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America has a truck driver shortage

washingtonpost.com

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Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#231

Post by clarkmoody »

corodra wrote: post #88

At a rough point in my life, I was a truck driver for CR England and Knight Transportation for a few days short of 7 months. You don’t start at 80,000 a year. That’s such a lie. You make about 600 a week to start, roughly, depending if you get enough miles. You don’t get the good routes, staying in well populated areas like the i5 corridor, at first. You stay in the middle of no where Arizona, North Dakota, etc. You…

It sounds like an excellent job for a machine to do: dull, repetitive, damaging to humans.

Use humans to do last-mile delivery of the goods, but let a machine do the open road.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#232

Post by lazyasciiart »

joe_the_user wrote: post #181
StudentStuff wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the nature of truck driving, the headline has been $100k/yr job without the need of a degree for years, but in actuality, only those who work very hard & cheat the books get close to that. Are you willing to drive while sleepy, break regs when the customer is demanding you drive longer to deliver their products (due to traffic delaying you or similar)? Its a really screwed up industry.

This is the nature of truck driving, the headline has been $100k/yr job without the need of a degree for years, but in actuality, only those who work very hard & cheat the books get close to that. No, trucking was a decent living 'till deregulation in the 90s. "How Trucking Went From One of the Best Jobs in America to One of the Worst" http://time.com/money/4325164/trucking-worst-job/

"No" is an incorrect response. The 90s is two decades ago. Your comment doesn't contradict the previous one at all.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#233

Post by EGreg »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #188
MisterTea wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The guys I meet who are pulling in good money are all union vocational workers. We're talking dump trucks, cement mixers, sometimes roll off (dumpsters/skips), and the holy Grail: heavy haul. I know a guy in New Jersey who works for a well known hauling and rigging company. Makes 130k/yr. Small shop of a dozen guys, no one makes under a 100k, and home just about every night. But good luck getting into those shops. Cr…

This is one of the main reasons I am so heavily in favor of UBI, even though I am quite the anarchist if we are talking about idealism and not pragmatism. There IS money being made out there by large firms and small firms alike, but it is absolutely NOT based on merit or skill at all. Whether a business is a failure or a success is 99% based on the relationships and contracts it forms. Typically, unskilled managers a…

You can be an anarchist and still be for UBI!

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#235

Post by fjsolwmv »

corodra wrote: post #200
jacquesm wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd better research how many truckers would be able to afford it first.

Thank you. Got to love folks who think a "startup" can save the world when they have no clue how the real world works. They totally missed the fact that truckers earn peanuts. So add more cost on top of a meal they can't really afford to begin with? Maybe an iPhone app can help truckers? Totally save the poor with iPhone apps. That's an idea...lol.

Truckers can make extra money delivering meals to other truckers.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#236

Post by fjsolwmv »

MisterTea wrote: post #196
teyc wrote: post #172

There's an Indian start up addressing some of the issues with long haul driving by turning them into short haul ones. This way people work closer to home. I thought that was innovative.

Do you have a name or link? For some reason I can see this company operating like an uber with tractors waiting at way points to swap trailers. Problem is the swaps will be conducted at the drivers discretion which opens the flood gates to all sorts of abusive shenanigans and race to the bottom economics. I can picture all the complaints of drivers meeting in private parking lots causing damage and trespass. Or meeti…

I don't know India, but in many countries highways have truck stops every 100 miles or so.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#237

Post by wavefunction »

jacquesm wrote: post #197
cesarb wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but friends in Brazil said the repercussions to their day-to-day life have been large. Yes, they have. First, the fuel situation: trucks carrying fuel to gas stations were blocked by strikers, so they quickly ran out of fuel. Buses need diesel fuel to run, so people can't get to work. Cars also need fuel (gasoline or ethanol) to run, so even people who have cars can't get to work. Those with gas-powered cars (mostl…

> Those with gas-powered cars (mostly taxis) could still get fuel (it goes to the gas station through pipes That's interesting. So the gas stations have compressors?

I think they mean compressed natural-gas rather than petrol. Many fleet vehicles run off of CNG in the Americas and elsewhere.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#238

Post by pkaye »

corodra wrote: post #229
pkaye wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yea, talk is cheap. I love the one article from a few months back about there aren't enough women doing truck driving. Hmm... maybe they're not stupid. Think of that? What woman is dumb enough to "enjoy" all of that? Are you going to apply that theory to software development also?

Not sure that I follow. Can you explain?

Just like in the software field, there might be a multitude of reasons women might not go into that industry including sexism and not being encouraged by family/society. Some of the industries that women work in can be just as bad in their own ways.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#239

Post by fjsolwmv »

joshuamorton wrote: post #189
lopmotr wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food prices do go up and down, and on each up, more people on the fringes of survivability die from lack of food, perhaps indirectly through disease. How high do food prices have to go before it would be classified as a shortage? The distinction seems arbitrary.

>Food prices do go up and down, and on each up, more people on the fringes of survivability die from lack of food, perhaps indirectly through disease. This really isn't true. In practice it may be, but that's due to inefficient allocation, not due to a lack of resources. We have enough food to feed the entire human population. A shortage would be if we didn't.

OK. There are often shortages of food allocation. Still shortages.

Re: America has a truck driver shortage

#240

Post by fjsolwmv »

Karishma1234 wrote: post #125
maxxxxx wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example CEO salaries have been increasing rapidly for several decades. Are they so much better now than 40 or more years ago?

CEO salaries are not infinite; they are huge but not infinite. If Tim cook continues to ask for more and more and more eventually he will lose his job. But CEO salary has nothing to do with the `Talent`. Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella all replaced their predecessors pretty well and will be replaced by someone better in future too. The real reason for high CEO salaries is mostly about risk associated with repl…

How can you write one comment that says both "CEO is not talent, they are replaceable cogs" and "CEO is key to both preserving the current value and creating the future growth of the company"?
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