How much training to stop drivers from speeding or tail gating or using double books? Do you really believe drivers that break laws are undertrained??? They just dont care.
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- Thread starter jjoerger
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How much training to stop drivers from speeding or tail gating or using double books? Do you really believe drivers that break laws are undertrained??? They just dont care.
greg334
Veteran Expediter
How much training to stop drivers from speeding or tail gating or using double books? Do you really believe drivers that break laws are undertrained??? They just dont care.
I agree with you but see it isn't the actual training that will weed out those who can't think or are too stupid to make the attempt to drive a bit better, it is the effort they have to put into the training that will discourage them. This happens in everything, too hard - too bad and they are gone.
On top of that, some carrier who offer training will now have to deal with a longer investment of time and will also weed out some of the idiots that go into their front door.
AMonger
Veteran Expediter
How much training to stop drivers from speeding or tail gating or using double books? Do you really believe drivers that break laws are undertrained??? They just dont care.
Or maybe they feel that they need to make a reasonable living, and they figure no one cares.
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You know the problem with bad cops? They make the other 5% look bad.
Ahh a reasonable living at the expense of those who abide by the laws. I hope it isnt a loved one of yours who is tragically involved with these highly motivated entrepreneurs.
Excuse me while I get my violin and play for those uncared for souls.
Excuse me while I get my violin and play for those uncared for souls.
You are soooo right...Just yesterday I wittinessed a FedEx Ground driver harassing a poking four wheeler in the center lane. Both lanes were clear for him to go around. But nooo, he had to express his contempt by running up way too close and trying to intimidate. The four wheeler didn`t move, and he finally went around, no doubt with fingers flying.How much training to stop drivers from speeding or tail gating or using double books? Do you really believe drivers that break laws are undertrained??? They just dont care.
DANGER WILL ROBINSON. DANGER! I'm not so sure EOBRs will turn drivers into robots. Tachographs have been around for years, although not mandated by federal law, and were probably considered an invasion of privacy. I wouldn't care to have a HAL-9000 for a co-driver. Like tachographs, if a company wants to install them in their equipment fine, but it shouldn't be a federal law.
As for the "dregs of society", I believe the trucking industry has always relied in a big way on the dregs. Maybe there is a new class of "dregs" plying our highways and byways. Would you and Diane be out here today if not for power steering, automatic transmissions, A.C., cellphones and wireless internet?
"It can only be attributable to human error." HAL-9000
I thought about the "dregs" comment too.
(Definition of the dregs of society/humanity from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)
a group of people in society who you consider to be immoral and of no value
Doesn't everyone have to pass the CDL test required for the type of vehicle they want to drive?
Doesn't everyone have to pass a DOT physical?
Doesn't everyone have to pass a drug screening and be available for a random?
I do not believe I would call anyone trying to obtain or maintain gainful employment a "dreg".
I met a heavy haul TT driver that thought that straight truck drivers were all people who couldn't pass the CDL A exam. I wonder who he would consider to be a "dreg"?
(Definition of the dregs of society/humanity from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)
a group of people in society who you consider to be immoral and of no value
Doesn't everyone have to pass the CDL test required for the type of vehicle they want to drive?
Doesn't everyone have to pass a DOT physical?
Doesn't everyone have to pass a drug screening and be available for a random?
I do not believe I would call anyone trying to obtain or maintain gainful employment a "dreg".
I met a heavy haul TT driver that thought that straight truck drivers were all people who couldn't pass the CDL A exam. I wonder who he would consider to be a "dreg"?
"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"
Didn't the sky fall when CSA was implemented? Guess there must be some sky left...
Didn't the sky fall when CSA was implemented? Guess there must be some sky left...
I am using dregs in a broad sense and as a figure of speech. You are applying the term to CDL holders or those who aspire to be. I am not.
If you want to push me to be more precise about the potential labor pool to which I refer, substitute unambitious laborers with limited skills, no desire for self improvement and a strong sense of entitlement.
The point I am making is that the more technology you put in a truck, the less skilled the driver needs to be to be hired under today's standards. And the less skilled the driver needs to be, the lower down the food chain carriers can go to recruit people to become new CDL holders.
Why is it that a driver of 10 or 20 years with a great record and strong skill set gets paid only slightly more than a freshly minted CDL holder? It is because the freshly minted CDL holder can make a truck go down the road too.
Why is it that truck drivers who have high school educations, college educations and even graduate school degrees get paid the same as drivers who do not? Because little education is required to drive a truck.
Distinguish between driving skills, social skills and business skills. An employee driver's skill set is becoming less and less important as technology takes over (as Wolfeman68 detailed above). The less skills that are needed, the less you have to pay someone to draw him or her into the industry to perform what few required skills remain. The lower you pay a new person, the less you have to pay a veteran.
A colleague told me the other day of a FedEx Custom Critical straight truck driver he met on the road. This driver was in a fleet owner's truck and boasting to my friend that he is one of the top drivers in the fleet getting paid $0.22 a mile. We are seeing today people getting paid $0.22 a mile to haul FedEx Custom Critical, exclusive use, high value, expedited freight. What skills is the $0.22 driver exercising to do that? What price is he demanding for his services?
