Truckers are the backbone of this nation.

[Rustyt1953]

My youngest lives 15 minutes away from Rumpke Mountain.

Rumpke Sanitary Landfill - Wikipedia

Rumpke Consolidated has a long waiting list of job applicants as they pay very well and take care of their employees.

Trash Pickup And Recycling Services | Rumpke

The place is massive.

 

[terry_tr6]

will driverless trucks still try to pass when they are only going .005mph faster than the truck they are going to pass only to give up after a couple miles and fall back? If they don't do that I am all for them.

And stop looking at my wife's legs as I pass you! I know you are you perverts, because i would be if I was driving your truck.

 

[Puller]

We have a younger generation that may end up starving themselves to death in the land of plenty.

 

[GypsmJim]

IMHO, trucking items thousands of miles across the Country one trailer at a time is stupidity! A Diesel Train can pull close to 200 rail cars that will hold 400 truck trailers all at the same time. The cost savings on goods shipments would be astronomical!

I used to be employed in a business where all of our factories operated 24 / 7 /365. Downtime was not an option.

Necessarily, we kept raw material inventories at an acceptable level. We were not a JIT business. As such, the cost of inventory was high. Nevertheless, when it needed to be replenished, it needed to be now.

When we scheduled a truck delivery, we scheduled it for a 4 hour window. It HAD to be there then. On rare occasions (like when we got a huge price cut) we ordered shipments by rail. We never knew when they would arrive. It was a good chance we could run out.

On the other end of the spectrum, our customers expected timely deliveries. Rail could not accommodate that.

For us, the extra inventory and warehouse space negated any shipping cost savings.

 

[elca86]

ive been a truck driver for over 34 years and if trucks stop america stops must freight is handle by trucks from manufacturing to distrubution and then to stores not a lot of trains deliver to stores more and more the reason for not having enough drivers are pay and treatment by companys as companys see drivers as disposable believe it or not people dont respect drivers anymore they see them as a hendrence to their daily commute its not as glamorous to people these days everything for drivers is micro managed im glad i will retire when my my cdl renews

 

[meaneyedcatz]

If you have it, a truck brought it.

 

[Chukar60]

I drove truck for several years and enjoyed it. Even went back to it on a short term basis for three years driving harvest trucks for a farmer friend.
Yes Truck drivers are an important part of our food chain and supply chain for all goods.
No they are not the most important. I have no idea how this recent elevation to sainthood for truck drivers got started.
Ever wonder what the truckers would haul if factory workers stopped working or farmers stopped farming? Ever wondered who would load or unload their trucks if the warehouse people quit working? What about the people who produce and distribute the fuel the trucks run on? Or the folks who make their tires or install them.
I have a big appreciation for both long and short haul truck drivers, but see no logic in elevating them to some pedestal above all others in the supply chain. Anyone who is working and a productive and responsible member of society is a blessing.

 

[GaryS]

Since the first of the year we've taken two road trips from MA to SC.

Most of the trip was on Interstates and my wife noticed that there were lots and lots of trucks on the road. In a one minute stretch she counted 50 trucks heading the other way. She never realized before how much material is moved by truck.

She also became fascinated by the sleeper cabs on many of the trucks. Then she looked at the cost of tractors with and without sleepers.

She was amazed at how much they cost to buy. I mentioned that they were also expensive to maintain.

As the OP mentions, the average age of truck drivers is creeping up and a lot of younger people have no interest in a life on the road.

The answer may be self driving trucks, but I think even those are always going to need drivers in the cab just in case.

 

[GaryS]

My son graduated from MMA in 2005. He never wanted to ship out, so his degree is in one of the non marine majors. Ironically, he ended up on the terminal end of the business.

It's a great school and most kids come out of there with job offers no matter what their major. They also have the opportunity to become commissioned officers in the military upon graduation.

Marine Transportation is major for bridge officer. "Deckies" as they are called.

Sorry for the thread drift.

Any mariners out there?
Just had 2 former students graduate from Mass Maritime College and SUNY Maritime with a Marine Transportaion degree.

 

[SMSgt]

Without farmers, truckers will starve to death.

