How did truck driving fare in this study of career longevity?

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investopedia.comFew of us enter the workforce expecting to work forever – but it turns out some professions are more conducive to the long term than others. The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College released a study on the topic this spring. Overall, the study found that some skills last until retirement age, and some don’t.

Investopedia.com wrote about the center’s findings, saying skills for some careers fade as we age.

The Center for Retirement Research studied white collar and blue collar jobs alike, and the human skill set diminished in both sectors. However, when it comes to careers with the best longevity, writing and math fared well, truck driving did not.

The researchers developed a “Susceptibility Index.” This “measures how likely the physical and cognitive abilities required by an occupation are to decline during the working years. On the high end of the list included airline pilots, jewelers, maids, and housekeepers. In addition, truck drivers, oral surgeons, kindergarten teachers, photographers, and licensed practical nurses made the list.

Some of these careers cut short due to physical limitations.

Those may include the loss of fine motor skills rather than an overall decease in mobility; jewelers and oral surgeons need steady hands and precise movements. Still others – such as truck drivers and airline pilots – may need a combination of long attention spans and the ability to sit still for many hours at a stretch.

Alternately, the study found, “crystallized” cognitive skills such as vocabulary tend to last well into a person’s 60s and 70s, meaning that oral and written comprehension and math skills can last throughout a career.

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Those with CDL driver jobs are aging, and it’s a problem

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ccjdigital.comYou’ve heard it before: The average company driver is male, white and in his mid-fifties. He makes close to $50,000 a year. For the most part, he also enjoys being a truck driver, though one-fourth of drivers will leave their employers at some point this year.

These are just a few indicators revealed by a Truckers News survey. The survey was highlighted in Trucker’s News sister publication, CCJ, this week.

The survey results are hardly shocking, but they do stress how prevalent the problem of aging drivers has become.

“Only 4.5% of company driver respondents to the Truckers News survey were less than 35 years old,” CCJ Editor Jeff Crissey wrote in his article.

The survey of Truckers News subscribers received 407 responses, 71.3% of whom identified themselves as company drivers.

“The survey results underscore the aging driver workforce dilemma,”Crissey writes. “It is a problem today, but it soon will be the biggest crisis in the trucking industry as the demand for drivers continues to increase and their average age rises with every flip of the calendar.”

By some estimates, the trucking industry will need to hire an additional 240,000 drivers over the current headcount by 2022 as a slew of pending regulations, including the electronic logging device mandate and drug and alcohol clearinghouse database, further constrain the labor market.

The burning question continues to be this, Crissey writes: How will fleets attract and retain new, younger drivers?

Many fleets have shifted to a more regional freight strategy to allow drivers to get home more often, an important consideration for those with young families. Others put an emphasis on outfitting their fleets with late-model rigs boasting the latest technology, providing drivers with the comforts of home while on the road.

Some fleets have targeted military veterans with varying degrees of success. But it takes more than a website touting “We Hire Veterans” to have a meaningful impact in your recruiting efforts.

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You’re a truck driver? Be proud of it.

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Be proud of your CDL trucking job!Live Trucking writer Carla Grace recently published an article that had an inspiring message for a CDL truck driver.

Grace writes:

Not many can endure the life of a trucker, but truck drivers do it together, as a community. They do it because they are the force that drives this great nation.

Grace cites a video by Texomatic Pictures and filmmaker Tex Crowley. She quotes the video saying:

Truckers are the suppliers of human necessity, be it the food we eat, materials to build our homes, or the clothing we wear.

At Drive My Way, we know how important CDL truck drivers are. Check out this video highlighting the American truck driver and share it with your friends.

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Should more rest stops be in place for people with CDL trucking jobs?

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CDL truck driving accident leads to more thoughts on rest stops.Have you ever seen 50,000 pounds of potatoes? Those caught in the aftermath traffic got to catch a glimpse of a wrecked semi truck and the scatter of potatoes.

Published by Carla Grace from Live Trucking, Grace reported that On May 7 around 2 a.m., CDL truck driver Glan Hamblin was on a delivery from Michigan to Charlotte, North Carolina for Frito-Lay. Grace wrote,

As Hamblin was driving down Interstate 77 in North Carolina, he became very sleepy and could hardly stay awake. He began to search for a safe and legal place to stop and rest.

No rest stop was in sight. He was unable to stay awake and crashed near Exit 9. Hamblin only suffered minor injuries.

