Now if we can get POTUS to save the trucking industry by not taxing them out of existence.
Then again, I don't know if I want an angry feminist studies grad behind the wheel of a big rig.
When he said, "We don't have enough females," Mr. Costello cast doubt on the accuracy of everything else he said.
In economic terms, a truck driver is a truck driver is a truck driver. It doesn't matter whether he's a man or she's a woman or they're from Mars. They are all "Logistics Input = Truck Driver."
The age of the truck driver matters, just as the age of the truck matters, because an older unit will have more downtime and need replacing sooner than a newer one. However, the sex of the truck driver matters no more than the color of the truck.
Driver shortage was 50,000 over 2 years ago - it is closer to 100,000 now and growing. Average driver age is 60 - No one in their 20’s is even thinking about being a truck driver.
One reason for that is the way companies like May and Werner have been abusing drivers for the past 20 years.
I know 2 over the road truck drivers well. Too much pressure to work too long hours at too little money.
RAISE THE FRIGGIN' WAGES! PAY BONUSES!
Relax the standards some where if one gets a stupid parking ticket it disqualifies him for life.
Sheesh, none of this is rocket science.
Try raising the rate Drivers are paid. Isn’t that what happens during shortages?
>>Amazon recently hiked its Prime membership to $119 a year from $99 a year.
And that PURELY has to do with shipping and not the requirement of Amazon Prime annual membership to get preferred customer pricing discounts at Whole Foods? Poppycock.
Amazon is the 800 pound gorilla and it will raise rates to what market will bear.
Of course interstate shipments can always go back to using trains instead of a daisytrain of trucks all going the same route for several states.
Almost every cross country rig you see on the highway has a sign on the back: “Hiring drivers...”
.
Guys with CDLs would rather go drive a cement mixer or even a trash truck rather than put up with all the BS that truckers have to.
So when you pass a trucker on the road, if he's not geriatric, he probably has less than a year experience and only plans to haul long enough to pay off his CDL schooling before he hightails it to the cement plant.
An them truckers gets to listen to all that great trucker music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TuB2zuyoIA
They don’t pay enough. It’s real simple.
If they expect people to live behind the wheel in a stinking truck and in tacky trashy truck stops, having little or no life whatsoever, they better pay way more than their paying now.
I hope ALL applicants are vetted to the max. Too easy for a terrorist to do their killing.
As I see it, anyone thinking about getting into Trucking now is going to have about three years of steady employment before their job is superseded by autonomous delivery vehicles of some kind. Which is unfortunate, but probably true.
The shortage has a lot to do with the ridiculous Electronic Logging Device rule that essentially takes 30% of a drivers productivity away.
The hours of service rules need to be updated so they enhance safety instead of government control.
“gonna be a truck driving man”....
I've been saying that since high school!