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[jeffandnicole]

After seeing so many truck pile ups and flip overs during the latest big freeze, I am pretty convinced that OTR trucking has reached the bottom of the barrel on talent.

If you read the trucker's forums on the web, you are absolutely on point with your assumption.  The older truckers can't stand the younger generation.

[Chris]

A criticism I've read is the age requirement for a CDL: 21 years. So people interested in the job and getting out of high school can't pursue that career for several years, so in the meantime they go into a different trade. Maybe that increases the share of drivers who become a truck driver as a last resort and aren't very talented.

Unskilled drivers is not only a North American problem though, there is a significant shortage of truck drivers in Europe and there is a huge influx of poorly skilled drivers from Eastern Europe, just ask a Norwegian about foreign truckers...

Turnover in the trucking industry is also extremely high, they always cite that as a problem but not much seems to be done to address it.

[DJStephens]

Who wants to be gone for six to eight weeks at a time?  Small print visible on Stewart Transport info packet.

[edwaleni]

Look how fast these rigs are going in barely 400 yard visibility on an untreated road (I-80).

And this is the consequences of the same pile up.

Trucker lobby has to wake up on this stuff!

[US71]

After seeing so many truck pile ups and flip overs during the latest big freeze, I am pretty convinced that OTR trucking has reached the bottom of the barrel on talent.

If you read the trucker's forums on the web, you are absolutely on point with your assumption.  The older truckers can't stand the younger generation.

I keep seeing ads for "we need more drivers", but some of the drivers seem to think it's a way to cut their hours.

[MikieTimT]

I keep seeing ads for "we need more drivers", but some of the drivers seem to think it's a way to cut their hours.

There is a shortage of drivers for sure.  People aren't buying less crap from Amazon than they used to buy from Wal-Mart, so it's not like shipping has decreased any as of late.  My sister-in-law works in J.B. Hunt's home office and was in management in the recruiting dept. until she was promoted to another area a couple of years ago.  It's scary to hear some of the stories she told about some of the cases that came her way.  You just about had to be a felon before you were completely discounted on the first round of recruiting, but with an industry with an atrocious 80% annual turnover rate, that's what seems to come along.  There's a reason that inter-modal shipping is getting bigger and bigger.  And I'm a pretty big fan.  Quite a lot of trailers/containers fit on a BNSF inter-modal train.  Which means that we aren't sharing the road with them, and it's a better use of diesel all around.  Drivers are still needed for the local/regional hops, but that gets a person home a little more regularly than the cross-country jockeys get.  Not to mention, it increases the likelihood they've slept well enough not to have to be imbibing on stimulants of varying legality, which is what was likely the cause of this bridge's demise, unless it was willful disregard for the posted sign.

On the other hand, a big part of the problem with the industry is the failure to compensate drivers in any way, shape, or form for the time they spend/waste having to unload trailers/wait for open docks.  If they actually did get to spend their time moving trailers from point to point or being off-duty, then, it would be a reasonably lucrative career choice that would attract more qualified participants.

[Bobby5280]

If long haul truckers are subject to the same kinds of DOT rules the crane truck drivers at my work place have to follow then there's one obvious reason why there is a shortage of truck drivers: gotta be able to pass a random drug test.

We have a company-wide random drug/alcohol screening policy at my work place. A long time ago only our crane truck drivers had to be piss-tested. That turned into a really bad morale problem. So we made everyone share the same pain to deal with that issue.

A drug testing policy really cuts down on the pool of potential hires. I have literally seen people filling out applications in our front office stop when seeing that part about the drug testing policy. They just get up and leave without filling out the rest of the application.

[Flint1979]

Yesterday I drove to South Bend, Indiana from Saginaw, Michigan and back. When I was on my way back it was later at night and dark out. I started out going towards Michigan City for some reason and then turned onto Timothy Road west of South Bend and took that up to US-12 in Michigan. Then took M-60 to Decatur Road (a decent back road) and encountered no traffic at all during my 13 miles on Decatur Road, then took M-51 to I-94 and after I got on I-94 it started pouring down rain, then turned to freezing rain before I got to Kalamazoo. The left lane of I-94 was covered in ice and snow and the right lane was two tracked it was a mess. So what do the semi truck drivers decide to do, they decided it was safe to get in the left lane and pass passenger vehicles at 70-75 mph while the passenger vehicles on the two tracked right lane could only do about 60-65 mph. When they were passing in the left lane they were throwing snow all over the place onto cars in the right lane that they were passing. Totally ignorant if you ask me, it's amazing how some of these drivers even have their jobs driving that dangerous. I got in the left lane to pass a few times because a lot of cars were driving slower than I could drive and every time I got over there it was driving through slush and the traction wasn't very good but it was all fine for the semi's to use that lane to pass and do that shit. I wasn't too happy with the semi drivers but really I'm rarely happy with them, they act as if they own the road.

