Driver shortage isn’t accurate

Everyone is different. I'm retired now, but my preference was to stay for 3 weeks and home one. Believe it or not, some truckers prefer to run coast to coast and border to border.

 

Wheres this place at? I need to apply asap.

 

I've done the local job and made pretty good money. I like OTR way better than I do local. I know it's unfathomable but the lifestyle fits me very well. There's a thrill about driving through snowstorms, different terrains, and big city traffic. The lifestyle hasn't become old so far. Some drivers like to chase miles, and I'm definitely one of them. Trucking for me means running any and everywhere. It just all depends on what you value. True enough, I do miss family and normal life sometimes, but it becomes so much sweeter when I'm able to get home.

 

It doesn’t have to be one or the other. I think there’s a happy medium that could be met for those who don’t want to run for weeks at a time but also don’t want or need to be home daily. The large companies have no incentive to find that happy medium when they can churn new graduates while complaining about a driver shortage.

And I agree that it’s up to the person to find what fits them, and sometimes it’s not always ideal but the good can outweigh the bad. Take me for example, if I lived about 4 hours east of where I do it would be so simple to have weekends off. But I don’t, I live where we don’t really have any freight. I end up staying out longer and going home for longer because of it, but I really enjoy everything about being leased on to this company. I don’t like it enough to justify selling a paid for house just to start over on a larger mortgage in a place that’s more convenient for our freight.

 

The latter part of your post is exactly the reason why younger drivers are not going OTR. In the beginning, the money, the open road, seeing different places, meeting cool people sounds good. Then the first weekend you're gone comes, and everyone at home is out and about and you can't get ahold to anybody. Then you gotta stay out for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. The highways are quiet and you're lonely. If you're used to celebrating your birthday with everyone and you're on the road when that day comes, it's a matter of time before you say, "I need a local job" or worse, "#### this ####." This ain't even worth it. For many people, giving up day to day living and missing out on big events at home is wayyyy too big of a price to pay to be OTR. If the guy is really looking to solve his hiring issues, he'd have to change his business model and move away from long haul. He'd need to shift his business that allows drivers to make decent to good money, and have weekly home time. If companies can figure out ways for OTR drivers to have some semblance of a life, that would alleviate their hiring issues. I think that may be too tall of a task. If you choose OTR, you'd have to be ok with giving up a lot if not all of your social life.

 

Not to mention that a lot of companies (mine included) will send the trailers intermodal which saves the company the expenses of paying the OTR drivers the money to run that load cross country and relegate said drivers to runs that are shorter distances (and consequently pay less).

 

A big factor that some of these companies can alleviate is parking . Rent spots in convenient locations or reserve at truck stops for the drivers.. when I started driving in 95 it wasn’t uncommon for me to sleep at a another company’s location and for their drivers to sleep at ours. Those days are long gone now .