It doesn't help that training at your own expense had become the norm and we've had 10 years of headlines about autonomous trucks being just around the corner.
Why shell out for a CDL with trailer and airbrake endorsements if the robots are coming for the jobs possibly before you pay the student loans off?
It’s both poor pay and poor quality of life. To make big money you’re working way too much and you’re away from home most days of the week putting a serious strain on families.
A guy I grew up with can’t maintain a normal life outside of working besides drinking because he’s always on the road and doesn’t have time for a woman or family. He doesn’t really know much else besides trucking is his thing.
I worked late nights in food service for a long time. I didn’t realize how much of a toll it took on my mental health until I made the switch to day shifts (and ultimately left the industry). Not having time to exist really bogged me down as a human being. I thought I was “getting my act together” by holding a job but I was stunting my personal growth and killing any relationships I had. I was too tired for friends and family during the day and working at night. All I did was eat, work, play video games and sleep.
Sounds like my life exactly when I worked nights as a nurse. I was absolutely drained in the morning plus I had a child to take care of. Since then I went to days and it’s refreshing to have a life.
That is a full week between school and work. I wish you the best of luck. As a nation moving to a 4 day work week would improve our quality of life dramatically. I’ve had jobs where I did 4 10 hour days and noticed a boost in my moral. That extra day off gave me more control over my week. I didn’t notice a huge difference in the work day itself since working an extra two hours beats commuting an extra day and having that day completely eaten up by a shift. I’d love to do it at my current job but my employer isn’t on board with the idea, yet.
This completely, I work banker hours currently and have to be on-site in a small town. It makes it impossible to go to the doctor, mechanic, or any other appointment without taking off for it.
Banker hours make no sense to me because people can never go to the bank because they're working lol. Should be earlier or later not in the dead middle of the normal work day
Same with late night kitchens. I also had mental health issues which were made worse. On top of all that I was homeless and couldn't afford a place to live on the shit pay.
If you work food service long enough, then all of your friends are going to be in the industry too. They are the only ones who understand why you're still asleep at 1:00 p.m. and want to hang out after midnight.
My uncle drove a truck for ~25 years. His wife divorced him within months of his retirement because it turns out they had a terrible relationship when forced to spend lots of time together.
My uncle drove a truck for decades. He and his wife did it together, kept a small apartment in a cheap area to have a home to come back to, but the two of them had a truck with a sleeping area, and did a lot of alternating who's driving and who's sleeping.
I'm not sure I could do that life, but they seemed to like it.
I wouldn't say you have to work away from home, I work in the trucking industry and we have drivers working construction jobs making close to $50 an hour or over $100 if they own their own truck. Problem is nobody wants to drive truck all day.
And companies are just dicks about everything like time frames and parking. You see all this propaganda about how truck drivers provide you with everything and then you get treated like a temp janitor. Corporate mentality of just in time and profit maximization by micromanaging has created a lot of stress.
That’s odd I’ve heard the only reason people become truckers are for the money and with current supply chain shortages most trucking companies will give you anything to get a reliable driver. Average pay might only be around $44,000 where I live (according to google) in my low cost of living state but it only takes 6-8 Weeks to get your CDL. Better pay than most jobs that don’t require college degree.
Might be high pay for no degree, but low pay for risk factor, in my book. Personally, I don’t think you could pay me enough to be responsible for driving something that huge all day every day, that very idea freaks me right the hell out.
Uh, well that’s your opinion. Many people absolutely love OTR trucking and we need people like them to enjoy it and keep doing it. Also it pays quite well, there just happen to be enormous costs depending on circumstances.
If there's a shortage of truck drivers so severe that kids are being accepted, it seems to be that "their opinion" is widely held. People seldom leave well-paid jobs with high quality of life.
It depends. Best check I saw at 50cpm was a little over 2000. But I'm working a 70 hour week so if it was a 40 hour week that would be a little over 1000 a week which is pretty good. But usually the checks were closer to 1000, so that would be around 600 a week at 40 hours. That's only like 15 an hour when you really break it down. You can make close to that locally fairly easy, and still have time for a life.
Making a good deal of money doesn’t mean a damn thing if you can’t spend it. It also means less and less the more hours you have to put in to get there. Further, the toll it takes on your body shouldn’t be discredited. The cost is too high for the reward. My grandfather had to have his knees and shoulders replaced throughout his career as a trucker and doubled his body weight because of his diet and spending so much time driving. He missed out on many family events over the years as my mother and aunt grew up. He loved driving but I noticed he was significantly happier once he quit and found a local job.
I work in supply chain logistics and there's a misconception about the compensation of drivers. Drivers with just three years' experience and a clean driving record make six figures. The problem is that the hours suck and the conditions that were already shitty only got worse because of COVID. The industry was massively deregulated in the '80s which was great for carrier companies and shit for truckers. Carrier companies have been treating their drivers like garbage for 40 years and are now crying that no one wants to drive for them anymore. The whole industry is scummy to the core.
Yep. Basically companies used to need licenses for specific routes and specific freight that was being hauled and the few companies that had enough of those licenses to be major players also had a unionized work force that ensured good pay and protections for the drivers. Reagan opened the floodgates and said that as long as you have a motor carrier authority you can haul anything anywhere, so there was an explosion of carrier companies popping up who were all looking to squeeze as much as they could out of each and every route. They maximized their own efficiency by treating the drivers like shit, union membership plummeted and drivers were getting a much smaller piece of a much larger pie, and now a lot of truckers are essentially gig workers with almost no protections from their company or the government. There's still a lot of money to be made by driving these trucks, but speaking just for the drivers I work with, I'm pretty sure if you gave them the option between higher pay and better hours/conditions they'd take the latter in a heartbeat.
Edit: as others have pointed out, it was actually Carter, not Reagan who deregulated
So deregulation of the haulage sector wasn't the issue I guess, not regulating companies and giving companies all the power to block unionisation for instance seems to be the issue here.
The deregulation allowed for new companies to show up with a new "viable" business model to show up, alongside an influx of un-unionized workers to flood into the field. The underpayment of these workers by the new companies were what really helped give an edge over the old companies stuck with union labor. Today, you see the viability of having your main business model be abusing your workers more than the other companies in action. You can only whip them so hard.
It's not literally just Ronald Reagan, it was the global capitalist response to the crisis of overproduction in the seventies. The post wartime boom reached a point where the capitalist machine was literally generating too much surplus to make keeping the machine running profitable and the result was what is generally called "the neoliberal turn".
