Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/305892
24 | Overdrive | May 2014 W hat would the trucking industry look like without 70 percent of the independent and small-fleet owner-operators in business moving freight on the roads today? What kind of recruiting and training efforts might be required among more sizable fleets if 52 percent of their com- pany drivers and leased owner-operators suddenly exit the business? Such questions aren't strictly rhetorical. An Overdrive survey of readers shows such percentages of respondents saying they would either retire or look for another line of work before they'd ever run with an electronic logging device. Under the proposed rule by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, ELDs could be mandated for virtually all interstate haulers by late 2016. Many of the largest fleets have adopted ELDs or are phasing them in, and medium-sized fleets are following suit. The smallest fleets, whether unable to afford electronic logging systems or objecting to the devices on privacy grounds, often without per- sonnel devoted to safety technology, are proving to be the last holdouts. It's unclear how many of those independents, as well as some own- er-operators and company drivers not using ELDs, would not follow through on threats to quit. But the recent experience of older drivers leaving when the current hours of service regulations were introduced shows the threats are not all idle. The ELD mandate likewise could accelerate industry retirements, says analyst Jay Thompson, president of Transporta- tion Business Associates. "Those are the drivers I would expect to actually leave – those that see in [the mandate] a reason to go ahead and say 'I'm done with it,' " he says. Here's how drastically the numbers could play out. Assume the 71 percent of independents who say they'd quit actually do. For those running one to five trucks, this would mean a loss of about 260,000 trucks, according to data mined by RigDig Business Intelligence, Ran- dall-Reilly Business Media's equipment- and business-data analysis unit. That would remove more than 10 percent of the industry's capacity. When the 71 percent is applied to carriers with up to 15 trucks, it leads to a capacity reduction of more than 27 percent, or about 709,000 trucks. The American Trucking Associations commonly cites a driver shortage that's expected to grow to 239,000 by 2022, considering current growth rates in the driver population and expected driver de- mand. That dynamic will play out much M 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 N 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 M OFF SB D ON 11.50 00.00 11.00 01.50 1 2 3 R 4 5 6 7 How independents* say they will respond to an electronic logging device mandate Overdrive magazine survey, March/April 2014, 2,318 respondents Quit over- the-road trucking No change, already using ELDs 2% Start using an ELD 71% 27% * Small fleets (one or more trucks) with operating authority. ELD_Survey.indd 24 4/30/14 11:34 PM