There are driving skills and related skills. The value of related skills is falling as technology replaces the need for a human being to do them. That is not good news for expediters who aspire to be more than steering wheel holders and get paid more too.
Notice too how technology (package tracking, prioritized sorts, etc.) is making it possible for LTL companies to provide what expediters alone used to provide, and notice the lower price LTL companies ask to do so.
Earning a CDL is an accomplishment, there is no doubt about that. But let's be real. People in society who are generally known as professionals get years of expensive education and training before they get to put their certificate on the wall.
To become a professional driver (one who gets paid to drive), you need only be in reasonably good health and show up at a large carrier's CDL school and pass a drug test. In three weeks you will have a CDL and be in a truck with a trainer whose qualifications may or may not be much greater than yours.
Education prerequisites do not exist to get a CDL (though a carrier may require some education). If you can read, write and do arithmetic at the seventh grade level, you will have no trouble with the CDL "academics."
The middle class is shrinking in America as economic realities and technology creates and eliminates jobs, and people gravitate to the upper and lower income classes. I fear that for most truckers, technology and regulations are pushing truckers into the lower income class.
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Sounds like you are creating employment opportunities for the Wall Street Occupy crowd.
Top drivers getting .22 per mile at the Fed. Ummm???
Either some drivers are getting their clock cleaned or somebody is hauling some cheap freight.
zorry
Veteran Expediter
Phil, yes trucks keep getting easier to drive. Would you and Diane have gotten into trucking if you had to drive a non a/c , spring ride, with a 5 x 3 trans ? I doubt it . Once trucks got easy enough for the A Team to come on board was progress supposed to stop ? No, trucks will continue to get better and easier. I can drive that 5 X 3 but am really looking forward to my I-Shift. The 22 cpm mile driver bothers me to. When a marginal operator pulls in for that one of a kind prototype shipment I'm embarassed. To the carrier all they know is truck #555 was willing to pull that load for 50 cpm mile less than me. They made more profit. It's a false economy if that marginal operator costs them a customer. On the education thing, I turned down the University of Hawaii to enter the family trucking business at 18. This was after talking to a college graduate that drove for us. I would not pay a graduate more money to drive truck for me because he graduated. I'd be inclined to pay a high school dropout more if he had skills, common sense, and things that would help my business. To quote Dave Ramsey, an MBA stands for Moving Beef Around when you work at McDonalds .
I would suspect that the FDCC driver was a team driver.
22 cents a mile for a team driver in a straight truck isn't far from the norm. $1.10 loaded with no FSC at 40% is 44 cents per mile split between two drivers.
You should see what CRST, Swift and the other big companies pay there team drivers.
22 cents a mile for a team driver in a straight truck isn't far from the norm. $1.10 loaded with no FSC at 40% is 44 cents per mile split between two drivers.
You should see what CRST, Swift and the other big companies pay there team drivers.
I based it on the 44 cpm. I didn't talk to the driver. It may be surface expedite all miles.
I asked the same question and didn't get a response either.
I did my road test in a 1957 B model Mack with a triplex and bench seat.
Correct. Our reasons for becoming expediters in 2003 were; 1) increase our income, 2), spend more time together, 3) share in a business project, 4) simplify our lives, and 5) see the country. Notice that becoming tough truckers was not on the list.
If not for air conditioning, air ride seats, easy transmissions, straight trucks, cell phones, internet access, etc., we would have never considered trucking.
It happens once every year or two that this job almost begins to feel like work to us, but remembering the jobs we came from and the freedom and success we found in trucking, we find it easy to shake that feeling off and drive on.
Looking ahead a few years, the picture is not as rosey. I view it as an item of profound significance that at least one large fleet owner and perhaps others are lowering their pay; not during the Great Recession but as a mild economic recovery is underway.
Own-authority expediters are becoming more numerous and they are not running expensive, big sleeper trucks. Because of the internet and cell phones, their freight-getting and customer service ability rivals that of the major carriers. There are some very smart and energetic people on the rise in that sector. That "invisible fleet" is large; larger than the fleets of all major expedite carriers combined.
Own-authority is well within Diane's and my capabilities to do. We have the requisite sales and administrative skills. But doing so violates the "simplify our lives" reason we got into the business.
We're doing better at our new carrier after leaving FedEx and are happier than before. But the big trends that seem evident to me do not leave us with the cushion we enjoyed in years past. There is more going on than the Great Recession and a slow recovery. It's not going to be as easy as waiting for the economy to recover and riding the major-carrier gravy train once again.
There is no doubt in my mind that there will be thousands of people who will successfully navigate the current landscape to make a good living as expediters five years from now.
Diane and I have other options. We always have. As the industry continues to transform, the other options may become more attractive. It may very well be that the first truck we bought will be our last. (It has at least five good years left in it.)
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Correct. The driver mentioned was a team driver.
That was my point! These amenities made it possible for you and millions like you to become truckers. When I started in trucking it was rare to see a woman trucker. Now I would guess that women make up nearly 30% of the OTR workforce. Does this make you and others that have entered this profession, because of new technology and amenities, the dregs of society that are diluting the labor pool?