Is 18 the Answer to the Driver Shortage

 

For decades the industry has tried to convince the world that there is a driver shortage. You can find an article everyday telling us that there is a shortage of at least 35,000 drivers and it is going to get worse. Try telling that to the driver waiting for freight. You will get a different answer. As your future FMCSA Chief it will be my job to find the truth, and make the nation's highways as safe as possible while maintaining the flow of interstate commerce.

 

My biggest stated goal as your FMCSA is to reduce the number of truck accidents – in short “Don't Run into Stuff”. It is important to be fair. It is more important to be honest. This country needs about 3.5 million CDLA truckers. It has about 12 million. That makes me think that there is not a shortage of available truck drivers. The problem is that we have not been able to keep them behind the wheel. Why haven't we been able to keep them? Trucking is a hard job. Some people just are not willing to work over 40 hours per week. Face it, successful truckers tend to work 60 plus hours per week. We complain that HOS regs won't let us log more than 70 hours in 8 days. Truckers tend to be a hard working group. Perhaps, the industry could look at ways to make that 40 hour week a practical reality.

 

Industry professionals will tell you that we do not recruit enough drivers. This makes no sense. We recruit nearly 40,000 people per month. I refer to my calculator. Every 7.3 years we could completely replace the driving force. It seems to me that we do recruit enough drivers. One could argue that we recruit too many drivers. If a supply is plentiful, it tends to get wasted. Once a supply becomes short, it tends to be treasured. If we cut in half the number of recruits and treated those recruits better, could we end up with more succeeding?

 

An 18 year old driver is much more likely than a 21 year old driver to “run into stuff”. That is not an opinion. It is a fact. The Center for Disease Control will tell you that a teen age driver is almost 3 times more likely the a 20 year old to be involved in a fatal accident. Insurance companies charge teen age drivers higher rates, because they are more likely to pay claims. That said 18 year olds are old enough to serve in the military. They can vote. We should look for ways to work them in. Some of them can be safe and reliable drivers. Perhaps, state boundaries are the wrong limitation. A driver can say service Council Bluffs, IA and Omaha, NE. Maybe we should be looking at a mileage limitation. 150 miles from a home terminal may be a reasonable start.

 

The industry needs to figure out how stop losing drivers. The idea of trying to add another generation of drivers before we solve the problem doesn't make sense to me. It is like putting more water into the sink without closing the drain.

 

Comments (3)

Jeff Clark

Jeff Clark of Kewaunee, WI has been driving a truck for 24 years. He has been an owner operator for 11 years.

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It is hard to match Jerry 's passion. Once you get him on a roll, you've got your show covered. The thing is though that Jerry and I have Commbordernd on this.I am not opposed to getting 18 year olds . started in the business. I like the idea of a limited circumference over state border

July 20, 2015 7:59:21 AM

Very good points Jeff, I definitely agree with the "If a supply is plentiful, it tends to get wasted. Once a supply becomes short, it tends to be treasured." I had driven for a number of companies over the years and felt like more of a number than a person. Truck drivers I think are some of the hardest, dedicated individuals around.

18 is a little too young, I definitely agree, considering the patients that I had back then compared to even a few years later, was a big difference, we cant keep throwing more people at the industry and seeing who sticks, rather find ways to keep the people who have kept this country rolling for many a year.

July 20, 2015 6:31:06 AM

Excellent article Jeff, and well said. Just one more way to hire a new group into the industry for low wages.
We spoke about this last night on the AskTheTrucker "Live" broadcast, Our first caller was Jerry Fritz , on our open forum format, there were a few more who followed,

We were scheduled to touch on 11 topics , including the first one of "Driver Wages"-
Show was 2 hours. We didn't get past 1st topic of Driver Wages.

July 19, 2015 10:02:19 AM