8 ms·

The truck driver shortage reminds me on the fossil fuel situation. Generally, we hear that truck drivers won't be needed in the future: Trucks will drive thems

by flexie 5y ago

The truck driver shortage reminds me on the fossil fuel situation. Generally, we hear that truck drivers won't be needed in the future: Trucks will drive themselves. But now we have less truck drivers than we need, and the future with self driving trucks hasn't quite arrived yet Similarly, we hear that fossil fuels should be out phased. And now we have an energy crisis with not enough oil and gas. The future of renewable energy isn't quite there yet.

Guest42 5y ago
There’s an endless supply of truck drivers, just a shortage of those willing to be underpaid and abused.
- flexie 5y ago
  And there is a seemingly endless supply of oil and gas. If you pay enough.
  - Guest42 5y ago
    The price of oil and gas has been far more inflated than the price of truck drivers since 1970.
- flatiron 5y ago
  I’ve had friends in the truck driving business and the hardest part is finding people who can stay clean with the drug testing. The Venn diagram of people wanting to drive truck and who recreationally use drugs seem to overlap a touch.
  - droopyEyelids 5y ago
    Again, you're only stating half the description. The hardest thing is finding people who won't take drugs _at that salary, with those working conditions_
- PaywallBuster 5y ago
  Where you get such ideas? The average salary for a truck driver is $70,363 per year in the United States. https://www.indeed.com/career/truck-driver/salaries https://www.indeed.com/career/truck-driver/salaries
  - deft 5y ago
    How much do you make per year? I think 70k is underpaying for truck driving.
    - PaywallBuster 5y ago
      I'm not in the US, not anywhere those levels. So just my 2 cents from looking from the outside
  - wbobeirne 5y ago
    They said underpaid, not low paid. It's not just a job, it's a way of living that completely dominates your life and taxes your body with the lifestyle associated with it. Clearly not enough people are willing to make that tradeoff for the salary.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      It is still low paid. Money per hour, volatility of income, and quality of life at work including morbidity and mortality risk are just as relevant as money per year. BLS does not incorporate these metrics, but there is an easy way to see if a job is low paid relative to quality of life at work (and outside of work). And that is to see people advise their kids to aspire to be. Doctor, lawyer, engineer, but not truck driver.
  - syshum 5y ago
    I dont know how reliable these indeed salaries are, I also know many many many drivers that are making less than 50K a year putting in 50-60 hours a week (or more) and are away from their familes for 5-7 days at a time
dntrkv 5y ago
There are 3.6M truck drivers in the US, and this number has only been increasing. The shortage has nothing to do with self-driving trucks. The problem is it’s a dangerous, high-stress, and comparatively, low pay job. It has only gotten worse with all of the additional regulations in the past 5-10 years. Not saying I disagree with all the regulations, but the implementation needs work. Truckers are constantly on edge nowadays. Anyways, if they wanna solve the shortage, pay them more. Simple as that.
- PaywallBuster 5y ago
  They can't just double salaries and still expect to have customers. At some point, companies will simply not purchase the goods if they can't truck it economically or will look for alternatives.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    That just means there is no shortage.
  - ridaj 5y ago
    If there wasn't a shortage then sure they might lose money by paying drivers more, but the supposed shortage of labor hurts more (it leads to business that they don't do at all)
  - lowmagnet 5y ago
    What are the low-cost alternatives to trucking?
    - thehappypm 5y ago
      Rail freight is cheaper than trucking in general
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - 5y ago
DoneWithAllThat 5y ago
I think “quite” is doing a lot of work here. I agree with this characterization of the mechanics of what’s happening, but more broadly I’d say western culture has been suffering a growing disconnect between dream and reality for some time now. What is seen as “futuristic tech”, driven by endless hype machines, perpetually seems to be just a few years away, regardless of things like: physics, funding, business models, government aptitude and will, human behavior, public opinion, and frankly human ingenuity/adaptability. As a consequence, instead of planning based on the world we live in today and the most likely near term projections, we try to plan for entirely unrealistic futures. It’s a mixture of being sold a future as being closer than it is or entirely different than it will be, and trying to will into existence a future we want (or want to avoid). Nobody wants to stay tethered to reality anymore, for various and varied reasons, so they try to act like it doesn’t exist.
jdlyga 5y ago
Kind of like how C++ developers are always in demand
nonameiguess 5y ago
There's plenty of oil and gas. It's just the still available sources are difficult and expensive to extract from, requiring high prices to be worth it, but plentiful supply inherently drives the prices down, so it either needs to be kept artificially low via cartels or subsidized, which voters are understandably not big fans of given the history of fossil fuel subsidies.
analyst74 5y ago
Re: fossil fuel I have been following oil news closely for a better part of a decade now, the oil industry did not reduce capacity due to renewables. They respond to price, especially higher cost productions like fracking and oil sand. Consistently low oil prices since 2014 crash has scared many investors away, and it'll take some time of consistently high oil price before investor confidence return. Current high prices is a combination of inflation (primarily caused by money printing), OPEC+ not going full speed, and other high cost producers not ramping up due to lack of confidence.
photochemsyn 5y ago
Automated electric long-haul trucking looks good but there's an issue that requires an on-board human: self-driving at present only makes sense for long steady stretches of freeway, say I80 through Nevada and so on. Even though that's the majority of the travel time, human drivers will be needed for: (1) 'the last few miles' i.e dealing with local complexity at delivery points, and (2) unexpected emergencies (flat tires, etc.) and general maintenance. Something like a remote drone operator probably wouldn't work(for changing tires etc.) or be completely reliable (disconnecting in a snowstorm etc.). However, this could be an attractive work situation for many people. If you have an 8-hour straight automated run with a truck cabin, the operator can sleep, study, write code... hopefully something more productive than online games, anyway. Supplemental earnings could be possible. This also benefits the trucking companies as they can plausibly run trucks on much longer 20+ driving / day schedules, since operators can sleep on the automated streches of the freeways.
- wombatpm 5y ago
  You can also run convoys with one team per 5 trucks. They will want to maintain a person in the loop if only for protecting from highway robbers. What happens if two cars ride side by side in two lanes, force the truck to stop and steal the load?
KennyBlanken 5y ago
> And now we have an energy crisis with not enough oil and gas. Citation required. > The future of renewable energy isn't quite there yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#/media/File:20201019_Levelized_Cost_of_Energy_(LCOE,_Lazard)_-_renewable_energy.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#... You were saying? Wind and solar, cheaper than all fossil fuel sources for almost ten years now. The cost of solar has plunged by a factor of almost 6x https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices.png/1280px-3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/3-... Offshore wind is the most expensive renewable and is surpassing the cheapest fossil fuel source.
- sleepymoose 5y ago
  It's not about the cost, it's about the availability. Go look at the percent generated by source and you'll see how far off we are from phasing out fossil fuels. Couple this with the projected usage of electricity in the coming years and the outlook is that much bleaker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Ge... https://www.statista.com/statistics/192872/total-electricity-use-in-the-us-since-2009/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/192872/total-electricity...
dml2135 5y ago
Waiting for renewable energy to be "quite there yet" is never going to happen. These transitions will take place, but they will take place precisely because shortages like these force them to happen.

