University of Arkansas Student Gathering Insight on Driver Shortage

Might I suggest searching the site for "driver shortage"? There are many, long, interesting threads already. Then ask follow up questions.

I would also look at the new driver training paradigm currently in use. The "driver shortage" becomes more understandable once you understand the pics poor training

 

There is no shortage of drivers. There is a shortage of good paying jobs.
The whole problem is like offering $8hr salary to factory workers and complain about lack of people not wanting to take that job

 

There is no shortage of drivers!!!
What there is, is a shortage of drivers willing to put up with nonsense.
There's plenty of drivers doing other
things now because of all the bs , including the horrific treatment of drivers by the vast majority of these dbag companies.
If companies would treat us in a more humane manner many would happily come back to the fold.

 

Dislike the work something is always going wrong and the driver is the one affected by it not anyone else.
What pushes drivers away is the statement above and the pay package I believe I make a decent amount of money now but as much as i am at work I don’t believe the trade off is worth it.
There is no driver shortage just a shortage of people that refuse to work in an inhumane evironment. Truck load companies should be set up more like ltl companies have drivers for pick ups and delivery and guys for the linehaul.

 

You may want to research "companies with high turnover" vs "companies with low turnover".

 

I've been driving on/off since 1980. Mostly on and mostly OTR. It's an entirely different "world" out there today than yesteryear. Many things are better, but many aspects are worse and getting worse by the year.

Truckload movements are practically increasing exponentially each year. This increase is driving a lot of the perceived driver shortage.

Truck driving is a trade that not just anyone can [learn to] do well AND be happy with the job, long term. It's not for everybody, even though the trade schools will try and tell you differently ... that "anyone can be a well-paid truck driver in just a few short months" - bull crap

What is making the job more and more difficult to deal with, frankly, is the ever-increasing numbers of trucks. On many stretches of interstate highway, truck traffic now FAR exceeds automobile traffic during weekdays and outside of weekend and holiday travel days. Truck density has pretty much reached the saturation point in many parts of the nation. It's like trying to be happy living in a 2 bedroom home, where the family size has now reached 15. In most parts of the nation, truckers are in immediate proximity of another car or truck virtually every single driving minute of every single day.

The job is becoming [more] stressful in a lot of ways, even for experienced drivers. I can't imagine the stress levels new drivers must contend with dealing with all there is to deal with. Schedules, traffic, time management, weather, mechanical problems, bad and unsafe drivers, full truck stops, eLogs with 3 timers working against them, long wait times at shippers and receivers, being treated like crap in many places, and on and on.

The demands for drivers has introduced a lot of new drivers into the industry that have no business being here. Hiring standards are in the toilet. Training standards are in the toilet. Mentor drivers are paid so little so as to not attract potential trainers, and many of the trainers today have no business driving, let alone training. So we have a lot of incompetence out here that plays out in a host of ways. Pay is so slow to increase for drivers as experience grows, that many simply don't see it as a viable long term career choice after a few years.

So you have older drivers "retiring", mid-career drivers getting fed up and leaving for something else, inexperienced drivers washing out or giving up. Various drivers at all levels crashing (literally) or failing drug tests and ending careers.

The Hours of Service rules we are now operating under has also demanded there be more drivers then otherwise would be necessary with more sensible HOS rules. I estimate current HOS rules has required drivers counts increase by at least 10% just to insure on-time deliveries and satisfactory service levels. The freight movements are finite in any given period, so adding more trucks and drivers to the solution only clogs up the truck stops with more drivers making less gross pay.

There's no easy answer. There are so many issues and so many causes and few possible solutions. I could go on and may return with more comments. But I've said about all I care to say for now.

 

Great post from @STexan .

I'm actually happy where I'm at right now, but I'm concerned about the changes to the industry that will come as a result of the push for more automation. It's hard to convince people to work in an industry that the tech world is trying very hard to automate.