Improving driver training and providing better compensation are some of the many ways the transportation industry can retain drivers, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association told a room of freight stakeholders.
From state departments of transportation to engineers to academics, a wide range of stakeholders gathered in Kansas City, Missouri, for a conference organized by the Mid-America Freight Coalition to discuss innovations in the freight sector. Truck driver training, compensation and other industry topics were discussed with a panel on workforce development.
During the panel discussion, Lewie Pugh, Executive Vice President of OOIDA, addressed the many obstacles the transportation industry faces in recruiting and retaining drivers. Pugh emphasized to the audience that the industry is struggling with a driver retention problem, not a driver shortage.
“Driver retention is a huge problem,” Pugh said. “You hear about ‘driver shortages’ all the time. There is no shortage, there has never been a shortage of (truck drivers). The shortage is people staying in this industry. They come, they get taken advantage of, they get abused, they don’t get paid right, they don’t get treated right and they leave.”
Pugh highlighted some of the biggest issues that lead to driver retention problems and how they can be addressed.
Driver training
When it comes to workforce development in the transport industry, driver training is one of the most important issues.
After decades of lobbying by OOIDA and other transportation stakeholders, an entry-level driver training rule came into force in February 2022. However, Pugh said new drivers remain woefully underprepared for the job.
“We need more comprehensive driver training in this country,” Pugh said.
One provision that OOIDA had requested but was not included in the final driver education rule is the requirement for practical driving instruction. Instead, the rule simply requires that an instructor sign off on a skills list for each applicant.
Pugh told the audience how she drove past a CDL school near Springfield, Missouri, that advertises that students can get a CDL in 24 hours. Another school’s website explains that there is no requirement for the number of driving lessons and that only set topics are covered. The school claims to conduct driver’s education “in one day,” with meetings at 8 a.m. and a test at 2 p.m.
Instead of investing in drivers, Pugh said, companies and the government are investing in vehicles instead.
To increase safety on motorways, technologies such as speed limiters, automatic emergency braking systems and lane departure warning systems are being introduced. At the same time, drivers of these vehicles lack sufficient training.
Despite all the new technologies in the trucking industry, novice drivers still drive on the wrong roads, hit curbs, and have trouble reversing due to poor driver training.
“In the aviation industry, the pilot is taught how to fly first, then they’re given safety technology to make them a better and safer pilot,” Pugh said. “In the transportation industry, we just give you the safety technology and hope it works. We don’t teach these people how to drive a truck.”
After the Driver Training Regulation came into force, a flood of requests for exemptions came in. OOIDA rejected these requests on the grounds that they would undermine the Regulation.
Some lawmakers are trying to repeal the driver training requirements. Last year, Republican Rep. Bob Good of Virginia reintroduced the Trucking Workforce Improvement Act, which would repeal the new training requirements. Rep. Good first tried to repeal the regulations in 2022. The current bill, HR4738, has 14 Republican co-sponsors and is currently in subcommittee limbo.
Driver compensation
Even if driver training improves, new truck drivers will continue to leave the industry when they realize they are not being paid fairly.
When the wheels aren’t turning, a truck driver isn’t making any money. Pugh underscored this point by drawing attention to unpaid waiting time. According to a survey by the OOIDA Foundation, the average respondent spent more than 14 hours a week loading and unloading. Although most drivers receive some sort of waiting time pay, it typically doesn’t make up for the loss of earnings caused by standing still, including missed future loads.
“I’ve waited longer at steel mills in the Ohio Valley to load a load of steel than it took me to drive to St. Louis and deliver that load of steel, and you get nothing for it,” Pugh said.
There is also the issue of overtime pay. Truck drivers are exempt from the guaranteed overtime pay that other workers are entitled to for any hours worked beyond 40. Since most truck drivers drive a maximum of 70 hours in a seven-day period, paychecks do not reflect the hours worked.
“According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average truck driver makes $55,000 a year,” Pugh said. “Do the math. At 52 weeks a year and 70 hours a week, that’s $15.38 an hour for a semi-truck driver.”
Although a new U.S. Department of Labor rule grants millions of workers protection from overtime pay, truck drivers remain exempt. But a bill in Congress aims to change that. The GOT Truckers Act will repeal the provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act that exempts truck drivers from overtime pay.
Truck drivers also lose their fair share of a load to unscrupulous brokers. Currently, many owner/operators do not receive documentation detailing what shippers pay brokers for a load. A broker transparency regulation prompted by an OOIDA petition is expected in October.
Meanwhile, OOIDA has asked the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to look into broker fraud, but the agency claims its hands are tied due to a lack of data and legal authority.
“It’s become a real tragedy in the trucking industry because nobody knows who they’re talking to or who they’re talking to,” Pugh said. “We find out that these people are overseas and these guys are booking the loads and stealing them and all this other stuff. So the trucking industry is still a bit of the Wild West out there.”
Parking, toilets and technology
Pugh raised several other issues that contribute to an industry-wide average turnover rate of 94%.
Drivers continue to be frustrated by the lack of safe parking for trucks. Pugh said this shortage not only leads to lost production as drivers spend hours searching for a parking spot, but has also led to fatal accidents involving trucks parked on shoulders and on- and off-ramps. The Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act would provide $755 million exclusively for projects that expand truck parking capacity.
“Truck drivers don’t need electronic signs telling them how much parking there is or isn’t at a rest stop or a rest area,” Pugh said. “They know when they can park and where there is parking and where there isn’t. They need soil, they need asphalt, they need places to park trucks. Once we get that done, we can worry about putting signs there.”
Truck drivers face poor working conditions in other ways as well, forcing many of them to leave the industry. Pugh told the audience of freight stakeholders about the lack of access to basic necessities like toilets.
“I never thought I would be testifying in the halls of Congress, the greatest country in the world, calling for a law that would give truck drivers the right to use your restroom when they make a delivery,” he said.
The Trucker Bathroom Access Act requires shippers and receivers who provide restrooms to their employees and customers to also provide this access to truck drivers who deliver or receive their cargo. Since mid-August, the bipartisan bill has been supported by five Republicans and four Democrats.
Another issue Pugh discussed with stakeholders was the danger of moving too quickly to unproven technologies. Although touted as improving safety, many newer technologies such as speed limiters and automatic emergency braking can have the opposite effect. At the same time, there is little government oversight of autonomous vehicle technology. Truck drivers, who have safely driven millions of miles, are subject to more regulation than the autonomous vehicle industry, Pugh said.
“All we hear is, ‘We’re 93% ready for prime time.’ Well, at 7%, a lot of people can die when you’re dealing with an 80,000-pound vehicle,” he added.
Pugh also said that many laws, regulations and informational brochures are based on the assumption of a driver shortage, even though over 400,000 new CDL licenses are issued each year.
The website FightingForTruckers.com allows truck drivers to contact their legislators on industry issues such as truck parking, overtime pay, broker fraud and restroom access. LL
Land Line senior editor Mark Schremmer contributed to this report.
