Overdrive Magazine | Trucking Business News & Owner Operator Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/723417
PULSE September 2016 | Overdrive | 5 By Max Heine Editorial director mheine@randallreilly.com Soucy talked to Overdrive about similar issues as the recession came on in the winter of 2007-08, part of a cover story on the habits and practices of the debt- free among the readership. Fuel prices were nearing a then-unprecedented $4 a gallon, and the Land- star-leased owner-operator, then pulling a step deck, was thinking of shutting down for a long holiday to "stay out of the mess of slow freight and high fuel." With a truck or trailer payment, he added, he likely could not have afforded that. Search "that old truck" at OverdriveOnline.com for a collection of further responses to the question posed in the title here, complete with pictures of readers' older rigs. W e asked readers of Overdrive and sister brand Truckers News this year: What is the one thing you dislike most about your job today? The biggest problem is "Regulations make it harder to work and make a living." It dwarfs the responses "It's a thankless job – nobody respects truckers" and "I'm not making enough money." I was struck by the very low ranking of pay. Traditionally it has led such survey responses or, if it isn't the top choice, it's usually second or third to needing more home time or getting more respect. As Senior Editor Todd Dills reported here in February, owner-operator net income has barely kept up with the rate of inflation over the last decade, and company driver pay has done worse. More recently, freight demand has been soft. Lengthy, unpaid detention con- tinues to humiliate and rob many drivers. So it's notable when nearly two-thirds of truckers (for owner-operators alone, 71 percent), working ridiculously long hours for modest pay, are far more aggravated over regulations and lack of respect than they are money. It's no surprise that turnover stays high. Or that the average age of drivers keeps rising when young adults learn what a truck- ing career is really like and say "no thanks." Perhaps more than the truck-trashing public, it's regulators who need to give pause during National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, Sept. 11-17. They seem blind to the havoc they've wrought. As Dills reports on page 30, the makeup of the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Commit- tee, which makes recommen- dations to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, in its single decade of existence has shifted significantly toward the truck safety lobby. Over that same time, fewer repre- sentatives on it work directly in trucking. That's a good recipe for safety solutions that are high in dream-world expense and low in real-world testing and application. It's not like trucking has been a safety laggard. The industry invests $9.5 billion a year in safety, writes Kevin Burch, co-chairman of the Trucking Moves America Forward advocacy group and president of Ohio-based Jet Express. That's spent on safety-related driver training, compliance, technologies and driving performance awards. The result: "Trucks have a crash rate that is 28 percent lower than other vehicles', and the fatal crash rate has fallen 74 percent since 1973," writes Burch, citing U.S. Department of Transportation stats. Let's hope that, before it's too late, the regulatory machine finds effective ways to improve those rates without continuing to "make it harder to work and make a living." It hurts safety and productivity when you push too many good drivers and promising rookies to give up on a trucking career. Regs' hidden costs What do you dislike most about your job? OverdriveOnline.com poll Regulations No respect Not enough money No complaints Other 45% 20% 13% 9% 13% In the January 2008 issue, Andy Soucy shared a lesson he learned that has contributed to decisions to hold on to his 2001 Western Star to this day – that the truck should be viewed as a tool, not a goal: In the 1990s at a North Carolina truck stop, he came across an older driver beside an "ancient" cabover. Soucy recalls, "I said to him, 'That old truck's about ready for the Smithsonian, ain't it?' And he just looked at me and said point-blank, 'This truck's paid my house off, put my kids through col - lege and paid for itself many times over. I've put a new engine and a new injection system in it, and that's about all.' "