why is turnover so high?

Oh dont worry about the "shortage" of PAY , soon obama will give amnesty to a few million illegals to increase the demoncrat vote and a large enough portion of those will be jumping into the big trucks that the companies wont have much reason to think about pay or improvements, they will just contract with schools who hire bi-lingual trainers.....oops did I go political

 

With all the D.O.T. and trucking company regulations and requirements, it would most likely be far more difficult to get a truck driving job than to get a job at McDonald's.

Believe it or not, it can be quite difficult getting hired onto a McDonald's restaurant, as it would be getting hired onto any other job or company.

Times are tough for everybody.

 

Could you please give examples as to WHY a truck driver would need to be micromanaged?

 

Hi Pattyj,

How are you?

If you ever do write a book about the truck driving industry, please send me a message. I would be more than happy to buy a copy of that book from you.

 

What trucking company do you work for?

 

Depends. Details?

 

i agree completely about the people finding out that it was a harder job than they imagined. before i started driving my thought was " that will be an easy job, all i have to do is sit on my ### and drive all day" now i say bs to that but i still like it. i have been with 2 big companies and been screwed but i am at a 3rd now. which is a smaller company with apus on trucks and making a lot more money.

 

Minor preventable. Breaking a mirror.

2 not at fault.

 

well some drivers don't have common sense or are to lazy to take the initiative to do the right thing when nobody is watching. most company drivers i see or run into have the attitude it's a company truck they don't pay me to do such and such. I have heard them say why should I care if tire pressure is checked?.ensure truck gets in for required pm services when due, take a little pride in equipment. Could care less if they hit every chuck hole in a parking lot tear up suspension,tires ect. could care less about out of route miles to go home for a few hours.I have seen it done, driver drove 100 mi out of route just because "he wanted to go a different route". his words. drivers tear up equipment costing company lots of money running trailers over curbs and thru ditches. Abusing trucks see them take off all the time loaded and truck bouncing slippin the clutch in to high of a gear. I guess it's hard to float the gears?, use. 1st gear when loaded After all it's a company truck they have lots of money to repair it. then when truck breaks down they complain because they are sitting for days waiting on repairs. Then wonder why they don't get raises, new truck, or respect from company. Some drivers will go to a shop for them to replace a headlamp, wiper blade ect. because they say it's a company trk. Not their truck and couldn't be bothered. so what a 20.00 head lamp bulb now just cost the driver a few hours waiting and the company a 100.00. now granted those drivers are in the minority for the most part.

But soon the company is forced to implement policies and micro manage driver pool to mitigate the abuse from drivers and protect the bottom line. Respect goes both ways take care of the equipment, show respect, look out for the companies interests, from customers tearing up trailers equipment ect. goes along way in driver being rewarded and being taken care of by operations. This comes from a person who has worked in service dept's at a dealership as a technician, worked in a operations dept at a fleet. Like the saying goes a few bad apples spoils it for everyone.

 

I agree, and the other side of the coin is driver retention. A lot of small fleets often operated by old drivers simply get rid of the bad apples. Most realize that micromanagement will run off a lot of the good drivers (people with pride). I think this is one of several reasons you don't see the large turnover in small fleets like you do in the megas.
Greenhorns are trained by the old dogs, rather than someone who is still learning the basics themselves. So the when the new guy goes solo he is more likely to have a positive experience (no wrecks).