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- There are 1.8 million long-haul truck drivers on the road in 2019. Their median income is $43,680.
- They play a crucial role in the American economy. Some 71% of freight by weight is moved by a truck. If they all stopped working, grocery stores would run out of food in three days.
- But some of the people who count themselves among the legions of truckers in America say they feel misunderstood.
- Dozens of truckers have shared with Business Insider what it’s really like to be a truck driver.
- "To be able to be a truck driver used to be quite a good blue-collar, middle-class job, but over the past 40 years, it has kind of dwindled away," Gordon Klemp, principal of the National Transportation Institute, previously told Business Insider.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Their jobs are highly dependent on how the rest of the economy is doing
Bob Chamberlin/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Most companies can roughly control how their businesses perform with better advertising, products, and the like.
But, beyond providing better levels of service, truckers are dependent on whether or not people just need stuff.
That became clear in 2019. A year before, the trucking industry was riding high, with rates and pay sky-rocketing, but that’s crashed down as manufacturing and retail indicators slow.
Transport research groups reported that the volume of trucks purchased in July fell to its lowest level in nearly 10 years. Loads in the spot market tumbled by 37% this July from July 2018. And the Cass Freight Index says year-over-year trucking volumes have slipped for eight consecutive months.
Because of that, some truck drivers say the industry is presently in a "bloodbath." Around 2,500 have lost their jobs as companies large and small declare bankruptcy, and other major companies scale back their levels of service.
A trucker’s lifestyle is inherently unhealthy
Andy Kiersz/Business Insider, CDC, NIOSH, and Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
Long-haul truck drivers face "a constellation of chronic disease risk factors," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wrote in 2014.
Truck stops, the only places drivers can efficiently park and eat while on the road, are more likely to stock cheeseburgers and Salisbury steaks than salads or fresh fruit. A few but increasing number of truck stops offer gyms. One is seated for up to 11 hours a day, and there’s clearly no standing desk options for truck drivers.
Nearly seven-in-10 truck drivers were obese and 17% were morbidly obese, which is defined as 100 pounds over your ideal weight, according to CDC research. Among all working American adults, one-third are obese and 7% are morbidly obese.
"We need decent restaurants or food that is something beside stinking McDonald’s or Subway and things like that," 51-year-old Steve Manley, who has been driving for more than 20 years, previously told Business Insider. "Trucking will leave you with a messed up back and many other problems if you are not very careful."
They have to wait for hours, unpaid, for their trucks to be unloaded or reloaded
David Zalubowski/AP
Truckers lose $1.3 billion annually waiting at warehouses for loads.
"At some of these companies, it’s like being an indentured servant," truck driver Bill Hieatt, who has been a trucker for 20 years, previously told Business Insider.
Truckers such as Hieatt are expected to spend hours at warehouses waiting for their shipments to load or unload. Warehouses often do not have their shipments ready for truckers, even when they’re on time, and that results in truck drivers being "detained."
Those shippers, which might include small businesses and major retailers, should load or unload in a two-hour window in accordance with industry standards. After that, shippers are expected pay an hourly rate for every hour that a truck driver is detained at a warehouse.
Except they usually don’t. According to a survey, administered by the freight marketplace DAT Solutions, of drivers from 257 trucking companies, only 3% said they receive detention pay for at least 90% of their claims to the shippers.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
See Also:
- The end is near for the Airbus A380 superjumbo jet. Here’s how it went from airline status symbol to reject in just 10 years
- Take a tour of the private jet that a billionaire chief executive flies around the world
- A freight windfall hints that the trucking ‘bloodbath’ may let up
SEE ALSO: Grocery stores would run out of food in just 3 days if long-haul truckers stopped working
Source: Business Insider – rpremack@businessinsider.com (Rachel Premack)