Recognizing Truck Driver’s Contributions

How do you pay 35 billion dollars in taxes each year, have over three million members and still remain under the radar when it comes to recognition for your contributions to the economy? You work as a truck driver.

It seems hard to imagine, but people don’t seem to be aware of how most products move across the country, or how much effort it takes to get freight from point A to point B without damage, spoilage or theft. To give it a number, over 83% of freight is moved across the country by truck drivers.

Here’s a couple of secrets most people also don’t know about trucking:

1) There’s a driver shortage happening, as we speak.

2) The trucking industry is probably going to grow by over 20% in the next 10 years.

Why is there a shortage? Imagine working 14-hour days, and being away from your friends and family for weeks at a time. Also realize that sitting 10 hours a day is a requirement, and terrible meal quality is the normal practice in the industry. Now you have a small insight into some of the reasons for fewer people entering the business. However, it goes beyond just the reasons.

So how do we convince new career seekers that truck driving might be their ticket? While there is no single answer for that question, there are a number of things we can bring to their attention.

Safety records have improved. Truck driving is now probably safer than it has ever been. Even though drivers have driven double the number of miles they drove 25 years ago, truck involved fatalities have dropped over 33%. Injuries have dropped 38% from their previous levels. In fact, the crash rate for large trucks is less than 50% of what others vehicles suffer. This really is a safer industry than what it was even a few years ago.

While there are a host of suggestions for gaining and retaining drivers, one of the best known ways always seems to be avoided in the discussion – simply pay better. In fact, most analysts blame the average pay for the truck driver shortage. Unless you’re just starting out in your career, $37,000 a year isn’t much to live on. Every industry in need of skilled labor seems to recognize this, except the trucking industry. Whether you need workers for the tar sands projects, or people in the IT industry, when there’s a shortage of workers, you have to compensate them to bring them into the field. Additionally, low pay has experienced drivers leaving the field, or retiring at an alarming rate, so there’s even less experience out there – which the industry now needs quite badly.

Retirees suggest that legislation and regulation are also big factors in their leaving. While we realize every aspect of this industry needs to be paid to make it work properly, most of the work is on the driver to get the load from one point to another. And let’s face it, between loading, offloading, securing and timely delivery; drivers do most of the work associated with the loads. The industry needs to recognize this.

If the industry seriously wants to overcome the struggle for drivers, it’s simply going to have to recognize the driver’s contributions, and pay better.