4 Ways We Can Make Truck Driving a More Attractive Career Option

Most of us will be aware that there is a shortage of truck drivers, says Houston Truck Accident Lawyer Greg Baumgartner. According to the latest figures found by the American Trucking Association, it is thought there are 40,000 truck drivers needed to make up the short fall. We feel that this trend is likely to continue. They also predict that there will be over 170,000 open trucking positions by the year 2026.

Why is this? Well, many think that the reason for the lack of drivers taking up these open positions is because most of the modern generation are unwilling to meet the trucking lifestyle requirements. Millenials place a lot of emphasis on their social life and are not able to sacrifice this for the sake of their job.

It is thought that by reducing the age of commercial truck drivers driving across state lines to 18 years old could increase the number of applicants. At the moment, truck drivers are required to be at least 21-year-old to drive from state to state. But, there is the argument that by lowering the age, more accidents will take place, as young and inexperienced drivers who have only been driving for a matter of months will not have the experience.

As a way to compensate drivers for the interruption to their social life, many believe that increasing the pay on offer is needed to attract more people to the profession. Some employers have noticed that even increasing wages on offer doesn’t seem to help. Trucking companies in this situation have been known to offer signing on bonuses to newly hired drivers, and there has been an increase in the number of ads on radio stations trying to attract new talent.

You will have likely noticed that driverless trucks have received a lot of attention in recent weeks. This of course is not a short-term solution to the lack of trucks drivers, but many believe that the future of freight is in the form of driverless trucks. Would people trust these driverless trucks? The state of Texas has the most truck crashes in the USA and adding driverless trucks to the mix could cause more problems.

For more information, check out https://www.texas-truckaccidentlawyer.com/blog/truck-driver-shortage-solutions-and-dangers/.