THis will be moot in a few years when automated cars are in place, truckers will be begging for jobs.
The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More
101–110 of 179 posts
Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More
#102Sounds like the same argument being used for more H1B visas. We cant find enough (cheap) resources locally so we need to import some from elsewhere willing to work for a pittance.
The strength of the argument changes with market elasticity. If a single company has trouble hiring, they can raise salaries. However, if the pool of workers remains finite, all you are really doing is switching which company has the hiring problem. If two people need an all day plumbing job done today, and there's only one plumber in time, one of them is not going to get it done, regardless of how much they pay. So…
> if the pool of workers remains finite
You take an alternative. There may only be one plumber, but if he is bid up to a million I am going to spend a day doing it myself, buy an entirely new WHATEVER_WE_ARE_REPLACING or do without. If the price of scotchs go to 50 usd per centilitier I am going to buy rum. If programmers start charging 10000 usd/day I am going to continue doing my spreadsheets by hand.
Your analysis fails to take into account substitute goods. If a taxi gets too expensive I can rent a car (no driver cost), take public transportation (lot less driver cost) or stay the night and go home when I am sober.
Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
thanks for sharing your experience, it sounds like a tough job just to do the job right. do you think the system will get un-broken before we start seeing things like automated trucks? http://www.vox.com/2014/6/3/5775482/why-trucks-will-drive-th...
There is a lot to automate, for example shifting the trailer tandem axles or the 'fifth wheel' to more evenly distribute the weight per axle. I don't know how an automated truck would handle driving across Wyoming with tens of thousands of big tumbleweeds blowing across the road, would the collision-avoidance system be triggered? A human knows what they are and that you just keep going full-speed. Snow is another iss…
In the snow example in particular, a properly-equipped autotruck could scan it with short-wave radar, which would go right through snow but bounce off metal. But that's a nitpick; there's lots of things that an experienced driver can handle easily but a robodriver would have trouble with.
Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More
#104> But corporate America has become so parsimonious about paying workers outside the executive suite that meaningful wage increases may seem an unacceptable affront. In this environment, it may be easier to say “There is a shortage of skilled workers” than “We aren’t paying our workers enough,” even if, in economic terms, those come down to the same thing.
And it's not like trucking is a good job. For that princely (!!!) $41k / year, you are often away from home. I'd bet you don't get comped for all the meals you eat on the road either, so there goes a bunch of money spent eating out, even if it is just at truck stop diners. If you have a family, and and your partner has a job -- as he or she must, given that shit salary -- knock $4-$10k/year off for daycare as well. I…
Keep in mind that people like us are pretty spoiled by having marketable degrees. $41k is pretty nice compared to the other options available to Americans with high school educations.
Which isn't to say that truckers don't need and deserve more pay; just that they're not presently getting screwed quite as hard as most of the working class. It's more of an indication of how fucked up things have gotten that a trucker's salary can look pretty good.
Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More
#105Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More
#106[deleted]
Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More
#107Or maybe they need to invest in self-driving trucks R&D.
Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More
#108Earlier 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.
Armed? What, so he can get in a shootout with the robbers?
When I worked at a convenience store, you could get fired for not cooperating with robbers. No company wants to deal with the PR and liability nightmare of some poor schmuck getting gunned down trying to defend a truckload of Cheetos, or the $200 in the register. The policy everywhere is "keep your head down, do everything the bad guys tell you to, and call the police when they leave."
And, similarly, no robber wants the kind of police attention that murder brings. Certainly there's a risk of some fucked-up tweaker getting all trigger-happy, but 99 times out of a hundred they won't hurt you as long as you cooperate.
Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More
#109Re: The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More
#110Hmmm, 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…
That's not good news for the truck drivers. I can even see automation getting banned in many states. In the same way some places require an attendant at gas stations.
Presumably the states that have full serve gas stations, which is required for automated trucks, will also be the ones that ban automated trucks.