HOS, Driver Shortage Top Trucking’s Concerns

[dhalltoyo]

Hours-of-service rules and a shortage of truck drivers top the list in a new survey of more than 5,000 trucking industry executives, the American Transportation Research Institute said Monday.

Other top 10 issues include fuel prices, congestion, government regulation, tolls and highway funding, tort reform and truck driver training, the group said.

ATRI, an affiliate of American Trucking Associations, is a not-for-profit research institute for the trucking industry.

NOTE: Driving Training should be a paramount concern! Fuel prices and congestion (Ya think?) Governement regulation (I thought the tolls, fuel prices, driving training, highway funding, and congestion were the result of government regulation; or the lack there of!)

 

[Moot]

David, I assume your list of top 10 issues is recent. Looks like the same top 10 issues from 1975. Except the 55 m.p.h. speed limit was on the list in 1975.

As long as I have been in trucking there has been a driver shortage. I guess the rules of supply and demand don't apply when it comes to rates and wages.

 

[Crazynuff]

As long as decent driver pay doesn't make the priority list driver shortage will remain near the top . I bet lobbying for eased immigration program including a guest worker program is near the top of the list

 

[greg334]

So they asked five people what they thought?

From my point of view, there is no driver shortage.

AND

What government regulations, try working in a really regulated work world and see what regulations is all about.

 

[dhalltoyo]

Greg,

They are looking at this data from the corporate side.

5,000 trucking industry executives were interview.

Of course, any three forum members on EO could have given them a better read.

 

[joebob1_30132]

Driver shortage code for "lets flood the work pool for even cheaper pay"

 

[dhalltoyo]

Carriers are not really looking to lose drivers.

There are costs associated with bringing a new unit into the fleet. Why spend money to bring on a unit only to have it leave within a few weeks?

From a logical enconomic standpoint, they are not flooding the pool to purposely drive down your rate of pay.

I will agree that there are too many units in the pool, but that is due to a philosphy that carriers believe they need a van on every corner. Certainly, they will get more opportunities to cover loads, but at what cost?

Although I disagree with the philosphy, my opinion will not affect their mindset. Hopefully a wise financial officer will see the long-term benefit of doing whatever it takes to keep units from leaving; especially, after they have spent money to acquire those units in the first place.

 

[greg334]

David,
The driver shortage is not from the Owner/Operator contracting pool but rather putting drivers (employees) in the seat of a fleet owned truck is what they are talking about. The turn over of these companies tops 200% which is far higher than owner/operator contractors turn over. I see more O/O hauling WalMart, Schieder and other trailers around.

What could be done to find a solution? Nothing except to start reverting back to rail to haul more tons/mile. When you really look at it, there is no choice in other than that and when I traveled out west, that was what it looked like - a lot of intermodal freight. Going back to the way it was.

When you hear the driver's training as an issue and then hear about shortage, there is a big problem brewing. If you tighten up the training, then something has to give either you have to pay more or deal with less driver resources available. I don't think that the carries who are really large will bring a pay increase that is really needed to the industry unless they are forced to, they don't really care about it.

Combined this with the further restrictions in emissions, a lack of real support of straighting up the HOS mess and ambiguity in the fuel supply, there is really not much hope for the industry unless there is a serious push from the truckers themselves to get attention that things like the Mexican truck issue, the anti-idle cr*p and the tax system changes.