by flexie 5y ago

Guest42 5y ago

There’s an endless supply of truck drivers, just a shortage of those willing to be underpaid and abused.

flexie 5y ago
And there is a seemingly endless supply of oil and gas. If you pay enough.
- Guest42 5y ago
  The price of oil and gas has been far more inflated than the price of truck drivers since 1970.
flatiron 5y ago
I’ve had friends in the truck driving business and the hardest part is finding people who can stay clean with the drug testing. The Venn diagram of people wanting to drive truck and who recreationally use drugs seem to overlap a touch.
- droopyEyelids 5y ago
  Again, you're only stating half the description. The hardest thing is finding people who won't take drugs _at that salary, with those working conditions_
PaywallBuster 5y ago
Where you get such ideas? The average salary for a truck driver is $70,363 per year in the United States. https://www.indeed.com/career/truck-driver/salaries https://www.indeed.com/career/truck-driver/salaries
- deft 5y ago
  How much do you make per year? I think 70k is underpaying for truck driving.
  - PaywallBuster 5y ago
    I'm not in the US, not anywhere those levels. So just my 2 cents from looking from the outside
- wbobeirne 5y ago
  They said underpaid, not low paid. It's not just a job, it's a way of living that completely dominates your life and taxes your body with the lifestyle associated with it. Clearly not enough people are willing to make that tradeoff for the salary.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    It is still low paid. Money per hour, volatility of income, and quality of life at work including morbidity and mortality risk are just as relevant as money per year. BLS does not incorporate these metrics, but there is an easy way to see if a job is low paid relative to quality of life at work (and outside of work). And that is to see people advise their kids to aspire to be. Doctor, lawyer, engineer, but not truck driver.
- syshum 5y ago
  I dont know how reliable these indeed salaries are, I also know many many many drivers that are making less than 50K a year putting in 50-60 hours a week (or more) and are away from their familes for 5-7 days at a time

dntrkv 5y ago

There are 3.6M truck drivers in the US, and this number has only been increasing. The shortage has nothing to do with self-driving trucks. The problem is it’s a dangerous, high-stress, and comparatively, low pay job. It has only gotten worse with all of the additional regulations in the past 5-10 years. Not saying I disagree with all the regulations, but the implementation needs work. Truckers are constantly on edge nowadays. Anyways, if they wanna solve the shortage, pay them more. Simple as that.

