* California - Why paying truckers by the mile is unfair and dangerous
-- Truckers say a big factor in the driver shortage is how they get paid, not how much... The trucking industry is in crisis for one simple reason: It cannot find enough people to sit behind the wheel... The American Trucking Assns., a trade group, estimates that trucks carry more than 67% of the country's total freight by weight. Trucking is the nation's most important mode of commercial shipping... Many carriers have trucks sitting idle because there's no one available to drive them; many want to buy new trucks but won't do so for the same reason. Carriers need more operators to fulfill shipper requests not only as the economy expands, but also as it stands now... The shortage is most acute in long-haul operations. However, it is now affecting short haul and regional carriers as well as drayage trucks that do short hops between, say, a railhead and a nearby port. The driver shortage also hurts other transportation modes such as ocean shipping and rail, which rely on trucks to carry their freight “the last mile” ... The industry has tried to mitigate the shortage by offering drivers signing bonuses and shorter routes so they can be home more often, paying the cost for commercial driver's license training, reaching out to ex-military, women and immigrant groups, and paying more for tenure. Carriers say these incentives help only incrementally and the shortage is not abating... There are several reasons for the shortfall. First, drivers are older, on average, than the general working population, 49 versus 41.9 years, and many are retiring because they can no longer keep up with the physical demands of the job. Young people are not signing on to replace the folks who are leaving... Second, federal regulations have cut back on the number of hours that a driver may spend behind the wheel, so additional drivers are needed to pick up the slack...While the simple answer is to pay drivers by the hour instead of by [the mile], carriers are reluctant to do so because it would mean a dislocation of their business model... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in 2012 that fatal crashes of large trucks and buses cost the U.S economy $40 billion that year. Fatigue and speeding are major crash factors... It's better for everyone if drivers don't have to engage in dangerous behavior just to clock more miles, in the name of simply making a living...
(Photo Los Angeles Times: Big rigs - Automobiles and trucks mingle on the 710 Freeway at the Willow Street bridge) -- Los Angeles, CAL, USA - The Los Angeles Times, by LARRY KAHANER - 15 June 2015
* Minnesota - While raising pay, trucking firms seek new ways to keep drivers
-- Time is money, especially in trucking, where productivity hangs on how many shipper pickups and deliveries can be made in a week and a driver’s pay often depends on how many miles he or she travels... Transport America is trying to address both points by raising driver pay and also increasing the maximum speed for both its long-haul and regional trucks from 64 to 68 miles per hour... Last week, Transport America raised owner-operator pay to at least $1 per mile and eliminated differences in base pay between hazardous materials and non-hazmat owner-operators. “We’re invested in our drivers’ careers as much as they are,” Mike Bash, director of recruiting operations at Transport America, said when announcing the owner-operator pay hike... Raising per mile pay by itself, however, isn’t necessarily the best way to keep drivers happy and behind the wheel. That’s why a higher maximum speed, which could bring drivers additional miles and give them the ability to catch up their schedules after delays, can be attractive... “We listened to what our drivers wanted and we’ve delivered it. A first-year driver can earn over $51,000 a year and our top veteran driver is expected to earn over $78,000 a year” ... That’s well above the average U.S. tractor-trailer driver annual wage last year of $41,930, which according to Labor Department data increased 2.4 percent from 2013...
(Photo: Transport America Corp., headquarters at Eagan, Minnesota)
Eagan, MINN, USA - J.O.C., by William B. Cassidy - Jun 18, 2015Labels: truckers shortage
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