A week later Grace published another article about the accident reporting new information. Hamblin blames part of his crash on the lack of rest stops in the area. Hamblin mostly drives in the western states. Being new to the area he continued his night drive looking for a rest stop but had no luck.

Although the driver admits fault, he also points blame on the shortage of rest stops for truckers. Hamblin mentioned that because of the rest stop shortage, the few that exist are usually full.

Last year, a complaint was given to Governor Pat McCrory regarding truckers who park for naps along exit ramps. I-77 has a documented shortage of rest spots, and troopers have written most of their tickets in this area.

Hamblin brings up a good point for the state of North Carolina: Should there be more rest stops for people with CDL trucking jobs? According to Grace, hundreds of drivers have been ticketed in the last year for illegal parking. What is the next step for North Carolina and other states with minimal rest stops?

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Industry-Backed Truck Parking App Will Help Drivers Find Parking

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Truck Parking App Will Help Drivers

Movers and shakers in the trucking industry have banded together to help truck drivers find available parking spots on their routes. Those with CDL driver jobs know how hard it is to find truck parking, and now help is coming through a free mobile app due out in August.

Behind the app are some of the trucking industry’s biggest entities: the American Trucking Associations, the National Association of Truck Stop Operators, the American Transportation Research Institute and the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance. The quartet announced the new app, called Park My Truck, on May 18.

Transport Topics wrote about the announcement.

Lisa Mullings, president of the NATSO Foundation, pays to develop the app. Overall, she said the app enables drivers to find available truck parking at commercial truck stops and state-provided rest areas in the 48 continental states.

“Professional drivers remain essential to our economy and our way of life in America,” Mullings said. “Therefore, their safety and security remain a major priority.”

In addition, ATRI Vice President Dan Murray noted truck parking ranked as the No. 2 issue on the organization’s list of industry issues.

One representative involved with the creation of the app, Rep. Paul Tomko, represented Jason Rivenburg.

Jason, a truck driver, died in 2009 at an abandoned South Carolina gas station inspired “Jason’s Law.”

That tragedy inspired Tomko to become involved in the issue of safe truck parking. “Access to safe and accessible rest stops can be a life-or-death issue as I unfortunately learned during my first term in office,” Tomko said. “Truckers deserve safety, nothing less.”

In addition, ATA President Bill Graves noted that many more trucks are expected to be on the road as the economy expands in the future. So, the need for this new app only increases as time passes.

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Lawyer: New food hauling regs for truck drivers will require clean equipment

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overdriveonline.comWith new regulations for food haulers handed down in April by the FDA, shippers will now be charged with setting cleanliness guidelines for truck drivers and their equipment, Overdrive writes. One attorney says shippers may turn trucks away without loads if they fail to meet previously agreed to requirements.

Rob Moseley of transportation firm Smith Moore Leatherwood offered insight into the new regulations in a May 11 webinar held for shippers, brokers and carriers.

The Food & Drug Administration rules remain broad, and only about 10% of the rule applies to food transportation. Even then, most of the transportation-focused portions of the rule, meant for shippers. So, just a small part of the rule applies to carriers directly.

The new rules goes into effect April 6, 2017.

They require shippers to develop standards for certain food shipments, such as temperature-controlled foods and produce.

“Shippers control the process without any question about it,” Moseley said. “They control how to transport their goods. And the consignee or receiver tasked with making sure those protocols set by the shipper have been met.”

Shippers must set sanitation requirements for carriers’ equipment.

In addition, they also set pre-cooling requirements for reefer loads and periodic training for carrier personnel, drivers included, who may interact with food products.

Likely the key takeaway from the new regulations for food hauling carriers is to have clean, well kept equipment, Moseley said. “This may mean that trailers need work,” he said. “If they leak with rain from the roof, or if road water comes into the trailer from the floor, you need to make changes,” he said. Small holes, debris, vermon droppings or trailers that smell bad give shippers pause under the new rules, Moseley said.

Another component of the rule likely to apply to carriers are its pre-cooling requirements.

Such requirements impact by load times. When shippers dictate certain pre-cooling temperatures prior to food being loaded onto a trailer, those requirements must be met, Moseley said. Long waiting times at a dock compromises pre-cooling. Then, shippers start checking for proper pre-cooling temperatures due to the new FDA regulations.

