What do drivers want? It’s the defining question for carriers today. CCJ sought to find an answer to that question and surveyed drivers in June. This is the second half of CCJ’s findings in the “What do drivers want?” series. Click here to see the first part.
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“It’s all about the money”
Not surprisingly, money emerged as the single-biggest driver concern and complaint. To put it bluntly, most drivers do not feel they are paid fairly for the job they do and are angered by the fact they feel compelled to spend long, uncompensated hours waiting to load and actually go to work, or are called upon to perform tasks that they are not paid to do.
The majority of company drivers surveyed, 30.1 percent, told CCJ that they initially went into trucking to “make a good living and provide for my family.” But many drivers feel wages have either flattened out or actually decreased during their time in the industry, and comments throughout the survey reflected this frustration.
Alarmingly, a quarter of company driver respondents reported that they made $35,000 or less last year, with one respondent remarking, “When a driver is on the road four weeks and gets three days with the family and has not made $4,000, it is an insult.”
Another commented, “There’s no money out there and too much nonsense. You make a little bit of money, and then you lose it right away by taking home time. It’s a waste of time with no life.”