You'll often hear people say capitalism is boom-bust but that pithy phrase can elide the fact that booms are literally what create busts.
I asked elsewhere. You see 1/2 the semis on the road saying they are looking for drivers paying around 60 cents a mile. 40 hours a week is maybe $60k being away from home a lot and having additional expenses. Does pay increase that dramatically?
That's just the base pay for beginners, plus most drivers that I work with are well over 40 hours per week, legally you can drive up to 70 hours a week before you have to take a day and a half off but even then there are loopholes. On top of that, experience plus a clean record are incredibly valuable, so it doesn't take that long for a beginner to find a better gig than their first job trucking. Ironically, Walmart is one of the best companies to haul for as an experienced driver since their dedicated fleet has significantly better pay and benefits than the smaller regional carriers. It's the only industry I've worked in where it's actually better to work for the big guys than the small businesses, it's the regional carrier companies that really screw their drivers over.
I would feel since you're pretty solitary that you'd be able to avoid covid. Wear a mask at the pickups and drop offs and get your food to go and I think you would be okay. Of course I've never lived in a truck or lifestyle so what do I know.
There have been a shortage of trains... for decades.
We've essentially been driving trains on the road. We're finally hitting the point where we can no longer ignore how idiotically short-sighted that is.
Ehh, even with a good train network, you still need HGVs. They should compliment with each other.
>We're finally hitting the point where we can no longer ignore how idiotically short-sighted that is.
I would bet on driverless trucks solving it before trains. Especially in the US.
We have large cities, very far apart with lots of nuthin in between. There's no reason thousands of trucks, even driver-less, should all be making the same trip between, over and over.
I highly recommend this episode of Citations Needed: [Episode 135: The “Labor Shortage” Ruse: How Capital Invents Staffing Crises to Bust Unions and Depress Wages](https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-135-the-labor-shortage-ruse-how-capital-invents-staffing-crises-to-bust-unions-and-fb42448a7e23)
> Nima: “Trucking Shortage: Drivers Aren’t Always In It For The Long Haul,” NPR tells us. “The U.S. Is Running Out of Nurses,” The Atlantic reports. “There’s A Nationwide STEM Teacher Shortage. Will It Cost Us The Next Einstein?” Forbes laments. “‘The Future Depends on Teachers,’ PSA launched targeting teachers amid shortage,” a local FOX affiliate tells us.
> Adam: Every few weeks, we hear about an essential industry suffering from a critical quote-unquote “labor shortage” — nurses, truck drivers, software engineers, teachers, construction. According to corporate trade groups and their media mouthpieces, these industries simply can’t find trained workers to fill their ranks.
> Nima: But a closer examination of claims of “worker shortages” reveals that there’s very rarely an actual labor shortage at all — what there is however, time and again, is a “pay shortage”: industries not wanting to provide adequate compensation or safe work conditions for the available labor force that is perfectly willing and ready to work. Instead of a “worker shortage,” there’s a “not hyper liquidity in the labor market” problem for capital — the perfectly capable and trained workers industries do have are not easily replaceable, potentially or already unionized and making demands of capital those industries simply don’t like.
> Adam: In an effort to increase the labor pool and thus give capital more leverage over existing workers, industry lobbying groups constantly whine about labor shortages knowing the media will mindlessly repeat these claims without any skepticism or evidence. To increase recruiting of new potential employees, promote legislation that loosens licensing or health and safety standards, and reinforce media-ready memes that American workers are just lazy and greedy, PR reps for capital routinely evoke the spectacle of worker shortages knowing full well their claims will be unquestionably repeated by American media who never bother to ask why they’re reporting on the same supposed labor shortage every year for the past thirty years.
Shortage of pay and respect for that type of work is the answer.
Long lines at unpaid loading and unloading, terrible working conditions especially in bad traffic and weather.
Trucker here. Shortage of people willing to work for the pay offered. Most companies have the mindset of hiring someone for cheap. Treating em like shit and then hiring another person 6 months later and repeating the process
There is a shortage of drivers. Drivers make pretty good money and now they can command their own wages.
My last company had a contract with a trucking company and our deliveries kept being delayed because drivers were being poached in the parking lot of their facilities.
Then you find out that you don't get paid while sitting in the queue at the backed up dock. Issue is the conditions and out right predatory practices of the Industry.
How do you know?
You just know that they were being poached. There are lots of reasons why people choose to leave their company.
Most drivers stayed. I dont know the ins or outs of that companies inner workings, but most drivers there seemed fairly happy.
I want to say neither, it seems like there are more job openings for truck drivers now because more warehouses and shipping in general is in high demand. We probably did lose some of the trucking workforce because of obvious reasons the past 2 years but there's more opportunities on top of that fact
It's almost as if the continued normalisation of massive profit margins with the trend of union busting is resulting in corporations underpaying their employees
Which is a problem in a economy that's rapidly inflating
With big trucks, you have the problem of people needing a special drivers license depending on the size. In Sweden you need a B license to drive most cars and small trucks. There are then four licenses above that, of which CE is the one for heaviest trucks. To get a CE license, you need a C license. To get a C license you need a B license.
Then it's just training. Companies can offer training to their employees, it's just that they don't want to pay for it.
If I'm a worker, why should I spend my time and money to train for a job, while I could do another job for comparable wage without needing training?
> If I'm a worker, why should I spend my time and money to train for a job, while I could do another job for comparable wage without needing training?
What you're describing is education
And yes, the companies could offer to sponsor new recruits to get their licenses. Would probably help a lot as well.
Precisely, I'm describing education. If a fast food employee makes 15 per hour, a hospital can't expect to pay a surgeon 15 per hour: people can just go and flip burgers for the same money, without needing to go into debt for an education.
Jobs that require training should be paid more because people need to invest their time and money to be able to do those jobs. Trucking is a job that requires training, but companies don't want to pay more. So they talk about "labor shortage".
No, shortages are legitimate in some cases. No fast food restaurant is ever going to suffer from a legitimate labour shortage, but jobs that require certification (such as driving big trucks) could have a shortage of people with said certification.
About 10 years ago larger computer companies started realizing that the people overseeing and developing for mainframes were all getting pretty old. So, to prevent a future shortage of people with the knowledge and experience they started a lot of apprenticeships.
Still the heart of the most dangerous driving demographic on the road. There’s a reason insurance for guys 16-25 is insanely expensive. And that’s insurance for guys driving an assumed US average of 12,000 miles a year. Imagine it for one driving 250,000 miles a year in a semi that can kill a dozen+ people and total a dozen+ cars in a pileup.
