Fair to assume the driver shortage is real?

Why are they lowering their requirements?

Federal funding for driver training, that's why. The companies get x amount of money for training, and when a student mucks up? They fire him/her of course, but still get to keep those federal funds. Another reason why they are lowering the requirements?

Lease/ownership deals. Why spend millions of dollars buying new equipment when they can cajole someone into making those monthly payments, time after time? How many times is just ONE truck leased out to some rummy that wants to be his own boss?

I can be my own boss just as easily as getting a weekly paycheck, NO ONE is his own true boss, unless he/she is 1000% independent of all company doings, and secures (seeks ) his/her own loads, insurance, fuel, plates, etc,etc.

 

It's not a professionals job to make a non-professional .....professional....being a professional isn't about driving skills really...it's all in the attitude. you need to go back and read G Man's post # 47.....it's spot-on. Real professionals stay as far away from the ones you call scum-bags as possible.....you can sit at a counter and pick them out as they come in. Been able to do as long as I've been a driver ( close to 40 years now ). The ones coming in dressed in "regular clothes" , not looking like they haven't bathed in a month , the ones that head to the shower , then eat and either take their 10 or get back to work .....those are the pro's...the one's coming in dressed-up in a cowboy shirt un-buttoned to the navel , with a cowboy hat with a goose feather or an ace of spade's stuck in the band and a pair of high speed , pointed toed boots , along with a cadalliac hub-cab for a belt buckle , or the ones dressed in what looks like last years pj's and flip-flops...well they're the non-professional's you speak of....been around for decades....this mess didn't just start....the older hands just cared what they looked like , and how they wanted to be thought of.....not too many of them left.....

 

Exactly.....^^^^^ the very reason my wife went on to CRNA school.....now she's making a 6 figure salary.

 

If they have no school of thier own, and lowered the requirements, what I have seen form a couple of smaller "home grown companies" up here, is that they are failing. The smaller home grown companies, and I can only speak of what I am a witness to here, is that they were once very good to work for and ONLY you got hired if you were friends with a driver, otherwise, you'd never even get to know where they were officed out of.

This one particular company here, is a reefer company. They always had NEW trucks every 5 years or less. Now? all of their trucks are at the very minimum, 10 years old, and some of those sit with needed repairs the owner cannot afford. So for HIM to lower his requirements? Easy squeezy. He has no benefits anymore. His drivers? They do not stay. Any training? Yeah, he teaches you how to pulp a load. And he tells you that you need to buy a thermometer, a mere under $10 item.

 

No...it's simple ..the pool they have to draw from is shrinking....call it what you want lowering standards , or succumbing to pressure to keep a customer base. You do however see alot of wal-mart trailers being pulled by some not so great companies....It takes tons more than experience to make a " driver"......doesn't take alot of really hard to gain skills to do it....but , it does take lots of time to develop the skills necessary to be a "professional driver"...contrary to some folks opinion...there IS a huge difference between the 2.

 

At one time, to even be considered to work for wally-world, one had to have x number of years experience. Then if you passed that muster, you had to go for an interview, in front of (from what I remember) a panel of 5(?) Wally-world drivers, and explain to them how good you are, how you want to work there, etc,etc. Then you had to still wait for a chance to get in.

Now, if wally-world is lowering their requirements, tells me they cannot get the higher quality of drivers they once had and boasted about. I can also say from my nightly witnessing of events, wally-world drivers are (at times) not any better than any mega-carrier driver would be. I see those trucks, weaving, speeding, slowing down, not letting others pass them, etc,etc. So to me this signals poor hiring practices. It can only be a matter of time that all wally-world trailers will be pulled by mega-fleets, and o/o's, and the wally-world driver pool as we knew it, will wither away.

It WILL BE cheaper to hire out, get rid of the trucks, get rid of the insurance, fuel costs etc, and pay a much more hungry fleet and o/o's.