DRIVE Safe Act Participation Puts Trucker Shortage into Question
If you have been paying attention to the trucking industry for any amount of time, chances are the phrase “trucker shortage” has hit your ears. Surely if the trucker shortage were real and fleets were desperate to get their hands on more drivers, there would be an increased demand for younger drivers to be able to cross state lines. The pilot program for under-21 interstate travel led to abysmal results, indicating that maybe fleets are not as strained for drivers as initially thought.
Details
The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included a pilot teen trucking program allowing drivers under the age of 21 to cross state lines, a regulation usually requiring a driver to be 21 or older. The logic makes sense on its face: drivers in Texas can travel over 500 miles in a single day, virtually unrestricted by the regulation, while a similar driver in Rhode Island would be confined to a space that is a little over 1,000 square miles.
The results since the pilot program has come into place has shown that to trucking companies, the juice is not worth the squeeze. Since its implementation, only forty-two drivers have completed the program in full.
It seems regardless of whether or not drivers aged 18-20 are worse drivers is irrelevant to trucking companies, as they simply do not want the liability involved due to the appearance of higher risk.
Conclusion
The results for this pilot program are staggering: although trucking companies purport that there is a driver shortage and that capacity cannot meet with demand, they are hesitant to go through the steps to increase their workforce. It is very much a catch-22 of needing experience for a job, and needing a job for experience, but that seems to be the case for every industry. Drivers who are under 21 and want to get a foothold in the industry will likely have to move to larger states such as California or Texas in order to get any meaningful work done, or just wait until they are of age.
What do you think of the interstate age requirement and the “trucker shortage”? Let us know in the comments below!
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