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America has a truck driver shortage

washingtonpost.com

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Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#361

Post by TheForumTroll »

twothamendment wrote: post #257
devonkim wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only one I’m familiar with is that you drive more than you report and that lets you take on more jobs. You’re not supposed to drive more than (for example) 14 hours / day for safety reasons but most drivers that pull six figures tend to have violated these laws fundamentally.

It may not be to take more jobs, it may be to keep the one you have. Say it takes 14 hours and 45 minutes and you can only log 14 hours drive time. How do you get the job done when dispatch is promising you'll be there? Start driving before you log the start of your day, log breaks when really you've been peeing in a bottle, log some time to inspect your truck when you are stuck in traffic. A little here and there. Y…

>Bonus, if you are caught the company doesn't care, they will hire someone else, but it sticks with your record.

Which is why the company is also fined in many places (like the EU). The problem is the company most of the time.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#362

Post by ocschwar »

somberi wrote: post #250

A related read (1): Things I found interesting from the article: a. Approximately 150,000 Sikhs (my edit: Sikhs are a subset of Indians and to a smaller extent Pakistanis) in trucking, 90% of whom are drivers. b. Those numbers are growing rapidly, with 18,000 Sikhs entering the industry in 2017 alone. c. Sikhs control about 40% of trucking in California. d. (In the US and Canada) - A network of Indian truck stops is…

> d. (In the US and Canada) - A network of Indian truck stops is spreading along the main routes, serving some fine daal and naan bread. (My edit: Sikh highway food is a cultural bookend in India and it is whimsical to see this transported to the Rockies)

Now THAT would get me to conisder trucking for a living.

Indians know how to do truck stops right.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#364

Post by PurpleBoxDragon »

FooHentai wrote: post #165
rgbrenner wrote: post #4

If you're an employer and you cant find employees, the answer is virtually always to increase total compensation. Theres no reason $80k is the top end of the pay range for any job. The economy does not price jobs based on prestige, education level, or some other signal... that's a judgement made by certain people about what they think a job is worth.. not the market. The opinions of people about the worth of a job ar…

>If you're an employer and you cant find employees, the answer is virtually always to increase total compensation. Most cases I would guess this is true until you hit the point that the pay is enough to live comfortably. Then it changes. My partner was recently approached for a position offering compensation more than 200% of their current for the same work. However,the hiring process is exposing red flags hinting at…

>Working conditions are such a major aspect of any job

So they need to increase compensation even more to account for these aspects of the job. If they can't fill the position, it is because they aren't paying enough for the job. I don't see how anything changes except that employers don't want to admit that their jobs suck so much more than similar jobs that paying even twice the amount doesn't pull people in.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#365

Post by ryandrake »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #39
rgbrenner wrote: post #4

If you're an employer and you cant find employees, the answer is virtually always to increase total compensation. Theres no reason $80k is the top end of the pay range for any job. The economy does not price jobs based on prestige, education level, or some other signal... that's a judgement made by certain people about what they think a job is worth.. not the market. The opinions of people about the worth of a job ar…

This is definitely a major problem in large corporations with HR rules baked into the fabric of the thing over decades. Many positions get assigned a grade based upon the nature of the work. A series of qualifiers fix that kind of position to a grade. You can earn anything inside of that grade, but not distinctly above it. Considering yearly cost of living increases are usually fixed at about 2%, it can take one some…

I remember a surreal conversation with my manager from a previous company. Despite my great job performance, I could not get a raise, because I was at the top of the range and "the book said" I couldn't make any more. This was shortly before I left.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#366

Post by mmmBacon »

corodra wrote: post #104
fred_is_fred wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting what you said about I-5 vs middle of nowhere. As someone who has to drive from Denver to south east Texas a few times per year for family stuff, I'd almost always rather deal with an empty great plains highway than traffic on I-5. There are downsides, mainly food and hotel choices of course.

I got 2 weeks on i5 and liked it over my desert routes. Matter of relative terminology. I also like trees. I hate the desert... so much. East coast would have been nicer if I wasn’t so constantly freaked out for low overpasses. I5, for me, is the ideal route if I had to do it again.

Your comment reminds me of the Penn and Teller video game: Desert Bus.

Previous HN Discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6023484

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#368

Post by gambiting »

badpun wrote: post #356
gambiting wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do American trucks not have tachos? In EU it's impossible for a truck driver to speed or work more than 8 hours a day - if the truck moves even a little bit in the period when the driver is supposed to be resting, that means stupid fines for the transport company, and that's because everything is recorded by the tachometer behind the dash.

> In EU it's impossible for a truck driver to speed They can speed if there's a speed limit on the road (such as when you enter a populated area or get close to a dangerous crossing etc.). The tacho does not know about it. In Poland, truck drivers speed all the time.

Well of course, yes(I am from Poland as well), I meant more that there is an EU-wide speed limit on trucks(about 60mph or 100km/h) and it cannot be exceeded.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#369

Post by selimthegrim »

somberi wrote: post #250

A related read (1): Things I found interesting from the article: a. Approximately 150,000 Sikhs (my edit: Sikhs are a subset of Indians and to a smaller extent Pakistanis) in trucking, 90% of whom are drivers. b. Those numbers are growing rapidly, with 18,000 Sikhs entering the industry in 2017 alone. c. Sikhs control about 40% of trucking in California. d. (In the US and Canada) - A network of Indian truck stops is…

Do you get to sit outside on the charpoys too at the truck stop? I'd roadtrip there just for that.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#370

Post by Tenhundfeld »

gaius wrote: post #61
52-6F-62 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is definitely a major problem in large corporations with HR rules baked into the fabric of the thing over decades. Many positions get assigned a grade based upon the nature of the work. A series of qualifiers fix that kind of position to a grade. You can earn anything inside of that grade, but not distinctly above it. Considering yearly cost of living increases are usually fixed at about 2%, it can take one some…

The most laughable thing is when HR benchmark salaries and offer the average, but still expect above-average quality to walk in the door. Get rid of all them save the payroll clerks and any company will be better off and better to work for.

I'm sure it's different in different places, but that's not my experience with HR, not at all. In my experience working closely with folks in HR, they are hamstrung by management.

To put it another way, they typically know when they're recruiting for a position where the compensation and job expectations don't align, and they hate it. They hate wasting their time, your time, etc. They argue against it, but at the end of the day, they're not setting the salary benchmarks/pay bands. Those are set by some Director/VP and dictated to HR.

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