Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/708036
Recruiting truck drivers: Why carriers and drivers should care LEGAL LANE By Jim Klepper 52 August 2016 BestDriverJOBS www.bestdriverjobs.com D rivers call my office regu- larly to ask how a company could refuse to hire them. The answer contains more reasons than stars in the sky. There are a lot of legal reasons a company may decide not to hire a driver that are perfectly legitimate, but I wanted to delve into the practical reasons companies have trouble finding good drivers. To help me I asked Kelly Anderson, President and CEO of Impact Training Solutions who works with and trains carriers with their recruiting, about his experience and expectations for carri- ers and drivers. I wanted Kelly to tell me about the largest challenges facing carriers today in driver recruiting. Kelly – Finding and hiring quali- fied drivers is the number one concern carriers have with recruiting. We are in the largest driver shortage in many, many years. There are several key reasons for that shortage; 1) aging drivers, 2) CSA, 3) drivers leaving the industry, 4) unemployment and 5) medical concerns. Aging drivers, especially the Baby Boomers, are stepping off into retire- ment and younger men and women are not coming to truck driving as a profession. CSA – Carriers that run the PSP report tell me 50% of the drivers they turn down today, they would have hired if they didn't have the informa- tion contained on the PSP. I am an advocate of running the PSP report and I believe it is becoming a standard of care for our industry. Here's another interesting point related to CSA. When CSA 2010 was being tested and people started becom- ing aware of it there was a rumor the FMCSA was going to disqualify up to 300,000 drivers for having bad safety records. The FMCSA's answer to this question was they didn't issue the CDL so they wouldn't disqualify a driver from driving, they would investigate and enforce carriers. Well, I know of a couple instances now wherein they have deemed a driver an "imminent hazard" to public safety and have banned them from driving commercial legallane 0816.indd 1 7/12/16 2:14 PM