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At a rough point in my life, I was a truck driver for CR England and Knight Transportation for a few days short of 7 months. You don’t start at 80,000 a year.

• fred_is_fred 8y ago
  Interesting what you said about I-5 vs middle of nowhere. As someone who has to drive from Denver to south east Texas a few times per year for family stuff, I'd almost always rather deal with an empty great plains highway than traffic on I-5. There are downsides, mainly food and hotel choices of course.
  • corodra 8y ago
    I got 2 weeks on i5 and liked it over my desert routes. Matter of relative terminology. I also like trees. I hate the desert... so much. East coast would have been nicer if I wasn’t so constantly freaked out for low overpasses. I5, for me, is the ideal route if I had to do it again.
    • mmmBacon 8y ago
      Your comment reminds me of the Penn and Teller video game: Desert Bus. Previous HN Discussion. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6023484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6023484
  • haloux 8y ago
    Similar story here. My brother drives the I-40 route from West Texas to Arizona. He had a short stint doing City of Industry to Stockton. Hated every second of driving through LA, Grapevine and anywhere north of Bakersfield. Food choices are pretty much the same considering you can't venture far off the interstate and its rare that there's anything good _right_ off the five.
    • whatshisface 8y ago
      Maybe this is a startup opportunity, take food from local restaurants and rendezvous it in bulk at truck stops.
      • not_kurt_godel 8y ago
        That's interesting idea, but it'd be very challenging to scale. Most rural towns have far fewer restaurants compared to cities, and of those restaurants, a significant portion serve food that's not sufficiently different/better from gas station food to justify paying a premium for it. It doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility to create an app that lets truckers queue up an order ahead of time - but even if you did, you're ultimately catering to a dying market/industry that'll inevitably disappear sooner rather than later.
      • jacquesm 8y ago
        You'd better research how many truckers would be able to afford it first.
        • corodra 8y ago
          Thank you. Got to love folks who think a "startup" can save the world when they have no clue how the real world works. They totally missed the fact that truckers earn peanuts. So add more cost on top of a meal they can't really afford to begin with? Maybe an iPhone app can help truckers? Totally save the poor with iPhone apps. That's an idea...lol.
          • 8y ago
  • reilly3000 8y ago
    Ya the middle of nowhere I-5 is still damn dense with truck traffic and water rationing political signs. I’ve made the trek top to bottom many times and I have very little love for central CA.
• MisterTea 8y ago
  The guys I meet who are pulling in good money are all union vocational workers. We're talking dump trucks, cement mixers, sometimes roll off (dumpsters/skips), and the holy Grail: heavy haul. I know a guy in New Jersey who works for a well known hauling and rigging company. Makes 130k/yr. Small shop of a dozen guys, no one makes under a 100k, and home just about every night. But good luck getting into those shops. Cronyism and nepotism abound.
  • InfernalLogic 8y ago
    I'm making way more money now as a dev contractor... but I do miss a lot of things about my 9-month stint in the IBEW. There were definitely dirt bags in the union, but there were more guys who had a real interest in taking care of their union brothers. That, and coming home tired with dirty hands felt way better than finally deciding to shut my computer off and go hang out with my family.
    • corodra 8y ago
      Well yea, inspectors of any agency are terrified to fuck with the IBEW lol. They only do so when they have their shit squared away. I love how on big job sites, they would have their reps, banners and make sure all their guys have IBEW bling to ward off inspectors like garlic for vampires.
