Truck driver turnover - why so high?

This was a good post right there.

 

Find a OTR truck driver and ride with him for a week.
You'll be able to write 3 books about it when your done.

 

A truck driver can work 10 hours in a day and not
Make one penny.
Pretty much sums it all up.

 

That's a bold faced lie.

 

A good analogy for "driver attrition" is the game "whack-a-mole"; many aren't leaving the industry, they're just changing companies.

 

Anyone fresh from school with a new CDL license does not have knowledge or a refined skill set to avoid at least one preventable accident in the first one or two years of trucking. They are then dismissed rather callously because trucking industry companies employ at will. When a newbie rookie driver three months in finally does something rather expensive he;s gone. Fired. kaboom burnt.

The company doing the firing has no worries, there are 50 more in the orientation trailer champing at the bit ready to go make money. However little it is.

IF the fired driver did some thing outrageously expensive or actually incurred a injury or death there is a industry reporting called DAC. They are written up in that DAC and sometimes are unhireable for a period of months to years if at all. In my time there were certain offenses that got you banned from being hired anywhere in the trucking industry for life. They have since watered it down so instead of life you were hirable after say 5 years or ten years for truly bad offenses. Because the industry needs cheap bodies for labor.

When I started back in the 80's I recieved at least .20 a mile. In those days with the miles run it;s very good money more or less. 25% of truck revenue was the other source of good money as well. Work a week come home and if the truck earned say 2500, your check is somewhere above 600 for the week after taxes.

Fast forward to 2001, Experienced husband wife teams of which I was one recived thousands of dollars in cash just to sign on to a company and go to work. The spouse recieved at least .32 a mile while I picked up .40 a mile. Making the wage to the household around .72 a mile. When running for McKesson which is a major International Pharmacy company out of memphis regularly shipping million dollars plus of Narcotics In unmarked trailers, they go to distribution centers overnight so that hospitals will have them that day. We were not scared of or intimidated by the high dollar loads, It ws something of a first class run and we give it our best.

I am a licensed carry, the next time I go to memphis, as dangerous as it is, I will go armed. Or... I can join a major trucking company that does create rifle security gaurds to protect other husband wife teams to get that trailier into that spot to load bullion or some such deep into NYC.

Basically what I am driving at is if you are involved in truly first class freighting with a 18 wheeler, you are free from the common mixups, screwups, chain jerking around, wasted hours waiting, lack of sleep etc etc etc. All of the soul destroying problems simply go away in high dollar trucking. It gets handled promptly.

If I was to get back into it I will be right back at McKesson picking out a load to run. Be somewhere such as Detroit the next morning prior to sunrise. Reload with cardboard right back to memphis which is also a paying load. Drop trailer. Find another load repeat. It's a very pleasent life with a nice 4 figure pay check each week.

That is how you succeed as a trucker. That and buying a go pro dash cam to protect yourself from all of the cars trying to set up a smash for a nice workman's claim and even perhaps a civil lawsuit. (Have been sued twice with successful defenses.)

Turnover? Certainly.

That will be stopped when the industry finally stops hiring human drivers and spend a half million dollars to buy a Otto Truck of Budwieser fame. A complete computer drone that is itself "Alive" and self aware to drive a 18 wheeler by itself to make a route delivery using very high technology and mapping down to the Milliemeter.

No more trouble with humans. Ever again. Just buy a bunch of Ottos and hire one or two people to keep an eye on all of them in the fleet. Easy peasy.

There is never any job security in trucking. Newbies are disposble because again there are 50 more newbies fresh from school ready to be hired and assigned a trainer.

 

Driver turnover is comparable to McDonald's turnover for the same economic reasons.

 

There is a reason companies like ups can retain drivers. And jb hunt has to beg ppl to come over

 

Especially if the Mcdonalds workers are told that they did not sell enough burgers to sustain last weeks payroll rate, everyone now gets 1/3 of what they got the previous week net. And they will learn to like it.

Feast and famine in economic trucking payroll. That has to stop. I advocate a fixed salary of at least 4 figures net after taxes and withholding. That way miles no longer matter, only appointments do and drivers can focus on customer service. It will also take away much of the old school threats dispatch used to make to scare problem drivers into either meek submission or quitting.