No experience but getting Authority

in some states. you can't find a parking spot ANYWHERE during the day.

if there's a shortage of ddrivers. why are all them trucks just sitting.

rates will go up when the newbies realize there isn't any money in trucking to wanna make the jump.

rates will go up when we actually have a shortage of drivers. and with all the companies that closed the doors in this depression. there's more drivers then trucks right now.

 

There is no shortage of drivers or trucks. Wages and rates are flat. When a true shortage occurs you will see wages rise along with rates. If there was a shortage of capacity my phone would be ringing off the hook begging me to take loads. They would ask me to name my rate to take their load. So far, that isn't happening. It has happened on a few occasions, but it has been some time since I have had very many brokers or shippers call and tell me to name my own rate. When that happens I will know there is a shortage.

 

All understood, but I'm still confused. The media (always a trustworthy source of The Truth in our country) keeps pushing the story that there is a shortage of drivers, that we need 250,000 RIGHT NOW to fill available jobs!? Trucks always parked? How much of that is because of the driving time regulations? I thought the lots were full because the truck HAD TO be down, off the road, for "X" amount of hours in a day. Are you telling me all these guys are just sitting at truck stops waiting for the next load? I HAVE been paying attention, and I see many, many (thousands?) driving jobs going unfilled all across the country. Is there something I'm missing here?

 

And I agree there sure is no shortage of trucks. There are GREAT trucks selling for DIRT CHEAP right now. Perhaps the jobs that I'm seeing are there, unfilled, BECAUSE they pay next to nothing. Sad situation, indeed...

 

It goes back to freight rates and driver pay. This is a very competitive industry. When you see carriers offering high pay, big sign on bonuses and other perks you will know that there is a true driver shortage. When you see average freight rates at or above $3.00/mile then there will begin to be a shortage of trucks. When you see trucks sitting at a truck stop it is usually due to them waiting for a load. Drivers don't make money by sitting in a truck stop. Carriers advertise because there is turnover, although less today than 3 years ago. There is something called "churn" that refers to drivers leaving one carrier to go to a different carrier. That is not a driver shortage. There will probably always be a demand for quality drivers. Many of the mega carriers just want a body to put in a seat. Some will stay, most will move on within less than a year. When you have thousands of trucks and 100%+ turnover per year it is necessary to advertise so that you can keep your trucks moving. That only says that those carriers have turnover. It doesn't mean that there are not enough drivers for this industry.

 

This is another indicator of over capacity. When prices of trucks are down then demand is down which demonstrates that there is excess capacity or more trucks than available freight. When truck prices are up then it shows that there is more demand than trucks. This is just another indicator that there are more trucks and drivers than available freight. No driver shortage.

 

Used truck prices are not down. GWC just released a statement telling insured not to lower truck value as they are seeing replacement values increasing over the past 12-months.

Talk of driver shortage has to do with QUALIFIED drivers. Plenty of drivers with poor records. But as CSA is becoming more of a factor companies are taking actions to elimante drivers that once didn't have to worry. If you had no accidents or tickets and recent OTR experience you could get hired with little effort. And no one asked about those warnings for headlight out, log form issues, etc. But now, minor warnings at an inspection can make you as undesirable AND uninsurable.

 

Good point about the CSA warning points. The points could impact a carrier's safety score but I have not heard of any problems with insurance, at least for now.

 

I heard this evening they were going to close three refineries in the northeast. Those three refineries reportedly makeup 20% gas and forgot the % of diesel in the northeastern area. Didn't catch the reason why they were closing. I can only imagine the reason.

 

Time for an update, as I've accomplished one more milestone: the new entrant safety audit. We passed! Yay us! This morning I packed my laptop bag and file box in the car and headed to downtown Atlanta where the GA DPS HQ is. I arrived about 25 min early, which allowed another 10 figuring out where the actual building was, get parked, and still arrive 15 min early.

