Who’s the psychic on this one? 2020 is a long ways away.

Trucking industry anticipating a boom in business
Drew Brooks
July 22, 2007 - 10:47PM
SHELBY — A recent study by the U.S. Department of Transportation predicts massive growth in the trucking industry in the coming years.
According to the study, N.C. trucks will be hauling over 600 million tons of motor freight by 2020. That is almost double the little over 300 million N.C. trucks hauled in 1998.

Everyone knows trucking is cyclical. My first reaction to stories like these is if they are setting up more “driver shortage” hysteria. Oh, wait… here it is now (same article) -

Turner echoed the worry over drivers. He said “the driver problem is one problem everybody has,” and that many of the current drivers would be retired by the time 2020 rolled around.

Charles Dedmond, president of A.V. Dedmond Trucking at 800 Cherryville Road, said more truck driving schools were recruiting heavily, which would hopefully help stave off any massive shortage.

A massive shortage? If that isn’t setting up a massive h2b visa / guest worker program I don’t know what is.

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