Showing posts with label Trucking industry in the United States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trucking industry in the United States. Show all posts

Broken record trucking commentary: "looming driver shortage"

A container truck. Cab-over design.Image via WikipediaIts a familiar theme: A trucking or trucker shortage is looming. Then you hear, trucker rates will rise. I am not all that surprised, are you. Companies constantly recruit new people to replace older drivers. The Federal Government is squeezing the life out of the potential driver, and your jammed on overcrowded roads with a society that has not accepted that everything you get...was probably delivered by truck. On top of this, the government, our government in lieu of a mandate that THEY HAVE TO cut billions from the economy, want to subsidize drivers from another nation so that they can take more trucking jobs.


What message do you think your sending to future drivers?

The only thing that I think is odd it that it took as long as it did to get to this point....
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All things considered..still signs of improvement for transportation and trucking

Positive Outlook for Trucking Industry Tempered by Rising Operating Expenses, Says GE Capital Survey

The sleeper berth is the area toward the rear ...IRVING, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nearly three-quarters (71%) of trucking company executives surveyed by GE Capital, Transportation Finance expect business conditions to improve in 2011 but they are concerned about the impact of external and internal factors on their profit margins. The rising price of diesel, a nationwide shortage of drivers and the twin costs of complying with government regulations and maintaining their own aging fleets are all significant concerns.

For the original article click HERE


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Forecast: Capacity shortfall into 2013

From Overdrive online
February 10, 2011

A combination of the trucking industry trying to catch up with the economic recovery and adapting to government regulations that are still being developed will extend a capacity shortage through 2013, a trucking economist said at an online seminar Feb. 10.LONG BEACH, CA - SEPTEMBER 08:  A truck is dri...Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The shortfall will peak above 250,000 units in 2012 but continue at about 150,000 units in 2013, predicted Noel Perry, a senior consultant with FTR Associates and principal of Transportation Fundamentals. He said the industry is pursuing productivity increases through greater utilization of existing equipment, and miles per tractor were up more than 10 percent in 2010. Without that productivity improvement, “this crisis could be twice as bad, peaking at around 400,000 units,” he said.

Perry added that capacity utilization has recovered to above 90 percent, but rate increases haven’t kept pace. He said carriers are more productive and profitable, without increasing rates much. “From now on if a [carrier] wants to handle more freight, he is going to have to hire drivers and buy equipment,” he said.
To read the full article click HERE


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The mother of all driver shortages

This was pulled from Heavy Duty Trucking Magazine Online



By 2012, the industry will be looking at shortage of 400,000 drivers, according to Eric Starks, president of FTR Associates.

The issues the industry has been facing for years have not gone away, including an aging driver population and a minimum driving age that precludes recruiting recent high-school graduates.

Add to that a shrunken recruiting pipeline. During the recession, fleets slashed recruiting, human resources and training departments. Driving schools closed down. As a result, Starks says the industry can hire only about 100,000 drivers into the market each quarter. It's like a funnel. Even if you have a million people that want to be truckers, only a certain number can fit through that hiring/processing funnel at a time.

Then there's the regulatory issue. CSA 2010 will result in drivers who appear to be unsafe getting pushed out of the system as carriers refuse to hire them. Likely changes to hours of service regulations could affect productivity by 6 percent, FTR estimates ­- meaning an extra 150,000 trucks, and drivers, needed to move the same amount of freight.

VOLVO TRUCKImage via WikipediaCrackdowns in documentation required to get a commercial driver's license, designed to address the hot-button issue of illegal immigrants, also will pull a significant number of drivers out of the available labor pool. Some believe this could have an even more chilling effect than hours of service changes.

Further complicating the driver situation are attacks by the federal government and state agencies on the use of independent contractors. Although these efforts aim to crack down on the improper "misclassification" of employees as contractors to avoid taxes, many legitimate owner-operators could be affected. The Obama administration has upped its efforts to ferret out such "misclassification." And one bill has been introduced in Washington, D.C., that would remove the Section 530 "safe harbor" provision much of the trucking industry relies on to justify its use of independent contractors.

http://www.truckinginfo.com/washington-report/news-detail.asp?news_id=72554&news_category_id=84
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How to save thousands of trucking jobs in America!