[SteveG1988]

Back to what happened to the bridge.

This is a tricky subject to touch on without sounding....xenophobic or anything but... A lot of companies in California seem to hire a lot of people that are, for lack of a better term, "fresh off the boat" These drivers are given minimal training and told to go deliver loads, if you look up the company that hired that driver, they seem to be rather...fly by night. The driver for example was probably using a car GPS, which won't route you around low weight limit bridges. A truck atlas will list weight limits and tell you what roads can and cannot be driven on by a truck. A car GPS for example would route a truck onto a NY state Parkway, a truck GPS would route you on actual truck routes.

The GPS units have free lifetime updates, and cost 300ish dollars for a garmin. That is a lot to ask on a low paying company driver. The guy probably has an "ELD" that is really just an app on a tablet or a phone, no built-in navigation.

[jeffandnicole]

Yesterday I drove to South Bend, Indiana from Saginaw, Michigan and back. When I was on my way back it was later at night and dark out. I started out going towards Michigan City for some reason and then turned onto Timothy Road west of South Bend and took that up to US-12 in Michigan. Then took M-60 to Decatur Road (a decent back road) and encountered no traffic at all during my 13 miles on Decatur Road, then took M-51 to I-94 and after I got on I-94 it started pouring down rain, then turned to freezing rain before I got to Kalamazoo. The left lane of I-94 was covered in ice and snow and the right lane was two tracked it was a mess. So what do the semi truck drivers decide to do, they decided it was safe to get in the left lane and pass passenger vehicles at 70-75 mph while the passenger vehicles on the two tracked right lane could only do about 60-65 mph. When they were passing in the left lane they were throwing snow all over the place onto cars in the right lane that they were passing. Totally ignorant if you ask me, it's amazing how some of these drivers even have their jobs driving that dangerous. I got in the left lane to pass a few times because a lot of cars were driving slower than I could drive and every time I got over there it was driving through slush and the traction wasn't very good but it was all fine for the semi's to use that lane to pass and do that shit. I wasn't too happy with the semi drivers but really I'm rarely happy with them, they act as if they own the road.

So your biggest beef was they were throwing slush at you?

That happens everyone on roads that haven't been perfectly plowed yet.  That was happening on an interstate near me when the truckers were in the right lane. 

Or, think of it this way - you don't know who you were flinging slush on, right?  You'd probably say no one, but you don't know what you're kicking up and flinging because it's to the side and behind you, not affecting you.

There's lots of reasons why truckers should lose their jobs...but your reasons aren't one of them.

[Flint1979]

Yesterday I drove to South Bend, Indiana from Saginaw, Michigan and back. When I was on my way back it was later at night and dark out. I started out going towards Michigan City for some reason and then turned onto Timothy Road west of South Bend and took that up to US-12 in Michigan. Then took M-60 to Decatur Road (a decent back road) and encountered no traffic at all during my 13 miles on Decatur Road, then took M-51 to I-94 and after I got on I-94 it started pouring down rain, then turned to freezing rain before I got to Kalamazoo. The left lane of I-94 was covered in ice and snow and the right lane was two tracked it was a mess. So what do the semi truck drivers decide to do, they decided it was safe to get in the left lane and pass passenger vehicles at 70-75 mph while the passenger vehicles on the two tracked right lane could only do about 60-65 mph. When they were passing in the left lane they were throwing snow all over the place onto cars in the right lane that they were passing. Totally ignorant if you ask me, it's amazing how some of these drivers even have their jobs driving that dangerous. I got in the left lane to pass a few times because a lot of cars were driving slower than I could drive and every time I got over there it was driving through slush and the traction wasn't very good but it was all fine for the semi's to use that lane to pass and do that shit. I wasn't too happy with the semi drivers but really I'm rarely happy with them, they act as if they own the road.

So your biggest beef was they were throwing slush at you?

That happens everyone on roads that haven't been perfectly plowed yet.  That was happening on an interstate near me when the truckers were in the right lane. 

Or, think of it this way - you don't know who you were flinging slush on, right?  You'd probably say no one, but you don't know what you're kicking up and flinging because it's to the side and behind you, not affecting you.

There's lots of reasons why truckers should lose their jobs...but your reasons aren't one of them.

No my main beef was that they were driving too fast for the conditions. No passenger car could get going as fast as they were traveling and it was like they didn't even care. They had to drive through the same stuff we did and they thought it was ok to hop in the left lane and pass everyone. Trust me I remember that night the conditions of the road were awful and no truck driver should be speeding in that situation. If a semi truck loses control and slides that's going to create a massive chain reaction accident and that part of I-94 is very common for that in the winter.