  • anoncoward111 8y ago
    This is one of the main reasons I am so heavily in favor of UBI, even though I am quite the anarchist if we are talking about idealism and not pragmatism. There IS money being made out there by large firms and small firms alike, but it is absolutely NOT based on merit or skill at all. Whether a business is a failure or a success is 99% based on the relationships and contracts it forms. Typically, unskilled managers and executives will forge the deal FIRST, and then go get the expertise and skilled laborers after. Startups are an exception to this rule, since the technology is all so new. But rapidly, we all see the "money guys" and the "business guys" coming in to the profession day by day, buying up tech, creating bogus certifications and so on that just add the cruft and bureaucracy that monopolies need to survive. For every trucker making $130,000 a year, there's 100 truckers making $35,000 a year. For every trucker making $30,000 a year, there's probably 10,000 unemployed or underemployed people begging for the chance to make middle class money rather than $10 an hour at Burger King
• corodra 8y ago
  I'm loving reading all these folks talking economic reasoning on this situation. Look, I'm a developer for a DOD contractor. I'm roughly not an idiot. Smartest cat in the room? Nah, there are plenty of folks I look up to that make me look like a toddler playing with his crayons. But in general, I'm not an idiot. Came from a blue collar background, so actual dirty work doesn't scare me. I'm the guy my friends ask for help first to build their decks, house remodeling or just digging up trenches for their sprinklers. My parents, being immigrants, educating myself was my prime purpose for existing. Lol, you can pursue any career you want, lawyer or doctor. Other first gens know what I'm talking about. I was more of a math and history guy, so neither lawyer or doctor interested me. Before you apply market theory between classical, Keynesian, supply-side, w/e, get these answered first to fix this issue. 1. Home time. Life isn't about working every day. It's proven by many psychologists and sociologists that general mental health degrades due to over working lifestyles. No one lays on their death bed and says "I wish I worked more." 3, maybe 4 days a month to see your wife and kids. Seriously? To haul clothes or frozen burritos to Laredo so they can go to Mexico... which was the funniest load I've ever done. Military is one thing. There's at least some sense of pride in that and different compensations Disagree? Don't visit your family or home for 26 days out of every month. When you do visit, set your alarm for every 3 hours (even at night) to simulate logistics telling you to go back to the truck for a load. Let's see how long your girlfriend/wife stays with you. Bet your kids will have a nice relationship with you too after you miss their birthday so you can deliver clothes to some hipster store. 2. Health issues: You are sitting CONSTANTLY. Let's also put the fact that you're bouncing up and down, especially through Cali Hwy 99 and any Louisiana interstate. Do I have to mention how bad sitting for 11+ hours a day is bad for you? Then, all you do is sleep because you're so exhausted. Oh, how's your sleep in a loud truck stop? Sudden door slams. Assholes talking loudly as they walk around. Got a refrigerated trailer? HA! The motor to keep it running is literally 3 feet from your ears! Disagree? I mean... I can't understand how you can imagine that lifestyle is healthy. No, you don't have a real opportunity to jog. I tried. I was a 2 mile every other day guy prior to truck driving. I got in 2 jogs total, only when I was in Ontario, California. Other truckers know what truck stop I'm talking about. 3. Government: Look, a lot of the regulations in place right now are actually God sends compared to the "good old days" old timers talk about. Because the companies abused the fuck out of drivers. Honestly, thank you Qualcomm for lobbying the fuck out your services. If it wasn't for digital logs, truckers would be forced into more shitty situation. Accidents statistics are low compared to then for very good reasons. But state patrol and weigh stations prey on truck drivers because any normal ticket is instantly double the price because it's a commercial vehicle. They make more money off truck drivers. Disagree? Look at the 20s-40s. Truck flipped over and the driver is dead because he was forced to do a 30 hour trip in 20 hours? Does the truck still work? Yea? Cool. Put it back on its wheels, get a new guy. Companies taking advantage of employees and skirting the law is NOTHING NEW. 4. Terrain: Dude, the east coast is not really setup for 13 foot trailers. There are so many under 13 foot overpasses that you are in constant fear the moment you go off the interstate. The route planning is on the driving and a majority of intel you can get on that kind of info sucks. There's the garmin gps for truckers that's pretty good, but I ran into one mistake it had in NJ that I barely avoided. That would have been a Youtube "Dumb trucker driver" video. But again, constant exhaustion and bad information. Disagree? Just drive around where you live (mostly east of the Mississippi river) and notice all the signs that are under 13'5". Need to get to your super markets and malls some how. Most of the straight forward routes are... well... wrong. 