Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

Anyone else notice the phrase, “Driver Shortage”? Dan’s producer must have been reading old information.

Anything Dan Rather Says I’m Rather dubious. Unfortunately he’s pretty much right on this one.

I’ve seen the “girl thing” twice now. That is women “break in” to an industry that they werent previously in and the impact it has on that industry. Wasn’t pretty either time.

I’ve no idea how to cure things. It seems that anything the government does only makes it worse. Are we really better off now than before CDL’s?

Maybe the states should make the CDL tests more strict. Maybe if they were harder to get the schools would have to actually train people.

Thanks for making a post about the Dan Rather Report, there is a follow up show planned and the producers have provided an email for others to give their experiences with either companies or schools it is viewer@hd.net
My student trucker story was meant to capture both the adventure & mishap I experienced.
It was not all bad & it was not all good but it does make one wonder from outside the trucking community “is this highway safety?”
Because I was NEW to Trucking I was not de-sensitized yet to things longtime trucking people accept as “just the way it is”.
Now years later…many of those unsafe startling realities I saw ae not such a big deal BUT are they to the Non-Trucking Commnity that is very much indifferent about Truckers because of the stereotyped image they have of them.
There is an array of methods I set about using to get interest to my story to capture imagination but also to examine the CDL Mills , Highway Safety, National Security & Women in Trucking.
Thanks,
Desiree

It’s just revenue raising theater – an average DL just requires a pulse in most states, and a CDL is just a bit more flashy.

We’d like to think that the rookies are getting more training than the three-week-wonder CDL mill. Unfortunately, they really arent. The company-sponsored schools have cut back to a two-week class, much of it on a ‘simulator’. Then, they go out with a ‘trainer’ for one to two weeks. This trainer can be some bozo with three months experience. And will just as likely be running a dedicated run. Here, I’m talking about one of the major carriers that was known for years as the best training program out there . . not any more. Luckily, they closed their school this year. It’s all about the loss-control figures: as long as the lawsuits for the accidents dont cost more than the savings from putting poorly-trained, new meat in the seat, it’s good by them!

I did a five-part article on this subject at examiner.com to flesh this out for those that dont quite understand the industry. You can find it by searching my name there. Desiree finally got their attention so lets follow up by keeping it. This is less an issue about women truckers and far more about lax training and hiring procedures for new drivers. Decent training standards and a graduated CDL license would put training into more of an apprenticeship system and should both give new drivers enough training to be safe and make experience more valuable. That’s what OOIDA is working toward. But, they need far more interest from existing drivers to make this a possibility. It would also call a screeching halt to a bunch of these new regs that they’re trying to force, like some of the medical regs that discriminate against older and heavier drivers. In short, it makes US more valuable than the brand-new driver. I see that as a good thing.

The company I last worked for was primarily ‘elderly’ too, Everitt. Until the bean counters started in believing we were all a health cost risk to their insurance. At one time, they had a full 60% of their fleet who had been with them over 10 years . . and that means they were ‘old’ . . like over 45! They were also at the top of the pay scale and there was no place to go but up. When lowering the pay didnt get rid of them fast enough to suit the accountants and ‘investors’, they found other, more nefarious means to get rid of the old farts in favor of cheap drivers. They dumped so many older, high-dollar drivers-usually on phony, trumped-up stuff – that they had to ‘partner’ with AARP to hire MORE old drivers (new ones who would work cheap and likely wouldnt stay long enough to hit the top rates) so they could fight age discrimination claims by saying they still had all of these senior citizens they were hiring. Smart lawyers! Be glad you’re still valued in oversized . . it sure isnt that way in van and standard flatbed with the larger carriers!