5 ms·

Stuff like truck driving school is expensive. If only people who could pay up front could get a license to drive a truck there would be a lot less truck drivers

Stuff like truck driving school is expensive. If only people who could pay up front could get a license to drive a truck there would be a lot less truck drivers and stuff wouldn’t get moved around so you can have next day delivery on non-essential goods. Sure, they could change the requirements to make it easier for someone to drive around in a 80,000lbs death machine but is that in anyone’s best interest? What the companies do is put you through enough training to get your license, more training on top of that and stay with them for a year or you have to pay whatever they say it costs[0] for the training. All in all it’s a working system. [0] as spelled out in a contract but really has nothing to do with what it costs to train a person. The company I currently work for has this racket where owner/operators pay the trainees’ wages (along with every other expense to operate the truck) during on the job training for the most part and are pretty aggressive trying to get people to train the new drivers. Annoyingly aggressive.

Broken_Hippo 4y ago
The system would work if we simply provided low-cost schooling (taxpayer funded). It would keep folks from winding up with a predatory company who may or may not train you well, merely enough. You don't need to make the requirements easier - just lower the barrier to entry in a different way. Not to mention that having enough well-rested folks with a CDL means that everyone is a little more secure, and we are more likely to have enough people to drive busses and transport goods in emergencies. (Yes, I know it'll take more than lowering the schooling costs to fix all this, but it is a start)
- s1k3 4y ago
  I don’t want to pay for someone else’s schooling.
  - goosedragons 4y ago
    I don't want to pay for roads to your house. I don't go there so I'm not sure why MY valuable tax dollars were wasted on it.
    - cfiggers 4y ago
      Ok, what about a compromise? I'll help pay for the roads that go to your house if you help pay for the roads that go to my house. I know your house is further away from city center than mine, so we'll end up spending more of our pooled resources to get the road to your house finished. But, if we refuse to work together, NEITHER of us get roads. So honestly, this still feels like a good deal for me, even though you're objectively benefitting "more" (in some ways, by some cherry-picked measures) than I am. I'd rather you get more road than me if the alternative is that NEITHER of us get roads. If this works out, maybe we can figure out some way to work together on other things that are too big for either of us to solve as individuals. That's kind of an exciting idea, like maybe we could actually make the world suck a little bit less.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    So, libertarian anarchy? Everybody fends for themselves? Sounds lovely. /s
  - Broken_Hippo 4y ago
    Ok. So? You benefit from other people's education every day. Are you willing to give those things up? No computers. No internet. No modern medicine. No roads, no electricity. No locks on your house. No modern clothing materials, no modern tents with polyester or nylon. No cars. Heck, at this point you couldn't even buy a horse without benefiting from other people's education. Or maybe you mean impractical degrees? So... no professional art or music. Or maybe you mean degrees that don't make money? Ok. No preschool teachers, no regular teachers either. They get paid poorly, after all. Maybe you just don't want others to be educated, but I don't know how you intend to get along if fewer folks know how to read and good luck teaching your own children everything they need to know. A lot of places use tax money to educate children, after all. That's probably far enough: not wanting to pay for others education is just someone wanting to benefit from said education without contributing to it. Education of others helps you, and there really isn't much you can do about that.
cycomanic 4y ago
How about the company provides a good enough working environment so people want to stay working for them? I mean they want truck drivers if they can't get enough qualified drivers they either have to pay higher salaries or pay for the training. If the employee leaves, tough luck.
- ticviking 4y ago
  Society keeps rejecting this simple solution. I understand it isn't as simple as just "make the job easier," but in every one of these cases the problem could be fixed by pushing wages up, or improving working conditions or both.
  - UncleEntity 4y ago
    If it were that simple they’d have done it years ago. Companies will only pay so much to ship their products (which caps wages) and there isn’t a whole lot that can be done to improve working conditions without retraining every single person in the country on how to drive around big trucks because that’s 99% of the job. And weather, nothing to be done about weather. Everything else is just trivial bullshit, really. Doesn’t matter either way since Silicon Valley is promising to obsolete the job “any day now” so who cares about making improvements.
impossiblefork 4y ago
Yes, but you can still loan people money to train to become truck drivers. You can even enter into agreements with them, that if they pass you must employ them. There's no need for an agreement tying someone to an employer. Such things are very dangerous, since it has the potential to give the employer very great power.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  This is essentially what they do, loan you the money to pay for training and if you stick around you don’t have to pay it back. Nothing says you have to stay with that company, once you get your CDL you’re free to do whatever you want with it. You can also get a CDL other ways or just tell anyone who will listen that driving a truck is the worst job ever. Most of the training is just driving around with a more experienced driver for a couple months to learn the job and it isn’t like they chain people to the steering wheel, they get a decent salary (not based on mileage) during training and once you get your own truck you make whatever you make based on mileage. Or you can drive team with someone and make more than a solo driver. The only part you have to pay for is getting a CDL but that on its own is relatively worthless.