[kalvado]

Yesterday I drove to South Bend, Indiana from Saginaw, Michigan and back. When I was on my way back it was later at night and dark out. I started out going towards Michigan City for some reason and then turned onto Timothy Road west of South Bend and took that up to US-12 in Michigan. Then took M-60 to Decatur Road (a decent back road) and encountered no traffic at all during my 13 miles on Decatur Road, then took M-51 to I-94 and after I got on I-94 it started pouring down rain, then turned to freezing rain before I got to Kalamazoo. The left lane of I-94 was covered in ice and snow and the right lane was two tracked it was a mess. So what do the semi truck drivers decide to do, they decided it was safe to get in the left lane and pass passenger vehicles at 70-75 mph while the passenger vehicles on the two tracked right lane could only do about 60-65 mph. When they were passing in the left lane they were throwing snow all over the place onto cars in the right lane that they were passing. Totally ignorant if you ask me, it's amazing how some of these drivers even have their jobs driving that dangerous. I got in the left lane to pass a few times because a lot of cars were driving slower than I could drive and every time I got over there it was driving through slush and the traction wasn't very good but it was all fine for the semi's to use that lane to pass and do that shit. I wasn't too happy with the semi drivers but really I'm rarely happy with them, they act as if they own the road.

So your biggest beef was they were throwing slush at you?

That happens everyone on roads that haven't been perfectly plowed yet.  That was happening on an interstate near me when the truckers were in the right lane. 

Or, think of it this way - you don't know who you were flinging slush on, right?  You'd probably say no one, but you don't know what you're kicking up and flinging because it's to the side and behind you, not affecting you.

There's lots of reasons why truckers should lose their jobs...but your reasons aren't one of them.

No my main beef was that they were driving too fast for the conditions. No passenger car could get going as fast as they were traveling and it was like they didn't even care. They had to drive through the same stuff we did and they thought it was ok to hop in the left lane and pass everyone. Trust me I remember that night the conditions of the road were awful and no truck driver should be speeding in that situation. If a semi truck loses control and slides that's going to create a massive chain reaction accident and that part of I-94 is very common for that in the winter.

Well, they have higher wheel loading and that can translate into better pavement grip in those conditions. And a car sliding - especially sliding in front of the truck - is equally dangerous in terms of chain reaction...

[SteveG1988]

Yesterday I drove to South Bend, Indiana from Saginaw, Michigan and back. When I was on my way back it was later at night and dark out. I started out going towards Michigan City for some reason and then turned onto Timothy Road west of South Bend and took that up to US-12 in Michigan. Then took M-60 to Decatur Road (a decent back road) and encountered no traffic at all during my 13 miles on Decatur Road, then took M-51 to I-94 and after I got on I-94 it started pouring down rain, then turned to freezing rain before I got to Kalamazoo. The left lane of I-94 was covered in ice and snow and the right lane was two tracked it was a mess. So what do the semi truck drivers decide to do, they decided it was safe to get in the left lane and pass passenger vehicles at 70-75 mph while the passenger vehicles on the two tracked right lane could only do about 60-65 mph. When they were passing in the left lane they were throwing snow all over the place onto cars in the right lane that they were passing. Totally ignorant if you ask me, it's amazing how some of these drivers even have their jobs driving that dangerous. I got in the left lane to pass a few times because a lot of cars were driving slower than I could drive and every time I got over there it was driving through slush and the traction wasn't very good but it was all fine for the semi's to use that lane to pass and do that shit. I wasn't too happy with the semi drivers but really I'm rarely happy with them, they act as if they own the road.

So your biggest beef was they were throwing slush at you?

That happens everyone on roads that haven't been perfectly plowed yet.  That was happening on an interstate near me when the truckers were in the right lane. 

Or, think of it this way - you don't know who you were flinging slush on, right?  You'd probably say no one, but you don't know what you're kicking up and flinging because it's to the side and behind you, not affecting you.

There's lots of reasons why truckers should lose their jobs...but your reasons aren't one of them.

No my main beef was that they were driving too fast for the conditions. No passenger car could get going as fast as they were traveling and it was like they didn't even care. They had to drive through the same stuff we did and they thought it was ok to hop in the left lane and pass everyone. Trust me I remember that night the conditions of the road were awful and no truck driver should be speeding in that situation. If a semi truck loses control and slides that's going to create a massive chain reaction accident and that part of I-94 is very common for that in the winter.

Well, they have higher wheel loading and that can translate into better pavement grip in those conditions. And a car sliding - especially sliding in front of the truck - is equally dangerous in terms of chain reaction...

That is exactly what can happen. A truck due to how much weight it is putting down can push through the snow. Or, like on my truck, we have Mud+Snow rated tires that can handle more conditions than the average car tire.