5. Companies: Unless you have money to buy your own truck and trailer, you're working for someone else. And if you have the money, you probably won't be the one driving because it's a shitty job and it's better to pay someone else peanuts to do it. To be fair to all of them, business is business. But it's still predatory. A majority of the people in truck driving can't get out once in. I'm lucky. I know that. Most of the guys didn't have parents that forced them to become educated. And the companies know this. Honestly, this is the industry that needs one of the old school unions the most. They make sure you are never near home, they keep your miles minimal to make sure you're dependent on sucking on their tit... it's a one sided situation. Disagree? You know what. You do it. No one is stopping you. Do it. The bar to qualify is not high, at all. The pool of folks isn't exactly the sharpest tools in the shed. You go signup for this great job of truck driving you think it is and do it for 6 months. Then we'll talk. No? You have a better paying job? One that's maybe fulfilling to your soul? You like seeing your family? See your kid's sports games? School projects? Maybe see their birthdays? Have dinner with your wife? You like your bed that's not made out of Styrofoam? You don't like smelling collective aged trucker piss at truck stops because instead of walking into the station, you just piss between the tractor and trailer? Yea, talk is cheap. I love the one article from a few months back about there aren't enough women doing truck driving. Hmm... maybe they're not stupid. Think of that? What woman is dumb enough to "enjoy" all of that? Guys are known for doing dumb shit. Let's be realistic. And I've done really dumb shit in my life. Especially when trying to impress a girl. I think that's a good start. Do you see how these are human problems? Not math problems. And I'm a math guy. I'm comfortable in code and numbers. But I'm well versed in history to understand when an equation doesn't apply. Get some of that crap figured out, then you can argue about market forces and other silver spoon conversations.
• rwallace 8y ago
  Damn, that sounds bad :( What exactly is the back pain from? Outsider's perspective would expect that since it's mostly sitting, at least your back should be okay. What am I missing?
  • corodra 8y ago
    Compressed discs mostly but you start to learn what muscles in your back really need full body movement regularly or that weakening starts to kick your ass. Without some expensive surgery that I still can't afford, I've been fixing it with a weight lifting regiment. I'm lucky, a friend is a physical therapist. So, I just owe him beer. Even have a year of hard dedication to dealing with it, I still "feel" it and get some flares. As long as I'm always careful about my posture when doing things, I can mitigate it. Like, I don't pick up my keys by bending my back, I have to crouch or I risk getting a flare up of pain for the next day or two. But before trucking, I never had to be "thoughtful" of my back.
    • rwallace 8y ago
      Ah! I guess the difference when you're a programmer is, both could be described as spending all day sitting, but if you're at a keyboard, you can get up and walk around now and then; sounds like that matters a lot, extended over the months and years. Best of luck with the recovery.
      • corodra 8y ago
        I'm currently a programmer as well. Yes, at any point, I can go "I should take a 5 min walk around" or just stretch my legs, which I do relatively often. Most "sitting" jobs have that luxury. Even just stretching your arms out is a luxury. Always one hand has to be on that wheel in a confined area.
    • Bombthecat 8y ago
      One doctor said ( forgot who it was ) that back problems is the next generation cigarette Problem.
    • 8y ago
• xapata 8y ago
  > simple math To be fair to the logistics people, predicting demand is difficult. Also, long supply chains suffer from the "bullwhip effect" which can cause extreme misprediction at the tail (source) of the chain.