All jobs are relevant. Did no one learn anything from essential/non-essential job classifications?

 

[BigBill]

Farmers grow crops first. Without the farmers we all starve,

The bottom line is the farmers, the trains, the truckers, small bakery's, super markets everyone is a tooth on the gear, if one tooth breaks we all starve.

 

[coltle6920]

IMHO, trucking items thousands of miles across the Country one trailer at a time is stupidity! A Diesel Train can pull close to 200 rail cars that will hold 400 truck trailers all at the same time. The cost savings on goods shipments would be astronomical!

I believe it is rare,if it happens at all,that a truck leaves the East coast with a load solely for the West coast. Trucking companies have hubs and will for the most part stay within their region. They may hand off a shipment to someone else and then try to bring a load back with them.

Trains carry a lot of coal across country. They carry fuel or oil in tankers to refineries. They carry Conex containers offloaded from ships on the West coast. Companies may piggyback shipments on a freight train but I doubt it's as frequent as one would think.

Having said that you still need trucks to transport items to their final destination. I don't see any tracks behind the local Walmart or Costco.

The infrastructure is what it is and it works pretty darn well. You wouldn't get that scope from Midway very quickly if it went by train. The USPS has it's own unique problems but trains wouldn't solve them.Trucks wouldn't cause as many deaths if weren't for the idiot drivers that refuse to give them space on the highways.

It isn't a perfect system we have but if you compare us to other Countries it's the best by comparison.

 

[coltle6920]

Without farmers, truckers will starve to death.

All jobs are relevant. Did no one learn anything from essential/non-essential job classifications?

And without truckers there wouldn't be an agricultural industry like there is today. Nothing would get to market.Everything would rot in the ground and EVERYONE would starve.

 

[coltle6920]

Farmers grow crops first. Without the farmers we all starve.

We can all live on Spam. That's not a crop.

 

[coltle6920]

Nobody has elevated truck drivers to sainthood but so much of our daily needs depends on trucks getting to us. For the time being there is no better answer.

I am reminded of the story about body organs arguing about who was the most important. If you heard it you know what I mean.

 

[Rustyt1953]

I have taken a mental inventory of the items under my roof and have surmised that a lot of them spent time on one of these:

 

[GaryS]

Just about anything that you buy that is made in another country comes here in one of those.

Except cars and trucks of course. Those come in vehicles designed specifically for that purpose. Although, cars and trucks can be shipped on container ships. I'd have to either look it up or ask my son how that works. He explained it to me a few years ago, but I forget the details now.

I have taken a mental inventory of the items under my roof and have surmised that a lot of them spent time on one of these:

 

[SMSgt]

We can all live on Spam. That's not a crop.

I'm opting for the Beenie Weenies.

 

[CH4]

I always had respect for professional drivers and was eager to give them the road so they could safely get their cargo to its final destination.

Unfortunately, in recent years my experiences on the interstates has been, should I say, less than happy.

I have witnessed too many unsafe and abhorrent driving by way too many "professional drivers".

"Some" of youse guys need to get your act together. It wasn't this way 40 years ago...

Yeah, things have changed. Some companies hire anyone with a CDL and a pulse. Some companies are famous for their "not so swift" drivers.

 

[Absalom]

IMHO, trucking items thousands of miles across the Country one trailer at a time is stupidity! A Diesel Train can pull close to 200 rail cars that will hold 400 truck trailers all at the same time. The cost savings on goods shipments would be astronomical! ….

… The main reason (at least as I see it) this hasn't happened is because of the Unions not allowing it to happen.…

Given the competitiveness and razor-thin profit margins in the logistics business, if there were any significant, let alone "astronomical" savings to be had anywhere, everybody in the business would be doing it.

And any unions being able to steer the business structure in such a fundamental way, you must be thinking of the situation of the 1950s/60s, before Jimmy Hoffa and RFK jointly began destroying the American labor movement. That's all distant history.

As was already mentioned, the problem is more the state of the rail network. And the immutable large-scale geography of North America which forever prevents rails from being the efficient means of distribution that they are in densely settled regions like Europe.