airplanemechanic
Diamond Member
- Nov 8, 2014
- 18,526
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The problem with truck driver pay, and most people out of the industry don't realize this, is that per hour we are paid very little. After all, we are asked/required to work 70 hours a week without any overtime.
Truckers are asked to:
1. Sit at shippers and receivers unpaid, sometimes for hours on end, waiting to be loaded or unloaded.
2. Be gone from home for weeks at a time.
3. Eat crappy food that is at truck stops as parking at most Wal Marts and other grocery stores with decent food will get your truck towed.
4. Work 70 hours every week without any overtime pay.
5. Sit unpaid in traffic jams and construction zones as we are paid by the mile so if the tires aren't burnin' you ain't earnin'.
6. Fight every night for what few parking spots are left. It's like a really sucky game of musical chairs but not with one trucker left without a spot to park, but tens of thousands.
7. Not have any access to any meaningful exercise facilities other than what I do, jog at truck stops when I stop. Then people wonder why truckers are so fat.
8. Tolerate dangerous and aggressive 4 wheeler drivers 10-11 hours every day and NEVER are we allowed to lose our composure or return the aggressive driving with some aggressive driving of our own.
9. Adhere to some of the strictest gov't regulations regardings hours of service (HOS), logbooks, roadside inspections, weight limitations, drug and alcohol use, etc that are around today. You are not paid if DOT pulls you over and wants to give you a nice level 1 inspection on the side of the road or in a chicken coup. That could take HOURS. You sit there, ON DUTY. Not driving. Not making money, but it IS eating into your 70 hours on duty allowance per week.
10, Tolerate cameras looking BOTH into the cab and outside of the cab both while we drive and while we are parked. To say it's an invasion of privacy is an understatement.
Intermodal drivers (the ones who haul the containers) have it slightly differently as most of these guys are local and thus are home every night.
A couple of these problems I've kinda got figured out by bringing most of the food I eat on the road in the truck with me, but that requires that I have 2 fridge/freezers in here which takes up most of my room. I would not be able to run teams in this truck as my team driver would have to sleep with his feet inside my fridge. I also jog every evening when I get parked, so I'm still 5'8 and 163lbs 4.5 years into driving a big rig full time.
And for those who say that, "Is it too much to ask that the driver of a big rig not drink himself drunk the night before he drives his truck?" No, that's certainly not too much to ask but that's also not even CLOSE to reality. We, as commercial drivers, ARE NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO HAVE ALCOHOL IN THE TRUCK. Even in a closed container. Sealed. Even while parked, off duty on our 34 hour reset. Doesn't matter. That's why you don't see CDL drivers buying a beer at a truck stop and taking it to the truck. If another driver catches and reports them their CDL is TOAST. So no, asking truck drivers not to get shit faced drunk is not unreasonable, but you go home and have a beer every night to relax and sleep in your bed. We don't get to sleep in our own beds OR have a beer to relax.
Think about all that for a minute and tell me why we have a shortage of truck drivers.
Truckers are asked to:
1. Sit at shippers and receivers unpaid, sometimes for hours on end, waiting to be loaded or unloaded.
2. Be gone from home for weeks at a time.
3. Eat crappy food that is at truck stops as parking at most Wal Marts and other grocery stores with decent food will get your truck towed.
4. Work 70 hours every week without any overtime pay.
5. Sit unpaid in traffic jams and construction zones as we are paid by the mile so if the tires aren't burnin' you ain't earnin'.
6. Fight every night for what few parking spots are left. It's like a really sucky game of musical chairs but not with one trucker left without a spot to park, but tens of thousands.
7. Not have any access to any meaningful exercise facilities other than what I do, jog at truck stops when I stop. Then people wonder why truckers are so fat.
8. Tolerate dangerous and aggressive 4 wheeler drivers 10-11 hours every day and NEVER are we allowed to lose our composure or return the aggressive driving with some aggressive driving of our own.
9. Adhere to some of the strictest gov't regulations regardings hours of service (HOS), logbooks, roadside inspections, weight limitations, drug and alcohol use, etc that are around today. You are not paid if DOT pulls you over and wants to give you a nice level 1 inspection on the side of the road or in a chicken coup. That could take HOURS. You sit there, ON DUTY. Not driving. Not making money, but it IS eating into your 70 hours on duty allowance per week.
10, Tolerate cameras looking BOTH into the cab and outside of the cab both while we drive and while we are parked. To say it's an invasion of privacy is an understatement.
Intermodal drivers (the ones who haul the containers) have it slightly differently as most of these guys are local and thus are home every night.
A couple of these problems I've kinda got figured out by bringing most of the food I eat on the road in the truck with me, but that requires that I have 2 fridge/freezers in here which takes up most of my room. I would not be able to run teams in this truck as my team driver would have to sleep with his feet inside my fridge. I also jog every evening when I get parked, so I'm still 5'8 and 163lbs 4.5 years into driving a big rig full time.
And for those who say that, "Is it too much to ask that the driver of a big rig not drink himself drunk the night before he drives his truck?" No, that's certainly not too much to ask but that's also not even CLOSE to reality. We, as commercial drivers, ARE NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO HAVE ALCOHOL IN THE TRUCK. Even in a closed container. Sealed. Even while parked, off duty on our 34 hour reset. Doesn't matter. That's why you don't see CDL drivers buying a beer at a truck stop and taking it to the truck. If another driver catches and reports them their CDL is TOAST. So no, asking truck drivers not to get shit faced drunk is not unreasonable, but you go home and have a beer every night to relax and sleep in your bed. We don't get to sleep in our own beds OR have a beer to relax.
Think about all that for a minute and tell me why we have a shortage of truck drivers.
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Talk about having no real point..