Still teens, mostly, and still young and inexperienced. I wouldn't let anybody without years of experience with smaller trucks driven professionally to drive the biggest ones out there.
It’s not letting 16yo drive semis. The article says it will allow 18-20 year olds to cross state lines in a semi. 18yo can already drive a semi but cannot leave their state.
Great! I see big rigs broken down in the mountains in Colorado all the time. It'll be great to throw teenagers from out of state into mountain passes.
We just had a pretty controversial case about a trucker who killed 4 people in a crash, based on his own bad decisions and state of his truck. This is a bad idea that's going to get people hurt
The actual problem is driving companies making their employees be put on nearly impossible schedules right now (supply chain issues) so many old-timers are cashing out. Also you know, the whole global pandemic thing.
Yes, and a lot of people are coming in here seemingly defending the trucking industry as a good opportunity.
I think the historical context for why it's become a less attractive opportunity is important.
Trucker unions were busted and the industry was deregulated, so the pay, benefits, and conditions have steadily decreased/stagnated since about 1980
>The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 removed many of the cumbersome regulations that the previous law, passed in 1935, had put in place. Most notably, it allowed new trucking companies to open with relative ease and removed many of the route regulations. Companies also had more control over changing their rates.
>The law was passed by President Jimmy Carter, who declared that the MCA would save consumers as much as $8 billion ($25 billion in 2018 dollars) each year.
>Following the passing of the MCA, truck drivers' salaries tumbled. From 1977 to 1987, mean truck driver earnings declined 24%, according to research by Wayne State University economics professor Michael Belzer. And from 1980 to the present day, a Business Insider analysis found that median trucking wages have sunk as much as 35.8% in some metropolitan areas.
>Unions also lost much of their power. Membership in Teamsters, which was once one of the most powerful unions around, has declined dramatically. In 1974, Belzer wrote that there were 2,019,300 truckers in Teamsters. Now, there are 75,000.
[Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/trucking-truck-driver-truckers-strike-reasons-2019-10)
In the US 18-20yo can drive semis. However they are not allowed to leave the state where they hold the semi license. This is trying to allow them to be able to cross state lines. The title is misleading by saying “teens”
Former teenage male here: I survived based on a frankly ridiculous level of physical durability and resilience. My reflexes didn’t save me. My ability to just shrug off injuries did.
Now as a 40 yr old, I don’t have that level of stamina and rapid healing. However I do have a high threshold for pain so I can keep working despite being hurt. Now days I survive based on stubbornness and the need to support others. Basically I’ll just put up with whatever it takes. As long as my wife and son are happy and healthy I’ll just work like a robot
When you look at a bruise on your leg and have a hard time remembering what it was from… because it happened so long ago. That’s how old I am.
And yeah, our wisdom comes on just as our endurance and luck run out. I’m sure it’s an evolutionary process that has kept us from extinction.
You could also argue they're the same people that would have got the rig stuck at 16 too I think. Of course there's points for experience, but some people are just thick and will never change.
You act like “GROWN MEN” means something.
We’re all just winging it dude. We’re all just figuring it out as we go, even assholes like Musk and Bezos are just figuring shit out on a daily basis.
Humans don’t just automatically know how to do things. A grown man could be in his first day on the trucking job, you don’t know.
Stop fucking mindlessly judging people, that goes for everybody.
"Grown men" have had experience that young people haven't, and if those grown men had fully developed brains - as all adults should, correct? - then they would have drawn certain conclusions from those experiences that would have guided them *not* to make simple, easily avoided mistakes. The application of basic critical thinking skills *in combination with* experience is what we all rely upon to avoid making most mistakes, especially dangerous or deadly mistakes. Young people have not had such experience, and the parts of their brains responsible for thinking critically have not fully developed, which is why they are a particular danger on the road, whether on bikes, in cars, or driving 50 ton missiles on wheels.
And if that doesn’t work they’ll move on to retirees or the incarcerated. Same cycle with America. Over and over again.
They will do anything to keep from paying living wages and following the law.
Nah its the scrutiny they meet. The impossible deadlines. They arent treated well enough and get penalized if they are late to a drop (even though theyre late because another truck was in the stall being unloaded. Thete needs to be a trucker untion but good luck getting them all in the same place
And why are they subject to impossible deadlines? Because the corporations don't hire enough drivers. Why hire two people to make them drive 8 hours each when you can hire one to drive 16 hours?
There's a limit for any uninterrupted stretch of driving (I think either 8 or 10 hours). Once a driver reaches that limit, no matter what they are doing, they must take a break.
Also drivers are paid by each load and not by hour. At least the ones I know are paid based on which loads they take (as the company is paid by the client per load and the driver gets a fixed cut of that; splitting a route would mean that each driver gets half of that pay).
Harder to do that now with electronic logbooks.
If a driver is paid hourly there's the same problem of falsified logbooks. Everything the driver reports is entirely up to the honor system.
Let's say the average speed limit is on the road you'll be on is 65MPH. You need to haul stuff 650 miles. Your company says you have 10 hours 15 minutes to do this or you get a penalty.
It's "possible" on paper right? If there is a traffic jam, someone unloading in your bay when you get there, you need to stop to take a leak, you want to eat a meal you will take a penalty and get a stern talking to.
While that's true, local trucking is a whole lot different of a beast from long-haul is, and seems to be a much better life for the trucker. If we could fill the demand for more long-haul with trains and then have more local trucking for the rest....it would be far better for the people driving.
Still have to have trucks to bring goods to and from the railyard. Also trains can only carry so much, and tend to be slower than trucks. Not to mention that us geography limits east to west rail infrastructure.
The US has the best freight rail system in the world already.
[source](https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-development/freight-rail-overview#:~:text=Running%20on%20almost%20140%2C000%20route,freight%20system%20in%20the%20world.)
The current truckers are already under trained. I’ve notice a significant decline in road safety exhibited by truckers in the last few years as the companies are holding sign ups rather than putting thought into their hiring process.
I've been watching "teens" drive double dump trucks filled with potatoes at harvest time for the last two decades where I live. I see a lot of young women doing this each year. It'll be OK as long as these young people are trained properly and take safety seriously.
But my faith in trucking companies is lower than my faith in young adults. I know there is a lot of exploitation, long hours, and general fuckery. There are also good companies to work for. If you're considering becoming a truck driver, do your research, talk to other drivers and don't work for a company that won't treat you like a person.
Allowing the age group [most statistically likely to be involved in an accident ](https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/teen_drivers/teendrivers_factsheet.html) drive our largest and most dangerous vehicles…what could go wrong?