PaywallBuster 5y ago
They can't just double salaries and still expect to have customers. At some point, companies will simply not purchase the goods if they can't truck it economically or will look for alternatives.
- imtringued 5y ago
  That just means there is no shortage.
- ridaj 5y ago
  If there wasn't a shortage then sure they might lose money by paying drivers more, but the supposed shortage of labor hurts more (it leads to business that they don't do at all)
- lowmagnet 5y ago
  What are the low-cost alternatives to trucking?
  - thehappypm 5y ago
    Rail freight is cheaper than trucking in general
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - 5y ago

DoneWithAllThat 5y ago

I think “quite” is doing a lot of work here. I agree with this characterization of the mechanics of what’s happening, but more broadly I’d say western culture has been suffering a growing disconnect between dream and reality for some time now. What is seen as “futuristic tech”, driven by endless hype machines, perpetually seems to be just a few years away, regardless of things like: physics, funding, business models, government aptitude and will, human behavior, public opinion, and frankly human ingenuity/adaptability. As a consequence, instead of planning based on the world we live in today and the most likely near term projections, we try to plan for entirely unrealistic futures. It’s a mixture of being sold a future as being closer than it is or entirely different than it will be, and trying to will into existence a future we want (or want to avoid). Nobody wants to stay tethered to reality anymore, for various and varied reasons, so they try to act like it doesn’t exist.

jdlyga 5y ago

Kind of like how C++ developers are always in demand

nonameiguess 5y ago

There's plenty of oil and gas. It's just the still available sources are difficult and expensive to extract from, requiring high prices to be worth it, but plentiful supply inherently drives the prices down, so it either needs to be kept artificially low via cartels or subsidized, which voters are understandably not big fans of given the history of fossil fuel subsidies.

analyst74 5y ago

Re: fossil fuel I have been following oil news closely for a better part of a decade now, the oil industry did not reduce capacity due to renewables. They respond to price, especially higher cost productions like fracking and oil sand. Consistently low oil prices since 2014 crash has scared many investors away, and it'll take some time of consistently high oil price before investor confidence return. Current high prices is a combination of inflation (primarily caused by money printing), OPEC+ not going full speed, and other high cost producers not ramping up due to lack of confidence.

photochemsyn 5y ago

Automated electric long-haul trucking looks good but there's an issue that requires an on-board human: self-driving at present only makes sense for long steady stretches of freeway, say I80 through Nevada and so on. Even though that's the majority of the travel time, human drivers will be needed for: (1) 'the last few miles' i.e dealing with local complexity at delivery points, and (2) unexpected emergencies (flat tires, etc.) and general maintenance. Something like a remote drone operator probably wouldn't work(for changing tires etc.) or be completely reliable (disconnecting in a snowstorm etc.). However, this could be an attractive work situation for many people. If you have an 8-hour straight automated run with a truck cabin, the operator can sleep, study, write code... hopefully something more productive than online games, anyway. Supplemental earnings could be possible. This also benefits the trucking companies as they can plausibly run trucks on much longer 20+ driving / day schedules, since operators can sleep on the automated streches of the freeways.

wombatpm 5y ago
You can also run convoys with one team per 5 trucks. They will want to maintain a person in the loop if only for protecting from highway robbers. What happens if two cars ride side by side in two lanes, force the truck to stop and steal the load?

KennyBlanken 5y ago

> And now we have an energy crisis with not enough oil and gas. Citation required. > The future of renewable energy isn't quite there yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#/media/File:20201019_Levelized_Cost_of_Energy_(LCOE,_Lazard)_-_renewable_energy.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#... You were saying? Wind and solar, cheaper than all fossil fuel sources for almost ten years now. The cost of solar has plunged by a factor of almost 6x https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices.png/1280px-3-Learning-curves-for-electricity-prices.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/3-... Offshore wind is the most expensive renewable and is surpassing the cheapest fossil fuel source.

sleepymoose 5y ago
It's not about the cost, it's about the availability. Go look at the percent generated by source and you'll see how far off we are from phasing out fossil fuels. Couple this with the projected usage of electricity in the coming years and the outlook is that much bleaker. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Generation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Ge... https://www.statista.com/statistics/192872/total-electricity-use-in-the-us-since-2009/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/192872/total-electricity...

dml2135 5y ago

Waiting for renewable energy to be "quite there yet" is never going to happen. These transitions will take place, but they will take place precisely because shortages like these force them to happen.