TruckersReport: Please take this survey about driver turnover

I left my last true driving jobs for a combination of lack of miles, not enough home time. They are linked directly. I never minded being on the road when there seemed to be a purpose to it. I also trained for a lot of years, that also became a factor as the training programs stopped being training and started to be revenue driven. When I leave he house OTR, I expect to be run pretty hard and have my hours utilized to their maximum.

I left the OTR field because it seemed like sitting and waiting was becoming more and more expected and meeting unrealistic times OR getting set up on loads that some bozo had already screwed up was getting to be the norm. As a trainer, it got to be tiresome of becoming the primary means of companies to cover for poor drivers or poor scheduling. Either way I was the one having to either push it with a student that may or may not be ready to run or getting stuck with a load that was already late, miss loaded (normally by some moron driver who flat out didnt care) and end up working that load for hours and hours to get it corrected before I could even do anything with it.

What drove me to where I am today in the insdustry was another combination of dealing with the low lifes who were seeming to flood the industry and an industry that was becoming more and more hamstrung into hiring these people.

 

I did take the survey

 

Tried to but none of the choices given fit my situation

 

For me it not being paid for down time. When freight was really good I loved trucking. When it slowed down and I got to rot in a truck stop waiting for a load and not getting paid it started to suck. It also used to tick me off when I spent a Friday night waiting for to get my truck fixed on my way home and not getting paid for it. Also the benefits kept getting worse but costing more, even before Obamacare. I moved on to the railroad where if I get stuck somewhere, it is in a decent hotel, and I get paid to sit in a hot tub, sleep, and order room service. I also get a lot better pay, benefits, and retirement. The downside is being on call which can really suck. If I could get the same pay and benefits driving I would come back in a heart beat.

 

It must be a logistics class learning how to carry on the traditions!

 

I checked low pay as a reason for leaving but in reality the main reason I left my company was because it was teams only. So perhaps you should include an "other" option

 

I left my last job because we were asked to perform stuff that was illegal. I wanted no part in such activities and when the working conditions became unbearble, I quit and filed for unemployment until I became employed with my next company.

KH

 

You're missing an important factor in the turnover rate . The number of newbies that leave . Look at info starting on page 16 here . http://www.metrans.org/nuf/documents/Burks.pdf
Now we know if a carrier with 4,000 drivers has a 100% turnover rate not all the drivers quit . Probably 75% or 3,000 drivers will stay . New hires for the other 1,000 positions may quit after an average of 3 months so 4,000 drivers are hired to fill those positions . That is where the real turnover is .
It should also be noted that only thr truckload OTR sector which is mostly starter companies has such a high turnover .

http://www.ccjdigital.com/which-drivers-will-go/

 

No option for becoming an O/O.....So I checked "Low Pay" in #'s 2 and 3.....

 

One of the big reasons I quit my last employer was because of forced dispatch.