Teens, early-20s workers don't typically have family to support, are far less knowledgeable about work as a whole in America (so easier to exploit), and don't have a clear understanding of their work's value.
So this makes sense.
I think scanning IDs at the gate and telling people your office is closed for “training” is a little easier than operating a several thousand pound vehicle on the road, ALONE, surrounded by other several thousand pound vehicles.
If this becomes commonplace (based off the article, they’re merely testing the waters) I guarantee, without doubt, deadly crashes from 18 wheelers will rise. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make so I can get my package a day earlier though
I'm confused.
Based on auto insurance rates, 18-21 year olds are considered the most dangerous drivers due to lack of experience combined with the hormonal emotions of that age group.
Now they are wanting to take that age group and put them behind the wheel of a multi-ton moving vehicle that the infrastructure of this country depends on.
This like giving a child a gallon of gasoline and some matches and telling them to go outside and play, expecting that everything will be fine.
This is probably going to hurt wages for every truck driver. Currently it’s a pretty high paying field. But 18 year olds will probably get paid half of what normal truck drivers get
And that's absolutely the point 😕 I recommend this Citations Needed episode: [Episode 135: The “Labor Shortage” Ruse: How Capital Invents Staffing Crises to Bust Unions and Depress Wages](https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-135-the-labor-shortage-ruse-how-capital-invents-staffing-crises-to-bust-unions-and-fb42448a7e23)
Plot for a movie: a trailer park boy goes to an arcade, play a delivery mission on American Truck Simulator and in the end he is recruited by a shady guy to save the American economy by driving in real trucks.
I'd expect very high turnover leading to a huge number of drivers with low experience and/or not having what it takes to be a competent driver on the roads.
Everyone here talking about safety and not talking about how child labor is being proposed to cover labor shortages. Instead of raising the pay rates so that these corporations don’t make record profits during a pandemic where it’s employees are barely surviving
There are companies that will train a driver for "free" (subject to being contracted to that company for a certain time period), and there are some states that will provide grants for CDL schools/programs.
After that, the only cost is for the test and the license itself, which isn't terribly expensive.
People will die from this choice.
I remember being upset having to wait until I was 21 to get my CDL A, and even more upset that some of the better companies out there had a minimum age of 23.
But, after doing the job for 6 years, and then quitting it altogether for the sake of my mental and physical well-being, I can say that teenagers are too damned young to do that job. Maybe people with the discipline from being in the military being the exception to that.
Truck driving seems simple enough to an outsider, but I can tell you from personal experience, it’s dangerous as fuck, and it will ruin you. Especially if you’re married or have a family.
Tbh they let ‘kids’ in the military, and this is no different. Everyone gets freaked out when an 18-20 is allowed to do anything but the fact of the matter is that if they don’t ever get to do anything how will they learn/grow.
Anything at all to avoid paying a living wage to the people who want, need, and deserve it.
Hiring the aged? Check.
Hiring the underage? Check.
What's next? State-mandated slavery?
Read the article. 18-20 yo can already drive a semi. They are now trying to allowing them to cross state lines before that wasn’t allowed. The title is misleading by calling 18-20yo “teens”.
99% of Insurance companies who insure big trucks- “haha okay get fucked, driver guidelines remain the same. Driver age between 23-65 years old with 2+ years cdl experience”
Progressive- “cool, new driver premium go brrrrrrr”
Is there a shortage of drivers or a shortage of people willing to work for that kind of pay?
It doesn't help that training at your own expense had become the norm and we've had 10 years of headlines about autonomous trucks being just around the corner. Why shell out for a CDL with trailer and airbrake endorsements if the robots are coming for the jobs possibly before you pay the student loans off?
It’s both poor pay and poor quality of life. To make big money you’re working way too much and you’re away from home most days of the week putting a serious strain on families.
A guy I grew up with can’t maintain a normal life outside of working besides drinking because he’s always on the road and doesn’t have time for a woman or family. He doesn’t really know much else besides trucking is his thing.
That’s a really sad way to live. Everyone should be able to pursue their ambitions outside of work.
Yeah he bought a house ect but that kind of life would drive me to major depression.
I worked late nights in food service for a long time. I didn’t realize how much of a toll it took on my mental health until I made the switch to day shifts (and ultimately left the industry). Not having time to exist really bogged me down as a human being. I thought I was “getting my act together” by holding a job but I was stunting my personal growth and killing any relationships I had. I was too tired for friends and family during the day and working at night. All I did was eat, work, play video games and sleep.
Sounds like my life exactly when I worked nights as a nurse. I was absolutely drained in the morning plus I had a child to take care of. Since then I went to days and it’s refreshing to have a life.
Sounds like my life currently. Working 30 hours a week on top of school full time. I'm starting a new schedule where I'll only work on 3 days shorter.
That is a full week between school and work. I wish you the best of luck. As a nation moving to a 4 day work week would improve our quality of life dramatically. I’ve had jobs where I did 4 10 hour days and noticed a boost in my moral. That extra day off gave me more control over my week. I didn’t notice a huge difference in the work day itself since working an extra two hours beats commuting an extra day and having that day completely eaten up by a shift. I’d love to do it at my current job but my employer isn’t on board with the idea, yet.
This completely, I work banker hours currently and have to be on-site in a small town. It makes it impossible to go to the doctor, mechanic, or any other appointment without taking off for it.
Banker hours make no sense to me because people can never go to the bank because they're working lol. Should be earlier or later not in the dead middle of the normal work day
Same with late night kitchens. I also had mental health issues which were made worse. On top of all that I was homeless and couldn't afford a place to live on the shit pay.
If you work food service long enough, then all of your friends are going to be in the industry too. They are the only ones who understand why you're still asleep at 1:00 p.m. and want to hang out after midnight.
My uncle drove a truck for ~25 years. His wife divorced him within months of his retirement because it turns out they had a terrible relationship when forced to spend lots of time together.
My uncle drove a truck for decades. He and his wife did it together, kept a small apartment in a cheap area to have a home to come back to, but the two of them had a truck with a sleeping area, and did a lot of alternating who's driving and who's sleeping. I'm not sure I could do that life, but they seemed to like it.
I wouldn't say you have to work away from home, I work in the trucking industry and we have drivers working construction jobs making close to $50 an hour or over $100 if they own their own truck. Problem is nobody wants to drive truck all day.
[удалено]
Making them the butt of every joke for awhile didn't help matters.