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For Pets in Need, One Truck Driver Rides to the Rescue

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Man Uses CDL Trucking Job to Rescue Animals

David Binz with Spartacus

David Binz is a longtime owner operator leased to Alaska West Express. His CDL trucking job requires that he move mining, construction and oil field equipment, day-in, day-out.

But, as a volunteer for Kindred Hearts Transport Connection, Binz also moves more precious cargo—pets in need. For Binz, who’s ridden shotgun with his own dog, Izzy, for 10 years, rescuing animals is a privilege. Binz likes Kindred Hearts for its compassion. Overall, it works to place orphaned animals with caring owners nationwide.

To date, Binz has placed 111 pets in need in the hands of caring owners along his trucking routes.

And while he typically moves cats and dogs, he’s also transported birds, gerbils—even a potbelly pig.

“I’ve been known to transport four or five animals at a time,” says Binz. “I draw the line at snakes. I will not move snakes.”

Kindred Hearts has nearly 30,000 volunteers around the country, though few of them are people with CDL trucking jobs.

The group posts upcoming runs on its Facebook page, and if one of them fits with Binz’s route, he lets the administrators know.

Also, Binz recalls the time he moved a military macaw bird. “That one was kind of unusual for me,” Binz says. “It would tell me I was on the telephone too long and that I needed to hang up.”

Man Uses CDL Trucking Job to Rescue Animals

Binz and a pit bull rescue

Meaningful Mission

Transporting the animals “means a lot to me,” Binz says. “It allows me to give back to society. If you have a 9-to-5 job, you have a lot of ways to give back, but those options are not out there for truck drivers. This is one thing I can do as a truck driver to make a difference.” These days, Binz rides with Izzy and Spartacus, a rescue dog he hasn’t yet found a home for.

Kindred Hearts is a natural fit for Binz, a lifelong animal lover who grew up on a horse farm. His son trains wild mustangs in the summer, and when Binz gets home time, he helps his son find loving owners for the horses. To transport animals as he does, “you’ve gotta love an animal,” Binz says. “No matter what the animal does, you have to be able to love it. If a dog craps in the middle of your bed, you have to clean the mess up and love the dog.”

PetSmart Partnership

When he’s on the road, Binz relies on PetSmarts all over the country for help. He buys pet food there and uses their training rooms to give dogs off-leash exercise.

Man uses his CDL trucking job to rescue animals

Izzy, right, befriends a dog Binz was transporting.

“I love PetSmart,” Binz says. “They always cut me a break on the bill for bathing the dogs. In the winter, when the weather’s really nasty, they let me bring my dogs in and they can run around and play.”

Binz admits he gets attached to the animals he rescues. “You end up crying a little bit sometimes,” he says. “Sitting there for an hour and reflecting. You have to say, ‘OK, I helped that one. Now it’s time to go help another.’”

 

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Trucking Is in Georgia’s Fast Lane with $2 Billion Project

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livetrucking.com

Truck drivers tired of facing road congestion get some good news. Georgia plans to ease traffic congestion on one of the state’s busiest highways. Their solution? Give people with CDL trucking jobs their own designated trucking lanes.

According to Trucks.com, the State of Georgia plans to build two lanes exclusively for truck use. This exists along a popular freight corridor outside Atlanta. Overall, the lanes encompass a 38-mile stretch on I-75. It serves as the largest truck-only project in America, estimated to cost $2 billion.

When the roadway finishes– expected in 2030 – the state may consider adding additional truck-only lanes in the opposite direction.

Overall, the project is ambitious, said Robert Poole, a transportation expert and co-founder of The Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank. Truck-only lanes are usually reserved for short distances. For example, this applies to moving heavy vehicles out of the way of faster car traffic climbing hills.

No state attempted what Georgia is doing without utilizing tolling or public-private highway building partnerships as a way to pay for the truck-only lanes, he said.

CDL permit holders who travel the state often likely rejoice at the news. In addition, the American Trucking Associations welcomed it, too.

“The Port of Savannah expects to grow pretty substantially and generates a lot of traffic along the I-75 corridor. So, yes, it might make sense to add truck-only lanes there,” said Darrin Roth, vice president of highway policy for the American Trucking Associations.

Traffic congestion clogs the delivery of goods nationwide.

The American Transport Research Institute estimates that traffic delays cost the trucking industry about $50 billion annually.

However, people not in the trucking business appear slower to warm to news of truck-only lanes. Overall, they question if money could allocate to other projects. But, for CDL permit holders, truck-only lanes make traveling Georgia’s freeways a lot more enjoyable.

