulations - All the regs you'll have to follow, and not even the officers who are busting your chops know all of them. And it seems like, every year, they either keep adding more of them or changing them. Sometimes staying legal can make you feel like a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest. And nobody cares what other regs you have to follow - as long as you follow theirs. Good luck doing that when local, state and federal laws sometimes will contradict each other.
• You are no longer seen as a human being - I guess this one can also be classified as 'Lack of respect'. I kind of hate being seen as some sort of knuckle-dragging neanderthal. But, then again, a lot of drivers bring it on themselves with all the littering, pissing in places other than a toilet, lack of hygiene, crude behavior and other shenanigans. It only takes a couple of bums to make the whole lot of us look bad.
• We share a disproportionate amount of blame for traffic woes - You'll probably notice how the only time anyone calls us "professionals" is right before they get ready to blame us for something. It's funny: according to the USDOT's very own statistics, 4-wheelers are responsible for somewhere close to 80% of all the pile-ups on the road. But, for some reason, it's the trucks who keep getting saddled with more restrictions and regulations. Really? "Blame the Trucker" is a favorite national pastime of law enforcement, lawyers, shippers, lawmakers, the general public, and even your own company. Carp rolls downhill, and we're the ones who are sitting in the valley.

I could go on for days but, when you take all this into account, it's easy to see that trucking ain't nothing like what you saw on Convoy or BJ and the Bear. It can be a pain in the ### for a lifestyle, and I suppose that's why most new guys don't last much past 6 to 12 months. Everyone thinks this is easy, but few are actually cut out for it. I'm personally surprised I've lasted as long as I have.

 

We already have driverless trucks on the road.
Just look in the cabs of the megas.
Butthole deep in steering wheel holders but shaky in the driver classification.