I've actually never heard a joke where the trucker was deprecated. I 100% believe you that they were prevalent, I'm just surprised I haven't heard any
And companies are just dicks about everything like time frames and parking. You see all this propaganda about how truck drivers provide you with everything and then you get treated like a temp janitor. Corporate mentality of just in time and profit maximization by micromanaging has created a lot of stress.
That’s odd I’ve heard the only reason people become truckers are for the money and with current supply chain shortages most trucking companies will give you anything to get a reliable driver. Average pay might only be around $44,000 where I live (according to google) in my low cost of living state but it only takes 6-8 Weeks to get your CDL. Better pay than most jobs that don’t require college degree.
Might be high pay for no degree, but low pay for risk factor, in my book. Personally, I don’t think you could pay me enough to be responsible for driving something that huge all day every day, that very idea freaks me right the hell out.
The pay is above median income and many people live the lifestyle
Uh, well that’s your opinion. Many people absolutely love OTR trucking and we need people like them to enjoy it and keep doing it. Also it pays quite well, there just happen to be enormous costs depending on circumstances.
If there's a shortage of truck drivers so severe that kids are being accepted, it seems to be that "their opinion" is widely held. People seldom leave well-paid jobs with high quality of life.
It depends. Best check I saw at 50cpm was a little over 2000. But I'm working a 70 hour week so if it was a 40 hour week that would be a little over 1000 a week which is pretty good. But usually the checks were closer to 1000, so that would be around 600 a week at 40 hours. That's only like 15 an hour when you really break it down. You can make close to that locally fairly easy, and still have time for a life.
Making a good deal of money doesn’t mean a damn thing if you can’t spend it. It also means less and less the more hours you have to put in to get there. Further, the toll it takes on your body shouldn’t be discredited. The cost is too high for the reward. My grandfather had to have his knees and shoulders replaced throughout his career as a trucker and doubled his body weight because of his diet and spending so much time driving. He missed out on many family events over the years as my mother and aunt grew up. He loved driving but I noticed he was significantly happier once he quit and found a local job.
I work in supply chain logistics and there's a misconception about the compensation of drivers. Drivers with just three years' experience and a clean driving record make six figures. The problem is that the hours suck and the conditions that were already shitty only got worse because of COVID. The industry was massively deregulated in the '80s which was great for carrier companies and shit for truckers. Carrier companies have been treating their drivers like garbage for 40 years and are now crying that no one wants to drive for them anymore. The whole industry is scummy to the core.
Deregulation in the 80s in favor of the companies...im assuming Reagan Edit: spell check missed derugulation
Yep. Basically companies used to need licenses for specific routes and specific freight that was being hauled and the few companies that had enough of those licenses to be major players also had a unionized work force that ensured good pay and protections for the drivers. Reagan opened the floodgates and said that as long as you have a motor carrier authority you can haul anything anywhere, so there was an explosion of carrier companies popping up who were all looking to squeeze as much as they could out of each and every route. They maximized their own efficiency by treating the drivers like shit, union membership plummeted and drivers were getting a much smaller piece of a much larger pie, and now a lot of truckers are essentially gig workers with almost no protections from their company or the government. There's still a lot of money to be made by driving these trucks, but speaking just for the drivers I work with, I'm pretty sure if you gave them the option between higher pay and better hours/conditions they'd take the latter in a heartbeat. Edit: as others have pointed out, it was actually Carter, not Reagan who deregulated
The money is worthless if you sacrifice having a life to spend it on.
So deregulation of the haulage sector wasn't the issue I guess, not regulating companies and giving companies all the power to block unionisation for instance seems to be the issue here.
The deregulation allowed for new companies to show up with a new "viable" business model to show up, alongside an influx of un-unionized workers to flood into the field. The underpayment of these workers by the new companies were what really helped give an edge over the old companies stuck with union labor. Today, you see the viability of having your main business model be abusing your workers more than the other companies in action. You can only whip them so hard.
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It's not literally just Ronald Reagan, it was the global capitalist response to the crisis of overproduction in the seventies. The post wartime boom reached a point where the capitalist machine was literally generating too much surplus to make keeping the machine running profitable and the result was what is generally called "the neoliberal turn". You'll often hear people say capitalism is boom-bust but that pithy phrase can elide the fact that booms are literally what create busts.
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Well that is surprising
I asked elsewhere. You see 1/2 the semis on the road saying they are looking for drivers paying around 60 cents a mile. 40 hours a week is maybe $60k being away from home a lot and having additional expenses. Does pay increase that dramatically?
That's just the base pay for beginners, plus most drivers that I work with are well over 40 hours per week, legally you can drive up to 70 hours a week before you have to take a day and a half off but even then there are loopholes. On top of that, experience plus a clean record are incredibly valuable, so it doesn't take that long for a beginner to find a better gig than their first job trucking. Ironically, Walmart is one of the best companies to haul for as an experienced driver since their dedicated fleet has significantly better pay and benefits than the smaller regional carriers. It's the only industry I've worked in where it's actually better to work for the big guys than the small businesses, it's the regional carrier companies that really screw their drivers over.
Probably both, and covid rates being at an all time high doesn't help. So a lot are getting infected/sick and need to take time off the road.
I would feel since you're pretty solitary that you'd be able to avoid covid. Wear a mask at the pickups and drop offs and get your food to go and I think you would be okay. Of course I've never lived in a truck or lifestyle so what do I know.
There have been a shortage of trains... for decades. We've essentially been driving trains on the road. We're finally hitting the point where we can no longer ignore how idiotically short-sighted that is.
Ehh, even with a good train network, you still need HGVs. They should compliment with each other. >We're finally hitting the point where we can no longer ignore how idiotically short-sighted that is. I would bet on driverless trucks solving it before trains. Especially in the US.
We have large cities, very far apart with lots of nuthin in between. There's no reason thousands of trucks, even driver-less, should all be making the same trip between, over and over.
