Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/23783
Does Less Equal More? Specter of CSA-led driver shortage holds reward potential for truly safe drivers fter talk of a 2011 driver shortage of “unprecedented levels” began to rear its head last year, Truckers News “Marathon Trucker” columnist Jeff Clark remarked that the term “driver shortage” is inaccurate. “If someone cannot find a driver to deliver a load at the rate they want it delivered at they whine ‘driver shortage,’” he said, it’s analogous to this: “I want to buy a new Cadillac for $10,000. They would not sell it to me. Hmmm, must be a Cadillac shortage.” The real shortage was in driver pay, he suggested, and he’s backed up by a near-majority of respondents to an eTrucker. com poll conducted in Novem- ber who said that pay was the biggest factor in carriers’ difficulties attracting and retaining quality drivers. At the November “Perfect Storm” 18 TRUCKERS NEWS JANUARY 2011 conference of recruiting staff and management, put on in Nashville, Tenn., by the Truck- load Carriers Association with Affiliated Computer Services and sponsored by Truckers News publisher Randall-Reilly, the mood was hopeful that, with a safety enforcement program soon to be in place TODD DILLS putting teeth into carriers’ demands of higher rates from shippers, a new era could be coming for driver pay. Combined with a significant freight rebound, CSA 2010 (recently rebranded “CSA” for “Compliance, Safety, Account- ability” by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) could be expected to “drive rates up,” said current TCA chairman John Kaburick, pres- ident of Earl L. Henderson Trucking, in his introduction of the program. “We’ll see driv- ers making $70,000-90,000 a year. I think we’ll become a lot more attractive industry with a lot more qualified, skilled people.” QUANTIFYING A SHORTAGE FTR Associates’ driver surplus/ shortage indicator shows an