* Ontario - Truck driving would be a great job: "If you could get paid for what you did"
-- Dave MacMillan is an owner-operator based in Parry Sound, Ontario, who has spent most of his 40-year driving career hauling produce from California. Currently, he drives a lumber truck locally and is paid by the hour. When the lumber hauling season is over he will study the rates and decide if he wants to put his truck back on the road or leave the business altogether... He explains why the industry has trouble attracting and keeping drivers... "The driver shortage is bad, and it will continue to get worse," says MacMillan. "You can't attract young people to this industry anymore. When I was a kid all I ever wanted to do was drive a truck. Now, you look at this industry and you think, 'Geeze, I may stay away from home almost all year long, in and out, and only make $30,000. Or, I can go into construction, be home every night, and make $50,000.' It's not much of a choice" ... How do you attract and keep professional drivers? "I think the only way is to pay drivers by the hour, because there's so much time lost in transportation that paying by the mile just doesn't cut it. You spend so much time in traffic or sitting at shippers and receivers who abuse your time as a driver. Big carriers continue to pay by the mile, and they get what they pay for. At the end of the day, many of the really good drivers leave the industry because they're not making enough money. This trickles down and you end up with guys that really shouldn't even be on the road... You'll even get big carriers undercutting each other, then try to make up for hauling the cheap freight by trimming the drivers' paychecks…the burden for profit is shifted to the driver" ... MacMillan concludes: "I don't want to sound too harsh here, but it's kind of embarrassing to a lot of us [long-time professional drivers] to see the guys that drive trucks now. We hate to be painted with the same brush, but we are, and you can understand why the public does that. An awful lot of the guys who did this as a profession have left. It's a shame, because it's a good job, really. If you could get paid for what you did, it would be a great job" ...
Parry Sound, ONT, CAN - Fleet Owner, by Larry Kahaner - May 22, 2015Labels: truckers shortage, truckers' stories
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