Why does trucking merit the need for so many drivers?

I was in the business as an owner operator for 40 years. What I learned was companies that compensate their drivers fairly have low turnover, think UPS,think a lot of the old LTL companies, think a lot of the former private fleets. It's a difficult lifestyle and it requires skill, determination and patience. It leaves little time for a personal life. Drivers were a proud bunch back in the day and we were generally compensated well and afforded a good middle class lifestyle for our families. Fast forward to today and drivers are treated poorly by the big fleets, asked to spend weeks away from their families, follow a myriad of ridiculous regulations and receive wages barely equivalent to what we were paid in 1980. This is all part of the race to the bottom that America is engaged in. Take a good look around you in a truckstop today and how many of these people driving for Werner, US Xpress, England and the rest make you feel proud to be part of the industry.

 

As long as the big BFI companies are running their own training departments and they are their own profit center, it's to their advantage to keep churning new recruits through the system, and then hope or try and force them out after 6 months.

 

This sums it up nicely. And drivers buying into the "we are unskilled labor" nonsense and accepting substandard wages. After all we are told we should "be grateful" we even have a job.

 

There is not a shortage of drivers,just a shortage of drivers willing to put up with the BS outhere..