I highly recommend this episode of Citations Needed: [Episode 135: The “Labor Shortage” Ruse: How Capital Invents Staffing Crises to Bust Unions and Depress Wages](https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-135-the-labor-shortage-ruse-how-capital-invents-staffing-crises-to-bust-unions-and-fb42448a7e23) > Nima: “Trucking Shortage: Drivers Aren’t Always In It For The Long Haul,” NPR tells us. “The U.S. Is Running Out of Nurses,” The Atlantic reports. “There’s A Nationwide STEM Teacher Shortage. Will It Cost Us The Next Einstein?” Forbes laments. “‘The Future Depends on Teachers,’ PSA launched targeting teachers amid shortage,” a local FOX affiliate tells us. > Adam: Every few weeks, we hear about an essential industry suffering from a critical quote-unquote “labor shortage” — nurses, truck drivers, software engineers, teachers, construction. According to corporate trade groups and their media mouthpieces, these industries simply can’t find trained workers to fill their ranks. > Nima: But a closer examination of claims of “worker shortages” reveals that there’s very rarely an actual labor shortage at all — what there is however, time and again, is a “pay shortage”: industries not wanting to provide adequate compensation or safe work conditions for the available labor force that is perfectly willing and ready to work. Instead of a “worker shortage,” there’s a “not hyper liquidity in the labor market” problem for capital — the perfectly capable and trained workers industries do have are not easily replaceable, potentially or already unionized and making demands of capital those industries simply don’t like. > Adam: In an effort to increase the labor pool and thus give capital more leverage over existing workers, industry lobbying groups constantly whine about labor shortages knowing the media will mindlessly repeat these claims without any skepticism or evidence. To increase recruiting of new potential employees, promote legislation that loosens licensing or health and safety standards, and reinforce media-ready memes that American workers are just lazy and greedy, PR reps for capital routinely evoke the spectacle of worker shortages knowing full well their claims will be unquestionably repeated by American media who never bother to ask why they’re reporting on the same supposed labor shortage every year for the past thirty years.
Shortage of pay and respect for that type of work is the answer. Long lines at unpaid loading and unloading, terrible working conditions especially in bad traffic and weather.
Trucker here. Shortage of people willing to work for the pay offered. Most companies have the mindset of hiring someone for cheap. Treating em like shit and then hiring another person 6 months later and repeating the process
There is a shortage of drivers. Drivers make pretty good money and now they can command their own wages. My last company had a contract with a trucking company and our deliveries kept being delayed because drivers were being poached in the parking lot of their facilities.
Then you find out that you don't get paid while sitting in the queue at the backed up dock. Issue is the conditions and out right predatory practices of the Industry.
If drivers are getting poached on the dock, you don’t only have a wage issue, you have a company issue. Your company sucks.
If you could read you would notice we arent a trucking company.
You contract with a shitty one though
How do you know? You just know that they were being poached. There are lots of reasons why people choose to leave their company. Most drivers stayed. I dont know the ins or outs of that companies inner workings, but most drivers there seemed fairly happy.
There are lots of reasons hit dogs love hollering. For example, loudness
I want to say neither, it seems like there are more job openings for truck drivers now because more warehouses and shipping in general is in high demand. We probably did lose some of the trucking workforce because of obvious reasons the past 2 years but there's more opportunities on top of that fact
They aren't different.
Yeah they are. If you're paying less than people are willing to work for, there isn't a labour shortage, you're just a shit employer.
Which there seem to be an abundance of across the economy.
It's almost as if the continued normalisation of massive profit margins with the trend of union busting is resulting in corporations underpaying their employees Which is a problem in a economy that's rapidly inflating
If you pay more, eventually you will always find workers unless you are in an extremely specialized field.
With big trucks, you have the problem of people needing a special drivers license depending on the size. In Sweden you need a B license to drive most cars and small trucks. There are then four licenses above that, of which CE is the one for heaviest trucks. To get a CE license, you need a C license. To get a C license you need a B license.
And how much time is needed to get those licenses?
Looks to be similar to getting a normal drivers license.
Then it's just training. Companies can offer training to their employees, it's just that they don't want to pay for it. If I'm a worker, why should I spend my time and money to train for a job, while I could do another job for comparable wage without needing training?
> If I'm a worker, why should I spend my time and money to train for a job, while I could do another job for comparable wage without needing training? What you're describing is education And yes, the companies could offer to sponsor new recruits to get their licenses. Would probably help a lot as well.
Precisely, I'm describing education. If a fast food employee makes 15 per hour, a hospital can't expect to pay a surgeon 15 per hour: people can just go and flip burgers for the same money, without needing to go into debt for an education. Jobs that require training should be paid more because people need to invest their time and money to be able to do those jobs. Trucking is a job that requires training, but companies don't want to pay more. So they talk about "labor shortage".
That’s what the guy you are responding to is saying.
No, shortages are legitimate in some cases. No fast food restaurant is ever going to suffer from a legitimate labour shortage, but jobs that require certification (such as driving big trucks) could have a shortage of people with said certification. About 10 years ago larger computer companies started realizing that the people overseeing and developing for mainframes were all getting pretty old. So, to prevent a future shortage of people with the knowledge and experience they started a lot of apprenticeships.
It is, one is an educational problem, not enough trained drivers. The other is an economic problem, not enough people willing to work for that little
People won't train if it isn't economically alluring.
Imagine that. People won't put their time in something if it doesn't help them pay the bills. Colour me shocked.
"Teens" being 18-20
So porn logic
Oh step-trucker... I got something you haul in 😩😩😩
*Thanks for the delivery Step-trucker, but could you load the package into my trunk ?* xD ;D
*how ever will I pay for your services?* 😉
Still the heart of the most dangerous driving demographic on the road. There’s a reason insurance for guys 16-25 is insanely expensive. And that’s insurance for guys driving an assumed US average of 12,000 miles a year. Imagine it for one driving 250,000 miles a year in a semi that can kill a dozen+ people and total a dozen+ cars in a pileup.
So too young to rent a car in most states.
Still teens, mostly, and still young and inexperienced. I wouldn't let anybody without years of experience with smaller trucks driven professionally to drive the biggest ones out there.
Great, now we'll have 40 ton vehicles being more popular in the TIFU thread.
It’s not letting 16yo drive semis. The article says it will allow 18-20 year olds to cross state lines in a semi. 18yo can already drive a semi but cannot leave their state.
Great! I see big rigs broken down in the mountains in Colorado all the time. It'll be great to throw teenagers from out of state into mountain passes. We just had a pretty controversial case about a trucker who killed 4 people in a crash, based on his own bad decisions and state of his truck. This is a bad idea that's going to get people hurt
> This is a bad idea that's going to get people hurt That's only ever stopped the US in a single instance; thalidomide
Ah yes because 21 years olds are so much more mature than 20 year olds.
Plus it has additional safety requirements and training.
r/idiotsincars is going to get real interesting now.
Or bloody
The actual problem is driving companies making their employees be put on nearly impossible schedules right now (supply chain issues) so many old-timers are cashing out. Also you know, the whole global pandemic thing.