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Immigrants Filling CDL Trucking Jobs in Face of Driver Shortage

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Immigrants Filling CDL Trucking Jobs

As far as occupations go, few seem as American as CDL trucking jobs. Reflecting America’s melting pot status all the more, as the industry strives to think of creative ways to solve the driver shortage. They see success with immigrants filling CDL trucking jobs.

Fifty miles west of Los Angeles stands the busiest long-haul truck stop in America. Saul Gonzalez of the Global Post wrote a story on immigrant drivers like Harsharan Singh of Punjab, India, and others. Many of them hadn’t had trucking jobs in their homelands. However, thanks to opportunity here in America, they’re truck drivers now.

“I got my license back in 2009, when I came from India,” Singh tells Gonzalez in the story. “Now, a lot of people from Romania, Yugoslavia, China, Japanese, Russians are coming into this business.”

Part of the reason behind the shift is that the trucking industry is facing a labor shortage of up to 48,000 drivers, according to the American Trucking Associations.

That could balloon to more than 170,000 drivers in the next 10 years.

Nearly 30% of foreign-born drivers are now from Asia, the Middle East, the former Soviet republics and Europe. Most of the rest are from Latin America, according to the Census Bureau’s 2012 American Community Survey. That survey also found that the proportion of immigrant drivers varies from state to state, with California at 46 percent, the highest concentration of foreign-born drivers, followed by New Jersey at 40 percent.

Gonzalez talks with other immigrants about their experiences.

The next CDL truck driver he quotes is Steven Abramovich from the Ukraine.

“When I first got to this country, I never thought I would do this kind of a job. It was sort of a dream to do it,” says Ukraine-born Steven Abramovich over an outdoor meal of cold cuts, hard-boiled eggs and some wine with fellow Ukrainian and Russian drivers in a corner of a vast truck stop in Ontario, California.

Abramovich adds that a “trucker is a trucker” but feels foreign-born drivers, because of language and culture, create tighter communities than American drivers.

“We are raised differently,” he says. “I don’t want to be disrespectful to the American community, but the Russian community, the Ukrainian community, the Turkish community, the Europeans … we are sitting together, we are having a nice meal.”

But Ismael Abassov, who grew up in Russia and Turkey, is quick to add that when he started driving an 18-wheeler three years ago, American drivers always offered a helping hand when he needed it. “When I started, I didn’t know this job, I had never done it, but I was asking and they helped me a lot.”

But despite the hardships, for many new immigrant drivers, they’ll take the trucking life — one route to the American dream.

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Report Says Automated Trucks Will Cut CDL Driver Jobs in Long Run

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motortrend.comThis past April, a platoon of automated trucks successfully completed a transcontinental trip across Europe for the first time. The trip raised the important question: What does a successful run for automated trucks mean for CDL trucking jobs?

It is important to note that automated trucking as an everyday reality will be a long ways off in the future.

That said, an article in Motor Trend magazine says the transcontinental trip by six platoons of automated trucks doesn’t bode well for CDL driver jobs long term. Motor Trend wrote:

The experiment included in the European Truck Platooning Challenge, a program devised to advance autonomous trucking in Europe. The accomplishment shows the viability of automated trucks, and a new report from TechCrunch sheds light on how the technology will dramatically change the trucking industry.

Currently, it costs around $4,500 to ship a full truckload from L.A. to New York. Labor makes up 75 percent of that cost, according to TechCrunch, meaning a lot of that money would be saved if we moved to driverless trucks. In addition to saving labor costs, autonomous trucks would also significantly boost efficiency. Drivers are required by law to take an 8-hour break after driving 11 hours, but an autonomous truck could drive nearly 24 hours straight.

Also, a computer regulates speed, perhaps boosting fuel efficiency.

The article says that savings trickle down to consumers, reducing the cost of shipped goods overall.

Yet with millions of people holding CDL trucking jobs in America, truckers hold the most common job in 29 states. It added another harrowing employment statistic as well.

If self-driving trucks replace those jobs, it means 1% of the U.S. workforce face unemployment. But, the ripple effects could devastate the American highway as we know it. Truck stops, motels, gas stations, and other businesses struggle to stay open without a steady flow of truckers.

Regulation remains the biggest hurdle for autonomous trucks, adding to the negative impact automated trucking would have on the U.S. economy might not be worth the savings.

A price-performance increase of 400% is hard to ignore. But, can we afford to displace more than a million jobs?

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