Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/710421
Legal Lane By Jim Klepper, Attorney at Law 10 // COMPANY DRIVER // AUGUST 2016 RECRUITING TRUCK DRIVERS: WHY CARRIERS AND DRIVERS SHOULD CARE D rivers call my office regularly 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, Presi- dent and CEO of Impact Training Solutions who works with and trains carriers with their recruiting, about his experience and expecta- tions for carriers and drivers. I wanted Kelly to tell me about the largest challenges facing carriers today in driver recruiting. Kelly – Finding and hiring qualified 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) driv- ers leaving the industry, 4) unemployment and 5) medical concerns. Aging drivers, espe- cially the Baby Boom- ers, are stepping off into retirement 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 information contained on the PSP. I am an advocate of running the PSP report and I be- lieve 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 becoming 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 ques- tion was they didn't issue the CDL so they wouldn't disqualify a driver from driving, they would investigate and enforce carri-