Trucking

Some academic from North Carolina with a blog about economics is puzzled why there seems to be a shortage of truckers which is causing bottlenecks in the delivery system.  He wonders why all the unemployed construction workers don't retrain as truck drivers.   What an elegant solution.  Trucks roll and unemployment is reduced.  What's not to like.  Well, if our pontificating professor had actually interviewed a few real truckers he might have gained an insight into a little known problem.  While most construction workers pull an eight hour shift and then go home to their families every night, the average long haul trucker is probably away from home for weeks at a time.  Working crazy hours for relatively low pay and not seeing your family very often is not something our academic friend would probably choose to do.  Then there is the little item called driver training; an eight week course costing several thousand dollars which will qualify you to make about $.25/loaded mile which sounds like decent money.  Hey, at 60 MPH, that's $15.00/hr.  What they neglect to tell  you is the load is 100 miles away and you don't get paid that rate for "deadhead" miles.  Also, with the new safety regs you would be hard pressed to work 40 legal hours/week.  Add in the logbook hassles, downtime between loads and the generally poor public perception of truck drivers and you can see why many unemployed workers would think twice about that particular gig.  The other wishful thought our gainfully employed bloviator opines is that the law of supply and demand does not seem to be working.  Just offer more money he says and potential drivers will be knocking your door down.  Tell that to the hundreds of freight companies that have closed their doors in the last few years because they could not generate enough money to survive at current rates.  Even the companies that are hanging on are starting to skimp on routine maintenence and are running older,  less efficient trucks because they can't afford to invest in new fleets.  The rates will go up when the demand is so overwhelming there is no choice but to offer attractive wages to get enough drivers to cash in.  Unfortunately, aside from exempt carriers who handle produce, everyone else is regulated as to the prices they can charge.  So unless Congress authorizes a new rate structure, the ranks of the "knights of the road" are unlikely to increase anytime soon.