Jeremy Reymer is the founder and CEO of DriverReach, but he’s also a member of the research advisory committee for ATRI, the research arm of the American Trucking Associations.
He’s the guest this week on Drilling Deep, and he’s got a good perspective on one of the reasons why the driver market is so tight: CDL schools aren’t pumping out ready-to-drive candidates like they used to, all because of the pandemic.
Reymer also talks with host John Kingston about the upcoming ATRI survey of the biggest issues in the industry. There’s a new candidate this year: COVID-19. How will that end up in the closely watched poll?
Kingston also will talk about a quirky bit of diesel data that came out this week and what it says about demand.
Jeff sheppard
I’ve been in this industry for going on 25 years and it’s getting worse. Let’s face it everybody has to start somewhere we were all there at one point. When I got into this industry it was be cause I grew up around trucks and loved it. I was an owner operator for almost 20 years until high insurance and fuel cost shut me down. Company’s now want meat in the seat all drivers should learn how to drive standard but instead let’s make automatics so we can attract anybody. Increase the wages!!!! Get quality candidates make it attractive to the younger up and comings to want to get into this industry. I’m third generation at this my son is 20 and chomping at the bit to drive. Honestly I’m fighting hard to keep him out of it. Until everyone realizes the necessity that the transportation industry provides all remains the same. Governments companies drivers we need change this downward spiral must come to a halt.
Elvis
More poorly trained drivers on the road isn’t a bad thing in my opinion. I paid $7000 for my cdl 20 years ago and came out of my 3 week class with just a few hours of driving and called a truck driver. The schools are a scam.
Alexander Sokolov
I’ll tell you why this is happening. The first year the salary of novice drivers is very low, which is much more profitable to put your driver’s license on the shelf and wait one year working at a construction site. Also, schools do not teach how to use a logbook and how to work in general.
Doug Byrer
If FMCSA would back off with all these rules and regulations that they keep shoving down us they would of been alot of older experience drivers that would have stayed when the OBAMA administration created the FMCSA they should have been putting people that had been in the industry that knows about trucking instead of people that have no experience or clue what the industry needs or is about and these people that are in there don’t have a clue what to do to make it better they just want to make a name for themselves and don’t even think about safer trucking look at the ELDS what a joke we did better before instead of dealing with shipping or receiving holding up trucks and making drivers set for hours which you all know they won’t do anything to them they will want their money for elections and line their pockets FMCSA IS A JOKE
Ts
I disagree with you on elds. They really do benefit the driver and hold unprofessional drivers and larger carriers accountable. My time is worth something to me and I do get paid to sit at a dock among other on duty not driving activities if I need to. The trucking industry straight up is one big cluster f. And most shippers/receivers in my experience are straight up unappreciative of drivers. Covid has only made it worse. Older experienced drivers are valuable for sure but they mostly want to live by old standards in an automatic world.
Tara Thomas
Im in school in Reno NV we have about 10 to 15 students ready to go and our DMV will not test us jobs are lined up and we have to sit till they find time for us school could have tested us as a 3rd party examiner but DMV is playing games!!! School passed all testes and qualifications Nv DMV is screwing all kinds of new drivers just waiting collecting unemployment instead of working hmmm the whole thing is shady if you ask me!!!!
Carl Petersen
These so-called driving schools just teach the basic I mean just enough to get your CDL license they don’t even try and teach anything else like chaining what to do on load preparation of Shifting axles or anything they go strictly minimum minimum basic this is a truck this is how you steer a truck not go pass your CDL test at the DMV. I went through an 8 week course at kvcc in Michigan my son just went through a two-week course and now he has to have the company’s he was hired to drive train him on the rest of the items that he needs for a professional truck driver career. Is he making a lot of money no was I making a lot of money when I quit after five years I was making a pretty good living it’s all the extra cost that a truck driver has to pay for on the road as in Needles and such that cost a lot of money a lot of individuals out there believe that you got to make eighty or ninety thousand just to make a living would it be nice to have 80 or 90 thousand yes not saying it wouldn’t be but you still don’t need 80 or 90 to live on live within your means quit buying brand new crap stop buying things that the other man has everybody has to live outside their names and that is a fact
Ts
Lol. I got my cdl in 6 days. My trainer quit after 1 week out and that was all the training I ever received. That was 3 years ago. Really, it’s a miracle I survived my first year but most everything I know I learned on you tube and books. Drivers are underpaid. 3 years in I make just under 80k as a solo driver that runs 11-12k miles a month in a truck governed at 65mph. Recruiters call me all the time as I put my info on linkedin and driver pulse. I’m with a solid company now, and it would take probably 20k more a year for me to leave. What I’ve never understood about trucking is why the guys that don’t give af make the same per mile as me. The pay scales are outdated and an old way of doing business. But, I have a clean accident free cdl, no csa violations and several endorsements. Eventually Ill be paid my worth.
Jack Winnslow
Hilarious the steering wheel holder mills cant churn enough under trained people to replace the other ones leaving immediately theres no driver shortage tje shortage is good enough management to figure out that you cant have a trucking company and continue to say f@$! the driver.
Stephen Webster
In Ontario Canada over 10,000 truck drivers are still waiting to return to work. Many jobs like security and costco are paying better per hour than driving truck. Until O T R truck drivers make 1,9 times minimum wage plus medical coverage for a truck driver with more than 200,000 km of experience or 3000 hours plus government assistance in coverage of insurance for new truck drivers for smaller trucking companies under 10 trucks new people are not going to be attracted in the numbers needed. We also have to ask our provincial government in Ontario Canada why so many Truck drivers are in the homeless shelters.