I thought I was the only one who got off OTR because I refuse to let a machine tell me when and how much work I can do. Article is spot on with wages. I made 18 cents a mile a mile in 1981 as a rookie. drivers starting today make about twice that. In 1981 you could buy a top of the line gas powered 4wd pickup for 7-8 grand. you can barely find one that's usable for 14 grand today and it wont get you close to a new one.

https://www.businessinsider.com/trucking-shortage-eld-mandate-cdl-truck-driver-salary-2018-6

progress

I have a friend that owns a couple hundred trucks, he says most his guys are in the 80Gs range plus good benefits. I would want more than that to be gone from home all the time but doesn't seem to bad.

The restrictions to truck drivers is ridiculous!

Truck driving school is a bout $4000.

Too much regulation.

I've got a friend that drove OTR for over 20 years. He said he got out because it wasn't "fun" anymore... They're regulating it to death.

Mike

Rat, what's the name of his company?

Lots of foreign drivers on the road today seems like a desired job for them, stop a truck and most of the time it's a guy from Europe or Africa often Canada has Sikhs driving their trucks.

Regulating and drivers get hit by stupid laws that go on their driving records. If a commercial vehicle is involved in any type of accident no matter fault it goes on drivers and companies record. And if a vehicle gets towed it raises the level of punishment.

Even if the truck driver had no fault in causing the accident. And this plays right into opening lawsuits against drivers and companies.

They even dinged UPS for not taking a rest period after so many hours drove the hard workers nuts here, Schwan's drivers also it makes it tough when the depot is a hour and half away!

I believe it is bigger trucking companies using government regulations to make it hard for smaller companies or Individual owner operators to compete. Crony Capitalism. . It should be rooted out and the politicans that engage in it should nbe ridiculed and set on fire.

Yep finn you are right

Its not that bad. I run a small trucking company with 5 of our own trucks and 1 owner op. We are doing just fine on E-logs and the other Regs.
Yes we are regulated to death but its not that bad. My drivers take home over 60,000 a year, insurance, retirement, and vacation. They are home every weekend.

Unless it's a starting wage, I would not be taken away from my wife and sons 5 days a week for 60 grand a year. It might be ok for a few years if a guy is single, but you can't get the years of raising your kids back.

Have the guys who run the trucking companies earnings grown at the same rate as the driver's over the past couple decades?

That may be an example of an incongruent statement.

Is that like a oxy-moron? Kinda seems that way. I overheard a couple guys talking a while back about their trucking business and they were saying that they can't keep drivers because of that new E-log stuff and the fact that they put cameras in the trucks. I thought to myself, wth, it's driving truck not working at a secret plutonium factory lol. That's some serious big brother crap if ya ask me.

I see quite a few that should not be on the roads, I guess this driver shortage has lowered the skill requirement levels.

I gotta laugh when a guy with a successful trucking business that's doing well and has 5-6 employees that get paid a good salary and insurance and all the other benefits in todays job market is told he's doing it wrong!

Point out who told him he is doing it wrong Lawdog.

What's your name, and what do you do for a living?

Elon Musk is working to make professional driving go the way of the horse teamsters so it's a moot point anyway.