Letters: Driver Shortage, Drugs and Drivers, Teamsters Exit, NASTC’s Xmas List

These Letters to the Editor appear in the Dec. 13 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

Driver Shortage?

I’ve been in logistics for a relatively short time, 14 years. I don’t recall a year when there wasn’t a prediction from the oracles of industry analysis bemoaning an impending driver shortage. It’s always the usual culprits — driver age, home time, blah, blah, blah — and now we can add the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s CSA [Compliance, Safety and Accountability] program as a reason for the next 10 years. And, of course, the shippers will finally reap the rewards of their dirty dealing in forcing down freight rates at the expense of the good and righteous carrier.

The reality is that there is no driver shortage for organizations that understand productivity, process capability and continuous improvement. How the organization thinks determines the extent of driver retention and whether a driver shortage is real or just an outcome of poor management.

So, how does your organization think? Does it think like a truck driver? If so, I hope you have a large and robust recruiting department because your recruiters will never be threatened with the prospect of unemployment.

Drivers, by their nature, think in a transactional way: “How much money did I make today, and how much time did it take?” The answer is fairly straightforward — expectation met or expectation not met.

If your organization’s primary metric is meeting some dollar or cost-per-mile number, then, to paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy of “you might be a redneck” fame — “You might be thinking like a truck driver.”

Or does your organization think like a trucking company? You are making progress over the “think like a driver” model, but your recruiting department will be only slightly less busy than the one affected by the driver-oriented thought process noted above.

Thinking like a trucking company means you are more likely to maximize revenue per load by not taking the cheap freight and, instead, let the driver just sit and wait in hopes of getting a better rate from the shipper — and the driver winds up taking all the inefficiency of the process. He gets paid by the mile, so it’s no skin off your nose — and you might be thinking like a trucking company.

However, companies that think in terms of productivity, process capability and process improvement don’t have driver shortages. The various elements of the organization work together to form a high-speed production machine that provides a solution for the customer/shipper. Obstacles for this organization are opportunities for improvement and increased productivity. By focusing on customer satisfaction and pro-cess capability and continuous improvement, this organization will read with amusement the continuing and never-ending articles on driver shortages.

Sadly, good people and organizations will be consumed by continuing harsh economic conditions because obstacles were incorporated into their internal processes. If you are experiencing a driver shortage, change your thinking and survive.

Roger Edwards

Owner

Six Sigma Logistics Solutions

Highlands Ranch, Colo.

Drugs and Drivers

A first-ever drug analysis of drivers killed in car crashes found that one in three tested positive for illegal drugs. Of the 12,055 drivers tested in 2009, 3,952 tested positive for drugs, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Most in the transportation industry know well, as do state and federal regulators, that in more than 70% of vehicle accidents involving commercial trucks and automobiles, it is the automobile driver who is at fault. Since commercial drivers are required to be drug tested after an accident, drivers of private autos involved in crashes should be tested as well. I am sure the number of drugged auto drivers involved in any accident will reflect the same high percentages as those who were killed.

I also am sure states can pass laws that would require drivers of autos to agree to be drug tested after an accident in order to be allowed to get a driver’s license. A driver’s license is a granted privilege — not a right.

The transportation industry — from trucks to aircraft — has the lowest rate of illegal drug use compared with any other industry in the United States. Truck drivers are more than 98% drug free, according to drug tests conducted by employers.

It is time that drivers of any kind of vehicle, commercial or otherwise, be made to follow the same drug-testing laws as all truck drivers, airline pilots, ship captains and railroad workers do. The transportation industry needs to demand that states and the federal government address this issue and demand that all drivers on our roads be drug free.

Richard Marsh

President

SpecializedCarrier.Com Inc.

Pahrump, Nev.

Editor’s Note: The writer is referring to the first-ever analysis of drug involvement in fatal crashes from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s Fatal Accident Reporting System, or FARS, census. The results released Nov. 30 found that drug involvement in fatal crashes has increased 5% over the past five years, even though motor vehicle crash fatalities have declined.

Teamsters Exit

Unions are on their way out, so let’s consider the issue of the Teamsters union’s future in less-than-truckload trucking.

They’re doomed.

They just don’t get it and probably never will. The only way they possibly can survive is if the nonunion companies involved in the industry fail to recognize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to allow the Teamsters to maneuver themselves out of the once bread-and-butter industry on which they grew to fame.

A huge driver shortage is looming and will be caused by:

• The massive departure of retiring baby boomers.

• Drivers who will exit because of disqualifications under CSA.

• Drivers who will simply walk away because they aren’t willing to deal with all the new regulations.

How companies will deal with this is even less interesting than how the Teamsters will cope with it. The Teamsters have capitulated on every point of their National Master Freight Agreement. The contract is now a joke.

So is their organizing. Why would someone join a union that suffers under a contract that is locked into a pay schedule that is vastly inferior to likely cost-of-living adjustments nonunion companies will put in place to keep qualified drivers behind the wheel?

Jeff Allen

Driver

San Diego

NASTC’s Xmas List

Dear Santa,

Our industry is under attack from within and without it seems. I’m sure you’re aware of the 3,822 Occupational Safety and Health Administration violations you’ll commit this year on your annual goodwill tour — not to mention the hours-of-service violations and fatigued reindeer problems. It’s a known fact that Rudolph has developed apnea and needs a sleep study, C-PAP utilization and in-sleigh fatigue monitoring. I understand that he received two out-of-service citations last year for faulty bells and dim nose lights. (He had a head cold and his normal bright red beacon was just an amber, dim glow.)

My National Association of Small Trucking Companies wish list for this year includes:

• A return to sanity and a modicum of common sense from all levels of government.

• A movement to return accountability for one’s actions to the forefront at a personal, professional and regulatory level.

• A reining-in of the out-of-control federal bureaucracy.

• A justification for the questionable constitutional application of appointing czars, enacting executive orders and dictating fiats by regulatory agencies who arguably can act outside of the statutes and beyond legislative oversight.

• A realization that our last best economic hope comes from small, profitable businesses.

• A realization that the American professional truck driver is a true hero who daily provides an essential service to us all, that he can’t be “robotized,” and that his job is one of few that cannot possibly be exported.

• A realization that the enforcement community serves the public and not the other way around.

• A realization that driver turnover, driver retention and driver longevity are directly connected to the overall safety performance of a trucking company.

• A hope that CSA 2010 will be properly vetted before its final implementation.

• A hope that the new hours-of-service ruling will contain some sleeper berth flexibility as requested by every presenter in the listening sessions that I attended.

• And a broader hope that the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration truly listens to the ideas of small trucking businesses that represent 95% of the companies they regulate.

David Owen

President

National Association of Small Trucking Companies

Gallatin, Texas