Truck Driver Shortage

Well they could just make a lot more of those "Truck Parking" spots next to the Interstate.
Those are so nice and quiet 25 feet off the highway.
The ones with "No facilities" or "No water" are my personal favorites.

 

Years ago, I was so tired late one night going over Siskiyou Pass into Oregon and decided to pull over on that good sized shoulder guys park on.

Man, was I ever in for a rough night. Trucks whizzing by, shaking my truck, the noise was also relentless. Even though I was so tired, I barely slept.

Never have parked on the side of the freeway again since then.

 

Don't know if they still do it but up on the greenstamp they had a bunch of those. Good grief no way in hell I would be that close to the turnpike. Every other night they are unscrambling a set of doubles that lost onto the shoulder. That would be a hell of a ride awakening. Getting out in your birthday to beat the crap out of XPO.......

 

I've been saying the same thing but every time I do, the "zero government" zealots call me a socialist communist or some such and that we should not rely on government to fix capitalism problems.

But if/when they do, they will raise the fuel tax 20 cents per gallon for every interchange ROW they convert. So there's that to consider.

 

Retrain as a compitent freightliner wrench and you'll make millions, billions.

 

This whole driver shortage thing isn't anything new ..it's a shortage of cheap drivers , I seen this several times in the past 30+ years and every flipping time the industry buries its head in the sand until half the fleet is sitting on the fence and the check books open up .
This latest storm has been predicted for several years and is hitting now but as usual fleets kept they're usual pay as little as ya can get away with tude and Wel just replace em .
Sorry dumb dumbs the pool has dried up and I feel no pity for you !
Good luck .
Bay and bay
Zeitner and sons
Van wyk
Marten transport
Nebraska Atlantic
Wynne transport
Greater Omaha express
Sparten Nash
The party is over !

 

No worries. Just lower the standards some more.

The training megas have it made compared to the small and mid sized carrier who only hire experienced drivers but see significant growth potential in the near term.

 

There is soup on the shelf at Wal Mart so that means every company is having no issues getting loads covered.

What a stupid thing to say.

A "shortage" of drivers may or may not mean unable to actually get product delivered. It could mean having to pay much higher rates which then get passed onto consumers as an increase in prices. An increase in prices is known as inflation.

If shipping rates are abnormally high because of fewer trucks on the road, that hurts the entire US economy because then everything becomes more expense. Including the stuff we buy to stock our trucks during our outings. So we shoot ourselves in the foot. We all would like to make 5 dollars a mile hauling crap around, but if there is nobody willing to pay that then we'll be making zero dollars a mile.

Drivers seem to think they are worth far more than they really are. Old timers are mad at newbies because they are reducing accident rates by over 70 percent and are happy to work for less money. Oh well, it's called capitalism.

Quite frankly, the only reason megas exist is because for so long drivers were getting paid far more than they were worth. Megas saw the chance to bring costs down to shippers and they took the bait. You have nobody to blame but yourselves. Competition is always good for the consumer.

 

The shortage is companies that want a perfect driver with a spotless record so that when some shady lawyer sues them because they own a truck it won't look bad in court. This is reality. They also want to pay them the bare minimum. Many companies are still paying in the low .30 range for miles.