Is it reasonable?

Are you not aware the March Department Of Labor statistics stated over 275,000 jobs have been lost in the trucking industry since December ? Do you know anything about the Transportation Services Index which shows freight has been declining steadily since August and us at its lowest level in five years ?

I am aware that the job market in the trucking industry is hurting. Fact is that the labor markets of other industries have been hit a lot harder than the trucking industry.

Yes , the schools caused that because only desperate wannabes would accept those rates . But they don't stay . Graduates either don't get hired , get hired and are rejected by trainers , or have a minor accident after a few months resulting in them being terminated with a bad DAC report that ends their trucking career .

Everyone has a right to feed their family, and to choose the career that they want to do just that. Contrary, to this statement schools do not force people into training, people choose training of their own free will. You speak as if I am training Mexicans to steal jobs from hard working Americans. If trucking companies are still hiring new drivers, then why should these new drivers not be afforded the opportunity to secure one of these jobs? If you recall, the trucking industry was deregulated a long time ago. The industry is not a union and experienced drivers' jobs are not secured by tenure alone.

You can read many examples of those scenarios here .

You can also read many scenarios here of driver's that are still working.

 

My trucking career began with a reefer company. On some occasions I would sit around for 36 hours waiting for a load of beef or pork, and when it was ready it had to go. These loads are time stamped and must be delivered to the packing facilities within a certain number of hours. This is the type of situation I was referring to. Same is the case for some Air Freight that I hauled. When it was ready, I had to go.

 

Right, I realize that these types of situations can be difficult, and it happens far too often in certain divisions of trucking. Hopefully, this is not a regular occurence in your case and you are able to tough it out. Working 3p-5a is tough in any case but especially when you have gotten up at 8:30am expecting a semi-easy day.

 

Most of the new guys coming into the trucking industry don't have a clue what they are in for. They don't realize what OTR means. If they did they wouldn't even consider trucking as a career. Recruiters I have dealt with over the years wouldn't tell you about all the BS that comes with OTR trucking unless you asked a specific question and then they tried to just blow it off or sugar coat it. The shipper's are paying the companies to haul the freight and the trucking companies aren't going to tell the shippers we don't want your money because your load just don't match up with what our driver wants. If your going to be a trucker you have to learn to live with it or find another line of work.

 

I am aware that the job market in the trucking industry is hurting. Fact is that the labor markets of other industries have been hit a lot harder than the trucking industry.

But what other industry constantly losing jobs has recruiters trying to get people to train to increase an oversupply of workers ?


Everyone has a right to feed their family, and to choose the career that they want to do just that. Contrary, to this statement schools do not force people into training, people choose training of their own free will. You speak as if I am training Mexicans to steal jobs from hard working Americans. If trucking companies are still hiring new drivers, then why should these new drivers not be afforded the opportunity to secure one of these jobs? If you recall, the trucking industry was deregulated a long time ago. The industry is not a union and experienced drivers' jobs are not secured by tenure alone.

That's the point . Many training to feed their family and up going further in debt and end up without a job or making poverty level wages . Their "free will " is influenced by false claims made by recruiters . Maybe you consider being fresh meat to temporarily take the wheel of an abandoned truck and spend half your time sitting at truck stops waiting for loads an opportunity . Experienced drivers don't consider it an opportunity . Neither do newbies after a few weeks of it . If schools didn't cause such an oversupply of drivers rates would be hirer and less trucks on the road competing for freight .

 

I been on the waiting list for almost 6 months.....good luck.

 

Many other industries. If your turn on the TV, you see ads from ITT technical institue, Devry, etc. etc. for tech jobs and law enforcement careers that are as few or fewer than trucking jobs. I would say the ratio between these TV ads and trucking school TV ads is probably 50:1 if not more. The educational costs to get into these careers produces probably 10-20 times the debt that a CDL school produces.

Recruiters should be held to a higher standard than they are, and that includes recruiters from every discipline. Again, you are absolutely right. Mis information from recruiters is the number one reason for voluntary turnover in the trucking industry. This mis-information has huge consequences.

1. A driver that is lied to is going to quit.
2. This driver is then going to begin to job hop, because none of the companies are living up to the expectations that are created by an irresponsible recruiter.
3. A driver that changes jobs more than 2 times in a year is 1.8 times more likely to be involved in a truck crash and 2.2 times more likely to be involved in multiple truck crashes.
4. I don't want my students to be on the wrong side of these statistics. I also don't want someone from my family to be a statistic of these statistics.
5. The safest drivers on the road are the ones who have 5+ years tenure with a single company. A student that enters the trucking industry with reasonable expectations and for the right reasons has the best chance of achieving this tenure.

 

Is it reasonable for a dispatcher to ask, sure it is. Is it reasonable for the driver to do it if they are too tired, no it isn't.

It only happened to me once. I knew right away there was no way I would make the delivery appt. I called dispatch and let them know I couldn't make it on time and gave a realistic eta. for when I could get the load there both safely and legally. They rescheduled and all was well.

Since then they ask me if they aren't sure before dispatching the load. Sometimes it means I get put on a different load and another driver takes the one they had been thinking of putting me on. It's all about communication, at least it is where I work.

Unfortunately, in my situation anyway, a set daily schedule is just not realistic. I'm more than willing to adjust my sleep if need be but I know when it will be too much. I don't expect the dispatcher to know that though without me telling them. I've never been 'punished' for not being able to do what isn't realistic. I do know some who won't communicate though and then end up missing out on some loads, not because someone is getting back at them but because they don't know if the load will get there so it goes to someone who will get it there or give a realistic eta.

I'm sure there are some dispatchers out there who don't give a crap about the driver but the simple fact is that if the load is late the dispatcher has to answer for it. That must be hard to do when the driver hasn't let them know what's happening. Even with the big companies I would think a dispatcher would rather go with the driver they can count on to let them know ahead of time there may be a problem.

That's my newbie take on it anyway.