Broken_Hippo 4y ago

The system would work if we simply provided low-cost schooling (taxpayer funded). It would keep folks from winding up with a predatory company who may or may not train you well, merely enough. You don't need to make the requirements easier - just lower the barrier to entry in a different way. Not to mention that having enough well-rested folks with a CDL means that everyone is a little more secure, and we are more likely to have enough people to drive busses and transport goods in emergencies. (Yes, I know it'll take more than lowering the schooling costs to fix all this, but it is a start)

s1k3 4y ago
I don’t want to pay for someone else’s schooling.
- goosedragons 4y ago
  I don't want to pay for roads to your house. I don't go there so I'm not sure why MY valuable tax dollars were wasted on it.
  - cfiggers 4y ago
    Ok, what about a compromise? I'll help pay for the roads that go to your house if you help pay for the roads that go to my house. I know your house is further away from city center than mine, so we'll end up spending more of our pooled resources to get the road to your house finished. But, if we refuse to work together, NEITHER of us get roads. So honestly, this still feels like a good deal for me, even though you're objectively benefitting "more" (in some ways, by some cherry-picked measures) than I am. I'd rather you get more road than me if the alternative is that NEITHER of us get roads. If this works out, maybe we can figure out some way to work together on other things that are too big for either of us to solve as individuals. That's kind of an exciting idea, like maybe we could actually make the world suck a little bit less.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  So, libertarian anarchy? Everybody fends for themselves? Sounds lovely. /s
- Broken_Hippo 4y ago
  Ok. So? You benefit from other people's education every day. Are you willing to give those things up? No computers. No internet. No modern medicine. No roads, no electricity. No locks on your house. No modern clothing materials, no modern tents with polyester or nylon. No cars. Heck, at this point you couldn't even buy a horse without benefiting from other people's education. Or maybe you mean impractical degrees? So... no professional art or music. Or maybe you mean degrees that don't make money? Ok. No preschool teachers, no regular teachers either. They get paid poorly, after all. Maybe you just don't want others to be educated, but I don't know how you intend to get along if fewer folks know how to read and good luck teaching your own children everything they need to know. A lot of places use tax money to educate children, after all. That's probably far enough: not wanting to pay for others education is just someone wanting to benefit from said education without contributing to it. Education of others helps you, and there really isn't much you can do about that.

cycomanic 4y ago

How about the company provides a good enough working environment so people want to stay working for them? I mean they want truck drivers if they can't get enough qualified drivers they either have to pay higher salaries or pay for the training. If the employee leaves, tough luck.

ticviking 4y ago
Society keeps rejecting this simple solution. I understand it isn't as simple as just "make the job easier," but in every one of these cases the problem could be fixed by pushing wages up, or improving working conditions or both.
- UncleEntity 4y ago
  If it were that simple they’d have done it years ago. Companies will only pay so much to ship their products (which caps wages) and there isn’t a whole lot that can be done to improve working conditions without retraining every single person in the country on how to drive around big trucks because that’s 99% of the job. And weather, nothing to be done about weather. Everything else is just trivial bullshit, really. Doesn’t matter either way since Silicon Valley is promising to obsolete the job “any day now” so who cares about making improvements.

impossiblefork 4y ago

Yes, but you can still loan people money to train to become truck drivers. You can even enter into agreements with them, that if they pass you must employ them. There's no need for an agreement tying someone to an employer. Such things are very dangerous, since it has the potential to give the employer very great power.

UncleEntity 4y ago
This is essentially what they do, loan you the money to pay for training and if you stick around you don’t have to pay it back. Nothing says you have to stay with that company, once you get your CDL you’re free to do whatever you want with it. You can also get a CDL other ways or just tell anyone who will listen that driving a truck is the worst job ever. Most of the training is just driving around with a more experienced driver for a couple months to learn the job and it isn’t like they chain people to the steering wheel, they get a decent salary (not based on mileage) during training and once you get your own truck you make whatever you make based on mileage. Or you can drive team with someone and make more than a solo driver. The only part you have to pay for is getting a CDL but that on its own is relatively worthless.