TURNOVER

Also the turnover is being effected by poor driver health, if you start truck driving and enter any truck stop you will see people who are barely fit to be out of a hospital bed barely able to breath or walk with a plastic bag full of sodas, cakes, candy bars after hitting up the buffet. These people are becoming full blown diabetics requiring insulin shots or getting physically disabled due to eating too much food all the time. You cannot forget your health out on the road or it's another turnover statistic.

 

Navigatorswife and FLATBED covered it pretty well jigger. Lots of folks get into it with-out having a clue of just what trucking is all about. They actually think it's like Hollywood portrays it. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's a life-style for some , a "way of life" for others , and a career for still more. For still others.... it's just a way to make a dollar , and they spend several years of their life either chasing down the next company that will pay them a couple more pennies per mile , or give them a newer , nicer , FASTER , (emphasis on FASTER ) truck to drive. Depends on what category you want to classify your self in as to whether or not you will be satisfied. Some drivers get a bad taste in their mouths to start with.... from either a poor choice of companies , a really bad trainer , or they just find out that trucking is not or them. It's not for everybody....it's work , you really have to want to do it , not only to do it well , but to be successful.

jigger , my advice to you would be keep doing your research , talk to drivers....try and get a sample of opinions from drivers from different facets of the industry. Talk to drivers that are doing OTR ( JB Hunt , Werner , Schneider , etc ) , the ones that drive for the LTL companies ( Fed Ex , UPS , Conway etc. ) , the tanker guys (this includes any driver pulling fuel , milk or any tank ) , the fast food delivery drivers ( you will see them at the McD's or Burger Kings etc. )...take some time tell them to start with you would like to know what made them make the choice that they made....you'll find most of them will be glad to talk with you. This way you may be able to get a feeling for the "job" and be able to pick the niche that fits you the best. That way you'll be doing what YOU want....Good Luck! TTTD....................

 

Some can't read signs either .... lol

 

its all in the way you interpit the signs

Maybe he thought the sign meant GET YOUR TRUCK STUCK ON THE RAILS after making left turn but do not do it in a cubevan

 

Hahaha,
GPS said " destination on your left navigate offroad "
And well he did just that .... lol. Because if gps told u to do it there is no other way ..

 

After you speak to the different types of truck drivers. Then find a local factory worker. Talk to them about how they enjoy repetitive work. Standing in one spot all day. Talk to your local Wal-Mart worker. Ask them how they enjoy working for low pay and 35 or less hour weeks. And the list goes on....there's no such thing as a perfect job. If you think you might enjoy trucking. Go for it. Decide you don't like it. Move on to something else. While your trucking. You might find a job in a particular field in trucking that might interest you besides driving. You might decide be a diesel mechanic. A dot officer, inspecting trucks. A freight broker. Main point being, don't let what you read about turnover discourage you from what you think you might enjoy doing for a living. You never know where your journey might lead you......God Bless!!

 

The movie Duel tells what being a Trucker is really like. We try and try but we never can quite get those SOB four wheeler's.

One of the things that kicks folks out of this business is something called DAC. You make a mistake and a company can fire you and then report you to Hireright. That put out the DAC reports. They work for the companies and not for the drivers. It is very hard to get something off your DAC report once it is on there. For example, I scratched a piece of vinyl on a truck. It was a two inch scratch that buffed out. The company fired me and reported it to DAC as a "collision with a stationary object." An employer seeing that does not get a true and accurate picture of what is happening. But their description is not really false either.

Then you got something call CSA scores. These are points against a company that drivers pick up for doing something "unsafe." Oh my CSA is a warning ticket from Pennsylvania. I failed to pull over for an emergency vehicle. Oh, my. It sounds like I blocked an ambulance. What happened was, I was driving around a curve on the interstate and saw a group of DOT and Highway Patrol vehicles, on the grass off the shoulder on the right side of the highway. I could not clear my mirrors and just slowed down. This was a trap as they were giving truck tickets for this. I objected and he gave me a warning ticket instead. Warning tickets count against you. I did not know that or we would have been in court.

You as a driver, no matter what company you work for, are alone. You will find out that every one in management is your good family friend right up until there is some reason to show you the door and then your looking for a new company.

Find a UNION company and I will show you which companies have the lowest turn over rates.

Plus, once you get experience, folks like the freedom of being Owner/Operators.

BJ and the Bear was a television show that told it like it is. If you drive as a team there is a good chance you will be partnered with a dirty, smelly, ape.

 

NavigatorWife tries to make it sound like the entire problem of "turnover" is created by the driver, and driver alone. While the examples she gives are all true in some cases...more of the share of blame lies on the trucking companies side (with the lies, and the cheating, and the careless treatment of drivers); and then you got the Fed's messing with the industry (Hours Of Service and other regulations), making it harder and harder to make a decent check compared to the time and work you put in.

"Job Hopping", has nothing to do with the examples NavigatorWife gave---those guys usually end up getting out of the industry all together. Job Hopping is caused by trucking companies not putting their money where their mouth is, and a driver dedicated to the industry refusing to give up, so, always searching for that dream company.

 

If companies did more to retain their drivers rather than recruit new drivers to replace the ones that left TURN OVER would drop drastically .

Its same as marriages that fail and the spouses fail to realize should have put as much effort into keeping him / her as they did in romancing him / her at the start they would still be together., sort of like Just because you got me doesnt mean you need to stop trying to keep me