  • corodra 8y ago
    A particular load I'm talking about, Seattle to LA. I remember this because I threatened to make a formal complaint about this and got my shit together for it. Roughly 1100 mile haul. Industry standard base time is 55 mph. Some states limit trucks to 55mph even if it's a 70mph interstate. Also, you aren't driving 55mph going up a mountain with a full load. There's a reason why there are truck lanes on mountain passages going up hill. You're going 30mph sometimes (Grapevine and Siskiyous for that particular route). That's about 20 hours, of straight driving (in theory). Figure in some food stops and 2 refueling stops (100+ gallon tanks, takes a while to fuel up). So that's a bit more than 20 hours. Oh, also you can only drive 11 hours within a 14 hour window. Then you have to not drive for 10 hours to reset your clock. Government regulations. It was 9:35am when I had possession to leave. Official pickup was 9:15am, but the lumpers were behind schedule. I was to drop that trailer in a yard in LA by midnight, same day or I was fired. Yes, I was told fired. You're welcome to try that math. 14 hours to do a 20+ hour load, if you don't count gov regulations. It doesn't take a liberal arts degree to figure that one out. But surely this must be a fluke mistake! No, this was not the only time with this piss poor math skills. There were about 2 dozen occurrences of stupid load times because, yes, they can't do simple math because it was on their bill of lading. It's not like "Oh, this load was to be picked up a week ago and no one has". It was scheduled that way when it was first ordered. These shipment orders are made weeks in advance. Not on demand. A lot are actually "standing orders" with big companies because they have consistent loads to send out and get a better rate if they guarantee ahead of time that they'll have one. So don't believe the bullshit, cop out rhetoric they try to pull. It was however the first and only time I was told I was going to be fired for it though.
    • xapata 8y ago
      If it's any consolation, I once was told that I needed to complete a project in 4 months, by myself, when the customer had been promised a team of 6 working for 1 year. I'm sure many engineers have been pressured into attempting similar things, their jobs on the line.
• andrei_says_ 8y ago
  In other words, shortage of people willing to forego having a personal life, are expected to speed/break the law daily and risk losing their job as a part of doing their job, are verifiably destroying their health long term in order to do said boring menial job for long hours in exchange for low to medium pay. Of course there’s a shortage. If pay was 200-300% higher and drivers could afford to work 2/3 of the time and get adequate rest/healing/family time, the shortage probably would not be so severe.
  • deleted 8y ago
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  • briandear 8y ago
    Are you willing to pay dramatically higher prices for literally everything you buy? Solutions like “just raise wages” are simplistic. Markets don’t work that way. You raise wages, trucking gets more expensive and demand drops, causing all sorts of unintended consequences. What very few people talk about is eliminating taxes on diesel fuel. That would lower costs and increase margins which would result in companies being able to pay more. Trucking is on razor thin margins as it is, cutting taxes would be another way to make “raising wages” possible. Trucking is so competitive that most companies would go out of business if they raised wages 200-300%. The world is governed by reality, not wishes and hopes and mandates dictated by people that have little understanding of the economics of logistics — or the economics of anything for that matter.
    • corodra 8y ago
      As the salty guy that sparked off this whole thing that use to do truck driving, I would honestly say that a lot can be fixed on labor demands if a few things were fixed and not change pay all that much. A lot more respect has to be thrown onto the driver's life. Trash truck drivers still go home at the end of the day. Yes, it's a shitty job too. But the biggest benefit, you go home at the end of the day. Long haul, yea, you CAN'T get that luxury. But especially with these big companies, they can figure a 1-2 week on, 1 week off system. That would vastly improve the situation. Is that perfect? No. Needs some work. Sure. But 3-4 days home for every 30, and you have to argue and fight for that. No. Fuck that. But that'd take gov regulation to have happen so it's an even playing field for everyone. The trucking companies make really good margins for only paying most guys $0.45 a mile and charge over $5 a mile to the customer. The England bros (the owners) had 6 high end cars delivered to the main yard in Utah on one day. They looked like kids on Christmas Day. This was during the "Hard times due to high diesel prices and all of us had to do our part to save money for the company." Look, I'm a capitalist, from beginning to end. But don't piss in my pocket and tell me it's raining. At first I thought it was weird for them to deliver them there, but I later found out they store a few of their cars on the side of the HQ since it has 24/7 protection. There are other things that can be done, but I'm calling it done reminiscing about those shitty months for HN.
• clarkmoody 8y ago
  It sounds like an excellent job for a machine to do: dull, repetitive, damaging to humans. Use humans to do last-mile delivery of the goods, but let a machine do the open road.
