When stating what drivers' complaints are you have to also state someof the reasons WHY carriers cannot comply or find it difficult to comply with drivers' demands to be fair.
The median OTR comp. driver solo gross income today is $48,500 for drivers with at least 5 yrs recent long haul experience with a clean record. The #1 complaint I get from almost all Company drivers is money w/ hometime coming in at #2. Now add to that it will soon also be about the benefits. Right now most companies of any real size offer better benefit packages than a lot of other blue collar industries. And the drivers are right, in part as the list of reasons why people are not going into the professional driver pool or not staying or jumping company to company is long. A sure fire way to get drivers stirred up is to talk about the driver shortage. Drivers don't believe there is one but in fact right now according to many researchers who have published their findings claim, there are about 200k long haul jobs available with hardly anyone interested in applying.
There are numerous reasons for this but to name a couple, young people can make more $$ n the computer and internet industry, in the medical field and in communications and in most of those positions you are home everyday. Baby boomers are retiring or dying off. A lot of young people who do want to be a driver find out that that one time they caught with weed or cocaine even tho it was 10 or 15 yrs ago, will keep them out of a driving career. Many have a bad driving record or DUI in their past. So the number of new drivers coming in who do not qualify for most carriers is through the roof.
Seven Reasons why driver retention is so high:
1) Driver pay
2) Hometime
3) Rising cost of health benefit packages
4) Rising cost of living on the road
5) Dispatcher aka Fleet Mgr or Driver Mgr
6) Unsympatethic TM
7) Over regulation
Seven Reasons why many carriers don't pay drivers & mechanics more than they do
1) Rising cost of fuel
2) Rising cost of hiring drivers
3) Rising cost of equipment
4) Rising cost of providing health benefits in part or 100%
5) Rising cost of medical insurance
6) Mismanagement of company funds
7) Over regulation
Driver hiring and driver retention challenges will not be solved overnight and for many, due to things beyond anyone's control, there may never be a solution that pleases both the drivers and carriers. And something we all have to remember...the CUSTOMER always come first!
by Marge Bailey
The DriverFinder Network
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