Trucking company CEO knows why there is a driver shortage

Correction $935 per week

 

Thank goodness for small miracles.

 

Think about it. If you want to attract younger drivers or any drivers for that fact into this industry what is the attraction?

I'm sure that pot is part of it. Not particularly because people are "stoners", but because your lifestyle and your freedom to do what you want outside of work is impacted. And you are not really compensated for that.

So if someone goes through some kind of training and gets a job that would pay them comparatively to trucking, but if they want to smoke a little pot on the weekend or if they don't want to be afraid of doing 2 mile an hour over the speed limit in their personal vehicle, or they don't want to work hour after hour after hour without being paid, what becomes more attractive?

It used to be in the old days that you went to renew your license and you check the box that said drive a truck and you went and got a job and made money. Basically the rest of your life stayed the same.

Now with all the regulation and personal responsibility and your personal time outside of work being affected without being compensated for it who would choose that?

There are advantages to being in this industry, but the disadvantages are piling up and out numbering them.

There is still money to be made being an owner operator and certain driving jobs do pay well. But for the most part it's a big maze of BS for someone to navigate their way to either place, especially if they are new to the industry. I can see why there is a shortage of good people.

 

Best I can add to it from my perspective is that when I came into it many years ago, it was the lifestyle that attracted me. Money was never an issue with me. If it had been I would have went to Law School. If you dont like the lifestyle, its not going to matter how much money you make, you will not be successful and content for long. Just like any other profession.

I did have an advantage that not everyone has. My father was a trucker for 35 years so I knew what I was getting into when I got into it. I can also remember my dad driving from coast to coast, only being home a handful of times a year for $200.00 a week, so no, money wasnt the motivator.

If thats the reason you are getting into it, you might get a double shock. You can make a decent living in trucking but its by no means an easy living.

 

Yes, let's let more drug users behind the wheel of 80,000+ lbs killing machines, and let them decide when and where they want to use the drugs.

Hourly pay won't solve anything either. Already too many young people today thinking they can just show up to work and deserve to get paid. That'll just put companies out of business.

The real problem isn't a driver shortage, there are plenty of good drivers out there, it's a lack of companies willing to pay them what they deserve for what we do.

 

I'm guessing back in 1937 from Harry Anslinger. I'll give him some reading material with a site that ends in .gov because I'm betting that's where he got his info way way back and won't believe any other link I post.

Cannabinoids promote embryonic and adult hippocampus neurogenesis and produce anxiolytic- and antidepressant-like effects

Our brains have natural THC and opiate receptors. We don't have natural alcohol receptors, or amphetamine receptors or coke.

Your weekend drinking is doing more damage than thc will ever do. I agree with you I don't want to share the road with a bunch of stoners.

Its big brother wanting us spaced out and not paying attention to their seedy tactics. When did coke really explode and especially crack? Lets see, the contras in the 80s with people like Oliver North, six shot Ron, the CIA and a little airstrip in Mena Arkansas. We send em guns and in return we get stuff worth 50k a brick. A win win. Funds a good portion of the "black budget" and the prison industrial complex gets rich. Mainly aimed at blacks. Getting caught with rock was 10X the charge of being caught with high society nose candy, fish scale whatever you wanna call it.

When did the heroin epidemic start? Right when we invaded the sand box. Same with Vietnam and even the french connection after ww2. Does 2+2 not equal 4 or am I just missing something.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again.... there is no shortage of drivers. The industry produces thousands of new cdl holders every year. There is a shortage of people who are willing to be treated like crap for such low pay. The D.O.T see you as a rolling ATM . Eld's, driver facing cameras, speed limiters , away from home for weeks at a time. And they wonder why nobody is interested in driving now.

 

I'll play devil's advocate. Back before drug testing was even a shimmer in the feds eye and de-reg we didn't have nearly any of the problems we have today. Paid a darn good wage, the public looked up to us, English was the only language, actual sit down restaurants, you dare didn't block the fuel island and levis and steel toes were the only attire.

There was no such thing as a steering wheel holder. Sidewalk sissies stayed on the sidewalk. I'll tell you this, I'd feel safer on the road next to an old hand on his way back from a west coast turn around reading a map, eating a burger while driving, and carrying 3 log books than i would 95% of the flip flop and track suit crowd.

06 i do agree with you any drug has no place on the road

 

This whole “driver shortage” thing makes me laugh because so many people buy into it, the media parrots it, and it seems that nothing has changed.

Look, I’ve only been in this industry a little under a year having coming from the corporate office world, but business is business. Almost all other industries/employers whenever they face a shortage of manpower will increase wages/benefits to attract the best talent. However, this can only go so far because if wages are increased too dramatically, the business will price itself right out of the market. But trucking, for whatever reason seems to think that offering gimmicks, reducing minimum age, bait & switch is the way forward. “Well, we’ve tried all this in the past and it hasn’t worked out so well, but THIS time it’s sure to work”. The trucking industry seems to be its own worst enemy, nevermind the Feds and the DOT.

I was born in 1981, the cusp of the Gen X / Millennial generation. Many people look at the demands of trucking and the meager restitution offered (by most of the megas anyhow) and either think “no way am I sacrificing all this for so little” or perhaps “I’ll do what I need to do till something better comes along”. If one can work a local job (pick any trade, industry, etc.) and earn at least the same paycheck, be home every night with at least most of their weekends off and have a social life (with real human contact) why chose to spend weeks in 4x8 closet dealing with all the BS on the road?

Reminds me of my wife working P/T at UPS during the Christmas season. UPS is always hiring temp workers during this time to load/unload trucks. In this area they pay about $10/hr while giving you the privilege to start work at 2am or 3am or 4am or whenever they want you to come in. Or you can go work at Sheetz (other places too) for roughly the same pay, more predictable schedule, and not need a bottle of ibuprofen at the end of every day. Wonder why UPS has a hard time getting enough people? I know why, because no one wants too work hard

Granted, for some people no amount of money will ever be enough to do this job. You could pay me $150k/yr to stand on an assembly line putting widgets together and I would be gone within a month. Why? Because standing in one place all day doing mindless, repetitive work is a prison for me.