It was interesting. I mentioned in another related thread that, unlike most others that were visited at their home office, I had to go to them. The DPS officer called last week to schedule. Later that day she faxed over a confirmation that included a list of paperwork to bring with me. I had a week to tidy things up and get ready. Most everything was already there so it wasn't a huge effort. Mainly paging through them and double-checking checklists I have collected over the past year.

As expected, my son's expensive random inspection fail (logbook violations plus a minor equipment problem) in Pennsylvania last May attracted scrutiny. I was able to quickly produce logbook pages for the relevant days and walk her through what happened that day. She was completely satisfied that I was able to demonstrate knowledge of the incident details and pleased to see that corrective action had already been taken and proven effective (electronic logbook and automated auditing). She also discovered that the PA officer had written our minor equipment violation (loose guide bracket on the sliding tandems) under the wrong code section (load securement), something that made it look worse than it was without closer examination. She could not change it, but did enter a descriptive comment into the record to clarify that there was no load securement problem and that the PA officer had left the scene and not updated the violation as he should have. Nice.

The rest was a few minor details that didn't amount to much, given how solid everything else was:

- One DQ file was missing the MVR. I had it and had simply missed printing it out and dropping it in the folder. I offered to show it on my laptop and she said don't worry about it, fix it when you get to your office. The fact that everything else was in there played in my favor.

- Equipment folder maintenance summary on the outside of the folder was perfect, except they wanted to see a column for "next scheduled service" added. She supplied a template to use, identical to what I had created minus that one column. On her mention that it was intended to show that a maintenance plan exists, I reach in my box of goodies and handed her my maintenance process documents. Five pages showing what gets done and when. That passed muster, although I will add that column as that will be what they look for in the future.

- A dealer supplied DOT form for the second truck purchased in November had the carrier info at the top of the page left blank. They had done the inspection in September when they got it in inventory. All I need to do is write my info in and that's fixed.

- DOT form for the trailer bought in November wasn't in the folder. Oversight on my part. It is in the truck book and I have an electronic copy of it. Just need to print it out and drop it in the folder.

- Last but not least was something they said many carriers miss: inspector qualifications attached to each DOT inspection. I completely missed that one. I'm sure it was in my checklists and I simply misunderstood the requirement. Apparently a supplier of DOT inspections should offer a qualification sheet with the inspection form. Most just forget it if you don't ask for it. Not knowing any better, I had never asked nor had one been provided. I will call the places that did mine and request one for each of them.

It took a little over an hour to complete. It was conducted in a conference room where two officers were doing audits at the same time. At the beginning, one of them made about a 5 minute announcement to the room of the most common things they find carriers either don't know or aren't clear on, then offered q&a. Following that we went one on one into details at opposite ends of the long table.

The most enlightening thing going on during this process was what was going on at the other end of the table. The other guy wasn't having a good day. Unlike me and my neatly organized file box, he came in with a handful of manilla folder with paper coming out of every corner. He had to look up his DOT number and couldn't find the MC number. The latter because there wasn't one. Then he was asked about insurance and didn't have enough. Incomplete logbook files. No equipment folders. No DQ or drug/alcohol files. Basically this guy had bought a truck, applied for DOT numbers, bought cheap insurance and went trucking. I was impressed at the restraint the officer doing the audit displayed. The way he delivered the message to this guy that he was now out of business and would be for about a month or more while sorting it out tells that he has to do that a lot.

Toward the end, a woman entered the room. She was the other officer's next appointment and got to watch the last 10 minutes of her predecessor's head being stuck on a pike. She didn't look too comfortable sitting there, clutching her own little manilla folder with paper falling out of it just like the other guy had. As the first man left looking completely gutted, she began a story that included something about renting a truck for her husband a while back and planning to get another one this month but things weren't working out. I quickly signed off my own audit, confirmed twice that I had no follow up to complete, and got the hell outta there.

I now have a much greater respect for what those DPS officers have to deal with everyday having witnessed that. The minor issues on my own audit were a bonus.