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Originally Posted by Shalmanesehttp://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/images/buttons/viewpost.gif
I don’t know if the people thinking of getting in the industry are thinking about this but also, trucking is going to be one of the first industries disrupted by self driving vehicles. There’s a very good possibility that you might end up 10 - 15 years down the road out of work and with no other qualifications or experience which is a significant career risk.
As with electric-car videos, I’ve never seen a self-driving-car video that was shot in the snow belt at 30 below F. Or in the mountains in winter, especially in blizzards and near-blizzards. Always in California-like near-perfect conditions — blue sky and happy hippies just out of frame.
I’ll hazard a guess that it’ll take more than 10 or 15 years before a truck hauling one or two trailers over Kicking Horse Pass in a blizzard will be self-driving. A lot more. Even on the North American prairies, where trucks haul three trailers and it’s winter, meaning snow, if not blizzards, and ice.
Self-driving trucks will come. My guess is that they will be used in the big freight yards first. If all you want to do, is to pick up trailers from a dock, park them up, and go back with an empty, I am pretty sure that it could be done with today’s technology.
There will still be work for the semi-skilled worker on the trucks though - someone has to sort out the loading/unloading, and someone has to negotiate with the wannabe cop at the gate:)
The attraction for the boss is obvious - no union, no coffee breaks, no holidays… All it would need is some modifications to the trailers, then a couple of kids would have a really cool computer game sending real trucks around the park.
That’s fine, they don’t have to take over the entire industry on day 1. Even if you restrict them to “easy” routes, that still puts a lot of truck drivers out of work.
This thread is an interesting coincidence because just this evening, here in New Zealand there was a news item about the dearth of truck drivers. In fact it isn’t exactly a new problem - the government has allowed immigrant truck drivers preference for the last 5 years. Now that preference has ended but there still aren’t enough.
There don’t appear to be any big reasons. Truck driving as a job isn’t highly paid - $16 - 25/hr although that doesn’t seem too bad to me. The better money is in being an owner/operator but that takes time to reach and as others have said, the costs are high.
My thoughts are that kids today all imagine themselves in white collar jobs earning $100k no effort required. Not all kids of course but the idea of training and paying to get a license just doesn’t fit with the exciting iphone digital world they imagine everyone else is living.
My brother drives a truck. He hates it with a passion. Weeks away from home, a lot of unpaid down time between runs and then long hours of driving where he’s afraid he’s going to fall asleep, are just a few of the reasons why.
He finds it difficult to eat healthy in this lifestyle too and it has really taken a toll on his health.
So there’s the basic answer for the OP. Companies have been screwing over their employees by paying them crappy wages for a job with crappy work conditions, even using them as contractors to minimize job security, avoid investing in the training necessary to ensure a supply of workers - then wonder why they have a shortage of workers.
Sounds a lot like almost any other semi-skilled job and a lot of skilled jobs. I suppose once there’s a decent number of illegal immigrants with the requisite skills and paperwork, the problem will be solved. At least flipping burgers you get to go home each night.
Have you been in a truck stop , aka travel plaza in the last decade? The diners have mostly been replaced by MickeyDs, Subway, Arbys and a sit down, usually buffet of mostly mediocre food. Not a large variety of fruits, veggies and non deep fried food there.
I’ve made over $25k YTD plus benefits working local delivery (not OTR weeks at a time). Thanks for telling me I’m being so screwed, otherwise I would never have guessed. That’s what, 18 months of fast food full time pay?
Do you know how much training is required to get a CDL? You can do it in two weeks for less than $1000 out of pocket. If you sign a contract with a carrier they will even pay you a decent training wage to show up for several months of very comprehensive training.
And when those darn illegals get the requisite paperwork to get a legitimate CDL in the United States they won’t be illegal immigrants anymore. I welcome them just the same as any burger flipper who would expend a little effort to increase their earning capacity instead of expecting someone else to double their pay without any more effort on their part.
This may be a big part of the story. Technology has changed everything.
Thirty years ago, I knew several truckers, and they all just loved their jobs. (driving 18 wheelers, on the road for 5 days at a time.)
The romance of the road was a real joy to them.They called themselves modern-day cowboys.
Riding free across the open range, between the blue sky and the horizon --No boss to bitch at them, no time clock to punch, free to choose where and when to stop for lunch. The only requirement was to get their load from X to Y by 4:00 pm on Thursday. With no cell phones, no GPS, etc…there was no boss, no supervision. Freedom!
They had their own language, and their own hi-tech way of using it: chatting with others in the brotherhood of CB radio channel 19, sharing the secrets of the road. They were proud, and felt superior to all their neighbors back in the hometown, droning away on the night shift at the factory, with sore muscles and living in fear that the boss would cut their pay for being 10 minutes late.
That would put you on track to make what, $70K a year? ( or $35/hour unless you are making a ton of overtime, which is not for many people)
Without the $3000 just to get a CDL as mentioned by others?
Obviously no call to double your pay.
That sounds a lot less like the jobs described by most others upthread.
How’s the employee turnover and lineup of job applicants where you work?
Seriously, some people like the freedom of being on the open road, but the comments here suggest the excessively strict regulations, tighter job demands and relatively low pay are making the job much less appealing.
What’s your take on the topic? Do you drive long hours, away from home for days on end, or are you a local driver? Did you have to make a hefty up front investment or are you a wage earner?
While the trucking industry has vast systemic issues already mentioned, this issue isn’t just limited to truck drivers. Bus drivers, both school and city, face it too. Shuttle drivers.
My below-minimum-wage pizza job requires:
My own car - which many working class/entry level people can’t afford
Car insurance - even more expensive to maintain
A cell phone with GPS - probably not a problem anymore
A clean driving record
The real problem is that DUIs are chronic. They’re everywhere. When I was considering a CDL I was shocked that people with DUIs can get their driving jobs back after two years! Why? Because otherwise the whole industry would die. It seems people cannot stop drinking long enough to get a driving job.
The Chicago train crash thread mentioned that one woman was driving a train instead of a bus because she’d lost her license due to DUI.
You want to know what’s stupid? I have a squeaky-clean driving record, the FAA says I see well enough to fly airplanes, but I can’t pass the vision test for a CDL in many places.
Really, there’s a bunch of stuff that needs to be re-jiggered in the entire system.
How funny! I have the opposite problem. I can’t read anything in the vision test machine at the MVD so they won’t let me get a motorcycle endorsement, but when I get my DOT physical they test me with a chart on the wall and I have 20/30 vision. My optometrist agrees with them and warns me that wearing glasses for the vision test will require me to wear glasses whenever I drive, and wearing glasses unnecessarily will degrade my vision.
People think all you have to do is drive the truck and stay out of accidents. There is more to it than that. Driving a truck is a business. There is a constant stream of paperwork to be dealt with, if any of it doesn’t get done right you are screwed. Every time the vehicle is parked or unparked you need to update your log, if the DOT catches you without an updated log it’s an instant fine. You have to save all your receipts from fuel, scales, and toll bridges and keep them organized. You have to be able to read a map, you’d be surprised how many potential drivers can’t. Don’t even think of depending on GPS directions, those things don’t take into account low overpasses and weight limits. If you work for a company that owns the truck, they will typically argue over every possible expense item, knowing some drivers will give up the argument as a waste of time. If you own your own truck, then you have additional paperwork, licenses and fuel tax in every state you drive in, finding loads, getting the shippers to actually pay you, filing legal claims against the inevitable percentage that won’t, it goes on and on. Some of the most successful owner operators I have seen are actually married couples, one (not always the husband) on the road while the other stays home and deals with all the paperwork.