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The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

nytimes.com

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Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#61

Post by idlewords »

tdicola wrote: post #58
l33tbro wrote: post #43

Hmmm, why are we still talking about truck drivers exactly? The trucking industry is about to tank hard. Mercedes demo'd its first driverless truck a couple of weeks ago (!). Yes, there will be specialists drivers sure and niche companies. But the day of the interstate road train will be done shortly. The biggest new niche in my mind will be vehicle security. These trucks will be flying solo across the nation - unman…

I like your optimism, but realistically self driving trucks on American highways are a long way off. How will the trucks refuel? How will they handle loading and unloading? How will they handle inclement weather? What is the insurance liability for putting them on public roads? Who will be sued when a driverless truck crashes into another car (at fault or not)? Even Mercedes says in that article, "the Highway Pilot s…

Automation doesn't mean having to solve every problem simultaneously. You can still pay a driver to stay with the truck, and handle the fueling and loading. Just being able to keep the truck moving while the driver is required by law to rest will be a huge win.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#62

Post by A_COMPUTER »

My semi-retired parents were lured in by the claims of making upwards of 80K a year if you worked hard enough. They did it for about three years and quit with more debt than when they started. You can only make decent money if you own your own rig, which costs as much as a house. Trucking is heavily regulated, but in ways that dump all the problems on the drivers. You are in competition with other drivers, which pretty much guarantees you're going to be cooking the books increasingly regulated-away ways, not to mention how dangerous it is.

There are exceptions to everything though, if you've been on the road long enough you make more money per mile as you build up a reputation, or you can make money money working for fedex or doing hazardous materials shipping, but it takes years of toiling in shit conditions for low pay to get to that point.

They also told me that they met a lot of people who clearly hadn't done the math, and were losing money instead of making it despite working very hard. The cost of the truck alone puts you in massive debt with no guarantee of work to pay it off.

As far as automating it, maybe in 20 years it will be viable. It's not useful to talk about that today.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#63

Post by wombatpm »

tdicola wrote: post #59
l33tbro wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I think the "driver" will shift more to a "captain" type archetype. Ie, driverless road-trains will travel in fleets and there will be a mechanic somewhere in that convoy to deal with breaking down in dead of nowhere. Also hard not to imagine this guy being armed.

What is the advantage of this system over the modern railway system? Trains can go faster, don't have to stop for traffic, and can carry far more goods than trucks.

Amazingly, people live where rail is not an option. The interstate system offers more possibilities than rail. Rail also does not deliver to your door.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#64

Post by judk »

idlewords wrote: post #61
tdicola wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like your optimism, but realistically self driving trucks on American highways are a long way off. How will the trucks refuel? How will they handle loading and unloading? How will they handle inclement weather? What is the insurance liability for putting them on public roads? Who will be sued when a driverless truck crashes into another car (at fault or not)? Even Mercedes says in that article, "the Highway Pilot s…

Automation doesn't mean having to solve every problem simultaneously. You can still pay a driver to stay with the truck, and handle the fueling and loading. Just being able to keep the truck moving while the driver is required by law to rest will be a huge win.

Then the automation doesn't solve the staffing problem, it just perpetuates forced pseudo-downtime that drivers get underpaid for.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#65

Post by qbrass »

l33tbro wrote: post #54
twothamendment wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can the driver-less truck put chains on its tires in the winter? I didn't think so. I'm sure that we'll make use of the tech we have but there is so much more to driving a truck than driving. Maybe the "drivers" will be able to climb in the back and sleep while the truck does they driving and they can take care of everything else.

This is why I think the "driver" will shift more to a "captain" type archetype. Ie, driverless road-trains will travel in fleets and there will be a mechanic somewhere in that convoy to deal with breaking down in dead of nowhere. Also hard not to imagine this guy being armed.

Captain? You mean servant to the machines.

