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

If you are worried about automated trucks just learn how to operate a wrecker. There will be plenty of work.

 

There is no driver shortage now. Their wasn't a driver shortage 20 years ago, and wasn't a shortage 35 years ago.
The first time I heard the phrase ‘driver shortage’ …

If you look hard enough you can find these 'driver shortage' articles going back to the 1980s.

Several times a year, each and every year, the ATA, the lobbying group for the mega trucking industry, puts out these pre-written press reports and encourages every other reporter to put their name on them and publish them in the local papers, magazines, internet, or news cast. All a lazy reporter has to do is quote the spokesperson from the ATA, and find a couple of dullards at the truck stop lunch counter to agree, and they got a easy story that fill up some space or time.

It is never fact checked, nor could it be; most people know nothing about the trucking industry. If if you told them, they wouldn't believe you because your just a 'stupid truck driver.' This 'driver shortage' is taken to heart since most people don't know a thing about trucking, they parrot this non-truth like it is some newly found information. It isn't;this is some fossilized BS.

 

Personally I believe its a willing to pay shortage, then you get a problem with companies likr mine installing thecdriver facing cameras. Wr have lost a third to halg of our drivers judy necause of that alone.

 

People seem to forget that trains run on rails and they aren't even automated yet. They don't even have the automated braking devices that keep the Amtrak conductor from taking that last turn into Tacoma like Dick Trickle.

 

What's a book?

I don't think I ever rebuilt an engine other than some bizarre BMW with a manual.

I enjoyed my days messing with big blocks but I like the smaller engines nowadays.

I was talking to my daughter this morning and she was telling me about being out with her cousin last night. They had a flat and my niece had a breakdown about it. Now my brother-in-law is a mechanic for Mercedes and does a lot of regional troubleshooting, so he is all over the place. Really smart guy, he is the type who can yank an engine and trans out of a new car in a matter of a couple hours, that's what he does but hell he didn't teach his kid much about changing a flat tire. Last night my niece had a flat when they were out, my niece apparently got into a panic because it was a flat so far away, my daughter said "well let's change it" but my niece jumped on the phone with her dad and went back into the restaurant. She ended up calling road aid and was stuck on the phone for about 20 minutes arranging road aid. She came out, and saw my daughter was sitting in the car waiting, my niece asked why was she sitting there, my daughter said "waiting for you, the tire is changed ... lets go". My daughter said she is thankful that I forced her to change tires on the cars when she was young, it was just too easy to do on a car like my niece's.

 

Hm. Things have changed then. Changing tires is a basic skill for owning a car. Need to get that Niece taught so it wont be such a wasted time next time perhaps.

What I called the book was the engine specific manual containing clearances, dimensions and so forth. Without out (This is like back in the 80's before there was a net) I would not know what to grind the valves to or what diameter to bore out and so on. I called them by the generic name book.

A long time ago, my brother bought a batch of very vehicle specific bolts for many of his rusted and some busted wheel bolts on his vehicle. Hes so big he tends to break bolts. Anyhow after several trips to the store for more bolts (Sheesh...) he had that thing on a tiny jack teetering on a slope vs another car next to it. I recognized a problem from my flatbed days and built a cribbing under it Sure enough the Jack did not hold very well. Thump no problem otherwise it would have really BEEN a issue. And that was one of the newer jacks of the time. Not the old 60's era suicide jacks that we love.

 

Not sure about the shortage. Possibly

I’ve put an ad out for driver in Jacksonville FL. 55 cents a mile 1k guaranteed. 23 applications in 2 weeks. I guess there is a shortage now that I think of it seems low

 

If companies have to raise their rates because there aren't enough drivers, they consider that a 'severe shortage.'

Drivers just think it's getting paid a decent wage for what we do.

I haven't looked at my final paperwork from W2-s for this last year, but I think I broke 50k with 2.5 months with Stevens and 9.5 with Shaffer. But that was working 70-90 hour weeks. Sure, I actually LIKE the work, and since I live in the truck OTR, there's no commute, but still, that's a LOT of hours. (You don't HAVE to work the hours I do. A lot of drivers don't, but if I still have hours to drive, and I'm safe to drive, I drive.)

As for automated trucks, they are just as close to everyday use as flying cars. Trains run on rails, and most of them still have human engineers.

 

They already have driverless cars. I was reading not too long ago about one having a wreck. The driver was playing a video game and the car ran up under a tractor trailer doing 85 mph. It was in Ohio or somewhere up there? At the time of the article, they were trying to decide whether to charge the truck driver for it or not? I think after witness testimony, they decided against charging the driver? They are experimenting with driverless trucks but are saying it will be awhile yet. The only driver shortage I know of is companies trying to get veteran drivers to run for what they are paying inexperienced drivers? I retired from it in 2015 after 40 years and still getting bombed by companies wanting drivers. I think they are just computer generated to send out a certain number of apps a year?