Over 100,000 trucking jobs up in smoke!
 Freightliner truck at Olympic Bouleward, Los A...Image via Wikipedia
Maybe yours!
The new CSA regulations pose a risk to every American Trucker. Under CSA, your records are made public and can cost you your livelihood . To understand how CSA could HURT YOU  and stop it please do 2 things...
1-Look at this article and its summary listed below
2- Contact Congressmen on the Federal Transportation committee (the contact links by state are listed below)

Article Summary
A-Under CSA a qualified trucker received a rating number from the government based on old information that was not illegal when it was recorded under Safestat.
B-A client of the transporter stopped doing business with them because they determined that the truckers rating number meant the trucker was a risk even though the trucker had  broken no laws since CSA went into effect.
 Imagine this happening to YOUR trucking company. Imagine being barred from doing business because of a random number. This has to be changed. We cannot lose more jobs.
This is going to require we contact people in positions of influence to let them know they can prevent job loss.

Please copy and paste the letter below and email these Congressman on the Federal Transportation Committee whose names are listed below, especially if they are from your home state or home district.
 
If we don’t fight this it could cost us our Jobs
Congressman,
I have a job in the trucking industry. Under CSA regulations over hundreds of thousands of jobs could disappear because of the rating system. Please keep the initial findings closed to the public so insurers and other freight companies don’t blacklist firms due to an arbitrary number. This is not democratic and does not give due process. Additionally, we can’t lose more jobs…or an entire industry. Please contact the Department of Transportation and get this stopped.
We are referencing this case…
http://www.transportationlaw.net/articles/2010.07article.html
Please do your part to protect our jobs!


Contacts

Here are the contact page links for the Congressman on the committee
if possible, please focus on Congressman in states you are from
Florida
John Mica
Mario Diaz
Connie Mack
Vern Buchanon
Corrinne Brown
Minnesota
 a Freightliner truck pulling an Intermodal con...Image via Wikipedia
James Oberstar
Tim Walz
West Virginia
Nick J. Rahall, West Virginia
Shelley Moore Capito, West Virginia
Oregon
Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
Wisconsin
Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
Michigan
Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan
Candice S. Miller, Michigan
Mark H. Schauer, Michigan
Illinois
Jerry F. Costello, Illinois
Daniel Lipinski, Illinois
Gary G. Miller, California
Pennsylvania
Tim Holden, Pennsylvania
Jason Altmire, Pennsylvania
Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania
Jim Gerlach, Pennsylvania
Christopher P. Carney, Pennsylvania
Ohio
Jean Schmidt, Ohio
North Carolina
Howard Coble, North Carolina
Heath Shuler, North Carolina
South Carolina
Henry E. Brown, South Carolina
Tennessee
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee
http://duncan.house.gov/services/contact-information.shtml
Kentucky
Brett Guthrie, Kentucky
Arkansas
John Boozman, Arkansas
http://www.boozman.house.gov/Contact/
Georgia
Lynn A. Westmoreland, Georgia
http://westmoreland.house.gov/Contact/
Tom Graves, Georgia
Mississippi
Gene Taylor, Mississippi
Louisiana
Anh "Joseph" Cao, Louisiana
Missouri
Sam Graves, Missouri
Russ Carnahan, Missouri
Texas
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Truckers take on human trafficking

By John Burger
From the Dallas Examiner
10/26/10

The Department of Justice estimates over 14,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year. It is also reported that 25% of all human trafficking victims within the United States enter through Texas.

One of the first lines of defense against human trafficking is the trucking industry. Traffickers use the same interstates as truckers and travelers to transport their human cargo.

The non-profit group, Truckers Against Trafficking, aims to train independent truck drivers and trucking companies on recognizing the signs of human trafficking and reporting it.
A human trafficking awareness poster from the ...Image via WikipediaFreightliner truck at Olympic Bouleward, Los A...Image via Wikipedia    to read the rest of the article click here


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