I had to go through the school for my job, but during that time I had to learn all the rules/regulations that drivers have to go through and then sit through the recruiter speeches that were “desperate” to hire new drivers. Here are some of the things contributing to the imo crazy worker demands.
There is no such thing as work/life balance or separation. Many on the road truckers have absolutely no family life and it’s really sad to hear and read their stories. Almost all the recruiters for on the road jobs pretty much said that it was a better fit for single people because a lot of drivers never knew where they would be next week and at most got to spend 2 night a week with their families and that’s best case scenario.
The rules and regulations were incredibly invasive. The drinking limit for CDL drivers is .04 instead of .08, and this is in their personal life, not while driving a truck. They get drug tested very regularly and if they test positive for weed that they smoked 2 weeks ago on vacation they will lose their license. If they get a ticket or in a fender bender in their own car they have to report it and it could impact their job. The schooling to get a license is about $7k and that’s not including the additional endorsements. If they want to be an owner operator and own their own truck/business the insurance alone can be anywhere from $20,000-40,000 a year. If they don’t have proper documentation, have spare fuses, miss a weighing station, or have any kind of accident (even if they weren’t the cause of it) they could lose everything.
I had one recruiter say that their average driver made $27-29 per hour. That’s only 60k per year at best. I know there are some companies that pay more but even drivers are getting fucked over while these companies made insane amounts of money.
Drivers are literally the veins of our economy. They deserve more money and respect on the road. I now understand why so many young people don’t want to enter this field.