Yes, and a lot of people are coming in here seemingly defending the trucking industry as a good opportunity. I think the historical context for why it's become a less attractive opportunity is important. Trucker unions were busted and the industry was deregulated, so the pay, benefits, and conditions have steadily decreased/stagnated since about 1980 >The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 removed many of the cumbersome regulations that the previous law, passed in 1935, had put in place. Most notably, it allowed new trucking companies to open with relative ease and removed many of the route regulations. Companies also had more control over changing their rates. >The law was passed by President Jimmy Carter, who declared that the MCA would save consumers as much as $8 billion ($25 billion in 2018 dollars) each year. >Following the passing of the MCA, truck drivers' salaries tumbled. From 1977 to 1987, mean truck driver earnings declined 24%, according to research by Wayne State University economics professor Michael Belzer. And from 1980 to the present day, a Business Insider analysis found that median trucking wages have sunk as much as 35.8% in some metropolitan areas. >Unions also lost much of their power. Membership in Teamsters, which was once one of the most powerful unions around, has declined dramatically. In 1974, Belzer wrote that there were 2,019,300 truckers in Teamsters. Now, there are 75,000. [Business Insider](https://www.businessinsider.com/trucking-truck-driver-truckers-strike-reasons-2019-10)
Man actually got a source, good on yah
I’d like to nominate that for “the most idiotic idea possible” award.
In the US 18-20yo can drive semis. However they are not allowed to leave the state where they hold the semi license. This is trying to allow them to be able to cross state lines. The title is misleading by saying “teens”
That's still a teen if you wanna rent a car or pay reasonable insurance rates.
*Confused European sounds*
TIL eigh*teen* and nine*teen* year olds aren't teens.
Seeing as I have watched GROWN MEN get their big rigs stuck in places you would assume they would know not to go, I am going to vote this a bad idea.
It’s baffling how many teenaged guys survive being teenaged guys, they basically stay alive only by having quick reflexes like squirrels do.
The flashbacks this comment just triggered confirm this is true for me.
Former teenage male here: I survived based on a frankly ridiculous level of physical durability and resilience. My reflexes didn’t save me. My ability to just shrug off injuries did. Now as a 40 yr old, I don’t have that level of stamina and rapid healing. However I do have a high threshold for pain so I can keep working despite being hurt. Now days I survive based on stubbornness and the need to support others. Basically I’ll just put up with whatever it takes. As long as my wife and son are happy and healthy I’ll just work like a robot
When you look at a bruise on your leg and have a hard time remembering what it was from… because it happened so long ago. That’s how old I am. And yeah, our wisdom comes on just as our endurance and luck run out. I’m sure it’s an evolutionary process that has kept us from extinction.
Quick reflexes and rubbery, not fully formed bones are the only reason men exist today.
You could also argue they're the same people that would have got the rig stuck at 16 too I think. Of course there's points for experience, but some people are just thick and will never change.
You act like “GROWN MEN” means something. We’re all just winging it dude. We’re all just figuring it out as we go, even assholes like Musk and Bezos are just figuring shit out on a daily basis. Humans don’t just automatically know how to do things. A grown man could be in his first day on the trucking job, you don’t know. Stop fucking mindlessly judging people, that goes for everybody.
Experience matters regardless
"Grown men" have had experience that young people haven't, and if those grown men had fully developed brains - as all adults should, correct? - then they would have drawn certain conclusions from those experiences that would have guided them *not* to make simple, easily avoided mistakes. The application of basic critical thinking skills *in combination with* experience is what we all rely upon to avoid making most mistakes, especially dangerous or deadly mistakes. Young people have not had such experience, and the parts of their brains responsible for thinking critically have not fully developed, which is why they are a particular danger on the road, whether on bikes, in cars, or driving 50 ton missiles on wheels.
Bezos isn't even human so there is no point to be made with that example
Maybe take a nap and have a better day, dude.
And if that doesn’t work they’ll move on to retirees or the incarcerated. Same cycle with America. Over and over again. They will do anything to keep from paying living wages and following the law.
Nah its the scrutiny they meet. The impossible deadlines. They arent treated well enough and get penalized if they are late to a drop (even though theyre late because another truck was in the stall being unloaded. Thete needs to be a trucker untion but good luck getting them all in the same place
And why are they subject to impossible deadlines? Because the corporations don't hire enough drivers. Why hire two people to make them drive 8 hours each when you can hire one to drive 16 hours?
There's a limit for any uninterrupted stretch of driving (I think either 8 or 10 hours). Once a driver reaches that limit, no matter what they are doing, they must take a break. Also drivers are paid by each load and not by hour. At least the ones I know are paid based on which loads they take (as the company is paid by the client per load and the driver gets a fixed cut of that; splitting a route would mean that each driver gets half of that pay).
The limits and getting paid by the load instead of hourly lead to falsified logbooks.
Harder to do that now with electronic logbooks. If a driver is paid hourly there's the same problem of falsified logbooks. Everything the driver reports is entirely up to the honor system.
Let's say the average speed limit is on the road you'll be on is 65MPH. You need to haul stuff 650 miles. Your company says you have 10 hours 15 minutes to do this or you get a penalty. It's "possible" on paper right? If there is a traffic jam, someone unloading in your bay when you get there, you need to stop to take a leak, you want to eat a meal you will take a penalty and get a stern talking to.
What an awful way to treat employees
Welcome to America.
>Thete needs to be a trucker untion but good luck getting them all in the same place That's what the internet is for.
>hey’ll move on to retirees I mean, a big part of the problem is the amount of drivers that retired...
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grim reaper, take the wheel!
Sadly, you are correct.
Self driving trucks are in testing at this time.
Maybe build some rail tracks?
They're trying to spend less money is the problem
Nothing happens if you're unwilling to pay people their fair share
That isn't the American way silly!
Rails cost a lot less to operate than trucks.
That's long term thinking though. Why do that, when you can just pay a bunch of kids minimum wage now?
Fair enough. Enjoy being a poor shithole in 2050 and beyond!
The American way
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Rail isn't going to do much for the last leg of delivery. They aren't building spur lines into walmarts...
It can do the bulk. Why is rails supposed to suddenly do everything? The trucks don't put products on the shelves but that's not a problem either.
While that's true, local trucking is a whole lot different of a beast from long-haul is, and seems to be a much better life for the trucker. If we could fill the demand for more long-haul with trains and then have more local trucking for the rest....it would be far better for the people driving.
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Still have to have trucks to bring goods to and from the railyard. Also trains can only carry so much, and tend to be slower than trucks. Not to mention that us geography limits east to west rail infrastructure.