Why would the robot's pet be armed? Only the stupidest bandits would threaten the poor meatbag instead of paying them to cause the breakdown in the first place.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#66

Post by phaemon »

afafsd wrote: post #37
qq66 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The promise of self-driving cars is that they will be better and safer drivers than humans. Wouldn't that imply that they would be even now suitable for high-skill, dangerous driving?

That's "the promise", yes, but delivering stuff is very different to promising stuff. Planes are way ahead of trucks in this regard and could actually fly themselves from origin to destination most of the time, but we still keep a couple of highly-trained pilots sitting there to handle the rest of the cases. A truck can kill nearly as many people as a plane, depending on its cargo and just how badly it screws up. In…

Computers can distinguish between human and deer with 100% accuracy in microseconds. Human brains aren't even close. You might as well compare a sprinter to an F1 car.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#67

Post by sanswork »

tdicola wrote: post #58
l33tbro wrote: post #43

Hmmm, why are we still talking about truck drivers exactly? The trucking industry is about to tank hard. Mercedes demo'd its first driverless truck a couple of weeks ago (!). Yes, there will be specialists drivers sure and niche companies. But the day of the interstate road train will be done shortly. The biggest new niche in my mind will be vehicle security. These trucks will be flying solo across the nation - unman…

I like your optimism, but realistically self driving trucks on American highways are a long way off. How will the trucks refuel? How will they handle loading and unloading? How will they handle inclement weather? What is the insurance liability for putting them on public roads? Who will be sued when a driverless truck crashes into another car (at fault or not)? Even Mercedes says in that article, "the Highway Pilot s…

>How will the trucks refuel?

Full serve gas stations.

>How will they handle loading and unloading?

Do long haul drivers typically load/unload themselves these days? I would have thought that would have been the task of the warehouse staff on either end.

>How will they handle inclement weather?

Probably better than human driven trucks why would you think they couldn't?

>What is the insurance liability for putting them on public roads?

Probably less than human driven trucks since you don't have to worry about a lot of things that will cause problems for those such as tired/impared drivers.

>Who will be sued when a driverless truck crashes into another car (at fault or not)?

The trucks insurance company. Same as it would currently happen.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#68

Post by [deleted] »

A_COMPUTER wrote: post #62

My semi-retired parents were lured in by the claims of making upwards of 80K a year if you worked hard enough. They did it for about three years and quit with more debt than when they started. You can only make decent money if you own your own rig, which costs as much as a house. Trucking is heavily regulated, but in ways that dump all the problems on the drivers. You are in competition with other drivers, which pret…

[deleted]

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#69

Post by the_ancient »

ewams wrote: post #41
rayiner wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "worker shortage" concept is seriously one of the dumbest memes of corporate America. There's a ton of people out of work, and it doesn't take much in the way of skill to be a truck driver. Companies simply aren't paying enough for what can be a very demanding job.

They pay $1.10 per mile in my area plus gas.

That sounds like Owner Operator wages to me, which mean the $1.10 per mile must pay for the Payment on the Truck (which costs anywhere from 50K to 100K+), Maintenance on the Truck, Normal Business expenses as a Owner Operator is a small business, Government Fees, Road Expenses, Health Insurance, Self Employment Taxes, and the list goes on and on.

Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More

#70

Post by the_ancient »

dehmlow wrote: post #51
the_ancient wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only people I know that can make that level of money is Owner Operators, and while gross my be 80K most of that ends up back in the truck. If you know of a company driver making 80K a year let me know the name of that company

They are all hazardous material tank drivers. Some are owner operators, some are not. And some were close to that as local drivers.

1. Hazardous drivers have a shit load more regulations on them, and I do not believe it would be worth 80K to haul some of that shit

2. You have to be an experienced driver with spotless driving record for most companies, I would hope these companies are not hiring newly minted 6 week school drivers to haul HazMat.

3. this specialize area of trucking should be used to gauge the wider industry.

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