  • twothamendment 8y ago
    Last mile can be some of the least fun part of the job. Getting in and out of town in traffic in a city you haven't been to, waiting hours or a day for someone to load it unload your truck. Other than trying to keep up with the dispatcher who forgets you aren't driving a racecar, the open road can be the nice part of the trip.
    • geezerjay 8y ago
      I'm assuming that in a logistic chain the last mile bit can and should be done by local companies.
      • deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
• briandear 8y ago
  England and Knight (along with Swift) are the worst. Not all companies work like that though. Literally, your mileage may vary.
  • corodra 8y ago
    Haha, I see what you did there.
• gambiting 8y ago
  Do American trucks not have tachos? In EU it's impossible for a truck driver to speed or work more than 8 hours a day - if the truck moves even a little bit in the period when the driver is supposed to be resting, that means stupid fines for the transport company, and that's because everything is recorded by the tachometer behind the dash.
  • corodra 8y ago
    Independent trucks don't. Company trucks do. However, the company does not get fined, the driver does, personally.
    • gambiting 8y ago
      I see. There is no such distinction over here - if you are carrying goods commercially, you have to have a tachometer, full stop. Also, while the driver can be given a ticket for certain things(speeding mostly) working over hours or any issues with the truck will result in a massive fine for the company(one of the trucks carrying goods for us was fined in Germany recently for 2500 Euro because one side had a small bulge - that's not acceptable). The police also took copies of all tacho recordings for weeks prior and can issue further tickets if any discrepancy in working hours/speed is found.
      • corodra 8y ago
        FYI, by independent I mean a guy buys a semi-truck and trailer, has his own little company and hauls loads commercially. By company, we're talking about 50+ employee operations. There's a whole bunch of contractors, "owner-operators" that are independent. Qualcomm, who has a gps and digital log system, is in nearly every decent sized company trucks. Also the trucks I ran were throttled to 63. The throttle ranges between companies. Independent guys, obviously, don't order their trucks throttled. The companies do it for insurance reasons. But yea, there are also ways that the Qualcomm doesn't "work". Thus, we "have" to run paper logs.
        • gambiting 8y ago
• fiblye 8y ago
  >It’s not likely the military where you are doing something decently important. You are wasting your life to ship clothes for the Gap or frozen pizzas. I was never a truck driver, but my father was. He was in the military for about 7 years, then got discharged for a severe injury. He worked as a truck driver for about 3 years, then did all he could to rejoin the military and upon doing so never went back to truck driving. This was about 20 years ago, but seeing how messy employment in America is today, I doubt treatment or working conditions for drivers is much better than it was then.
  • corodra 8y ago
    Bah, noticed the typo, I meant "like". I know a few other guys who made the same decisions, military->truck driving->beg to re-enlist. Same guys who said, "I'll never go back to military".
• codeismylife 8y ago
  Curious as to why this cargo cannot be transported via the railway system if it is such a tumultuous endeavor to use the road especially in a geographically vast USA. How well developed (or undeveloped) is the rail network in the states? Is it equipped to handle this cargo and if so, why do businesses turn to the road network instead?
  • corodra 8y ago
    Rails don't go to every department store or grocery store. Don't go to any that I know of. Rails are terrible for on-demand supply chain due to lag time for loading, unloading and then logistics to ship again on a truck anyways.
    • magduf 8y ago
      Containerization should have fixed the loading/unloading times decades ago. It should only take a few minutes to pick a container up off a railcar and hitch it up to a truck to be driven the last few miles to a store.
    • ocschwar 8y ago
      "Rails don't go to every department store or grocery store" Bit of a self fullfilling prophecy there. Lots of places around the world have rail slips going to the back of shopping malls. The real reason is that 100 years ago the rail companies in America were so predatory and vicious to any customer trying to ship something smaller than a boxar's worth that the first generation of truck drivers were pretty much heroes for providing an alternative. The companies decided to stay in an inwardly looking economic niche and pretty much only ship slow moving multicar loads.