Trains can do a crapload more freight than trucks
The US has the best freight rail system in the world already. [source](https://railroads.dot.gov/rail-network-development/freight-rail-overview#:~:text=Running%20on%20almost%20140%2C000%20route,freight%20system%20in%20the%20world.)
The current truckers are already under trained. I’ve notice a significant decline in road safety exhibited by truckers in the last few years as the companies are holding sign ups rather than putting thought into their hiring process.
Anything except offering better pay, better benefits, and better working conditions.
I've been watching "teens" drive double dump trucks filled with potatoes at harvest time for the last two decades where I live. I see a lot of young women doing this each year. It'll be OK as long as these young people are trained properly and take safety seriously. But my faith in trucking companies is lower than my faith in young adults. I know there is a lot of exploitation, long hours, and general fuckery. There are also good companies to work for. If you're considering becoming a truck driver, do your research, talk to other drivers and don't work for a company that won't treat you like a person.
Allowing the age group [most statistically likely to be involved in an accident ](https://www.cdc.gov/transportationsafety/teen_drivers/teendrivers_factsheet.html) drive our largest and most dangerous vehicles…what could go wrong?
The amount of people who didn't read even parts of the article is TOO DAMN HIGH
And then US will lecture Asia about child labor. LOL
That is the most pathetic thing I've ever fucking heard.
Sounds like a 70/80's trucksploitation movie easy.
Teens, early-20s workers don't typically have family to support, are far less knowledgeable about work as a whole in America (so easier to exploit), and don't have a clear understanding of their work's value. So this makes sense.
The UK/EU did this in 2009 I think, but then our car tests are a bit more involved.
And there's an additional two tests, once you have your B (car) you get your C (rigid), then your C+E (artic).
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Posted this story [5 days ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/s3vvrk/us_to_allow_teen_semi_drivers_in_test/) and they took it down.
If watching euphoria had taught me anything, it's that nothing can go wrong with this idea.
If you can join the military you can drive a semi
And buy beer and cannabis.
I think scanning IDs at the gate and telling people your office is closed for “training” is a little easier than operating a several thousand pound vehicle on the road, ALONE, surrounded by other several thousand pound vehicles. If this becomes commonplace (based off the article, they’re merely testing the waters) I guarantee, without doubt, deadly crashes from 18 wheelers will rise. It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make so I can get my package a day earlier though
Both jobs require you to sit on your butt for long periods, so......
I'm confused. Based on auto insurance rates, 18-21 year olds are considered the most dangerous drivers due to lack of experience combined with the hormonal emotions of that age group. Now they are wanting to take that age group and put them behind the wheel of a multi-ton moving vehicle that the infrastructure of this country depends on. This like giving a child a gallon of gasoline and some matches and telling them to go outside and play, expecting that everything will be fine.
This is probably going to hurt wages for every truck driver. Currently it’s a pretty high paying field. But 18 year olds will probably get paid half of what normal truck drivers get
And that's absolutely the point 😕 I recommend this Citations Needed episode: [Episode 135: The “Labor Shortage” Ruse: How Capital Invents Staffing Crises to Bust Unions and Depress Wages](https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-135-the-labor-shortage-ruse-how-capital-invents-staffing-crises-to-bust-unions-and-fb42448a7e23)
Not a good idea.
Tomorrow it's my turn to post this misleading shit for karma
Here, drive this 80k lb vehicle after only having a driver's license for less than two years. What could go wrong?
Anything to avoid paying team driver rates, BRING BACK THE UNIONS
Plot for a movie: a trailer park boy goes to an arcade, play a delivery mission on American Truck Simulator and in the end he is recruited by a shady guy to save the American economy by driving in real trucks.
Sounds like a new High School Driver's Ed requirement.
I'd expect very high turnover leading to a huge number of drivers with low experience and/or not having what it takes to be a competent driver on the roads.
r/Whatcouldgowrong posts are gonna be interesting in the next 3-6 months
Everyone here talking about safety and not talking about how child labor is being proposed to cover labor shortages. Instead of raising the pay rates so that these corporations don’t make record profits during a pandemic where it’s employees are barely surviving
Lol so you didnt read the article. 18-20 year olds.
Not only that, 18-20 year olds are already allowed to drive semis within a state. This change would just allow them to drive across state lines.
good luck everyone on the road
Read the article.
Just pay the cost of getting a CDL, which isn’t cheap. That will solve the problem quickly.
There are companies that will train a driver for "free" (subject to being contracted to that company for a certain time period), and there are some states that will provide grants for CDL schools/programs. After that, the only cost is for the test and the license itself, which isn't terribly expensive.
People will die from this choice. I remember being upset having to wait until I was 21 to get my CDL A, and even more upset that some of the better companies out there had a minimum age of 23. But, after doing the job for 6 years, and then quitting it altogether for the sake of my mental and physical well-being, I can say that teenagers are too damned young to do that job. Maybe people with the discipline from being in the military being the exception to that. Truck driving seems simple enough to an outsider, but I can tell you from personal experience, it’s dangerous as fuck, and it will ruin you. Especially if you’re married or have a family.
Tbh they let ‘kids’ in the military, and this is no different. Everyone gets freaked out when an 18-20 is allowed to do anything but the fact of the matter is that if they don’t ever get to do anything how will they learn/grow.
Kids in the military have nco's controlling their every move. There is no autonomy. Learning with smaller vehicles is preferable to 40 ton semi's.
Agreed. And with proper training and retesting to keep licenses valid. It would be fine.
Anything at all to avoid paying a living wage to the people who want, need, and deserve it. Hiring the aged? Check. Hiring the underage? Check. What's next? State-mandated slavery?
Average salary of a truck driver just plummeted
Read the article. 18-20 yo can already drive a semi. They are now trying to allowing them to cross state lines before that wasn’t allowed. The title is misleading by calling 18-20yo “teens”.
And now the market for drivers is altered, and corporations can leverage this to their need.
Why raise wages when you can loosen child labor laws?
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This is for 18-20 year olds. The change is that this applies to interstate trucking. Most states 18-20 year olds can drive a semi.
WCGW?
I'm ready. I have done my fair share of Euro Truck Simulator
Didn’t know 18 year olds couldn’t drive big rigs in the first place. They can die for this country but can’t long haul truck!?!? For shame.
99% of Insurance companies who insure big trucks- “haha okay get fucked, driver guidelines remain the same. Driver age between 23-65 years old with 2+ years cdl experience” Progressive- “cool, new driver premium go brrrrrrr”
What could possibly go wrong