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Showing posts with label Semi-trailer truck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Semi-trailer truck. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

The Trucking Industry Needs More Drivers. Maybe It Needs to Pay More.

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com

Swift Transportation’s 20,000 workers haul goods in almost 14,000 big-rig trucks that travel the interstates and back roads of the United States every day. The company’s performance is closely tied to the nation’s economy, which has been looking increasingly sunny lately.
So it was surprising last month when Swift’s stock plummeted nearly 18 percent in a single day. The tumble came for an odd reason. It wasn’t because there was too little business — but rather, too much.
“We were constrained by the challenging driver market,” the company said in its quarterly earnings announcement. “Our driver turnover and unseated truck count were higher than anticipated.”
In other words, Swift had plenty of customers wanting to ship goods. But in a time of elevated unemployment, it somehow couldn’t find enough drivers to take those goods from Point A to Point B. How is that possible? The reasons for that conundrum tell us a great deal about what has been ailing American workers and why a full-throated economic recovery has been so slow in coming.
Consider this: The American Trucking Associations has estimated that there was a shortage of 30,000 qualified drivers earlier this year, a number on track to rise to 200,000 over the next decade. Trucking companies are turning down business for want of workers.
Yet the idea that there is a huge shortage of truck drivers flies in the face of a jobless rate of more than 6 percent, not to...
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Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Truck Driver Safety and Health

Transportation accidents are a significant cause of injuries for workers. Today's post was shared by NIOSH Transportation and comes from blogs.cdc.gov


semi truck

Truck drivers face a disproportionately high risk for fatal crash-related injuries and for serious health disorders. The 2004 fatality rate for U.S. heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers was 48.2 per 100,000 workers, approximately 11 times the rate for the general worker population. The Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses estimated 63,570 non-fatal injuries among heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers in 2004—the second highest number among all occupations.
We know this industry faces a high risk of illness and injury but the prevalence of specific health problems, and the relative contributions of occupation and health behaviors to the increased risk of injury and illness, is largely unknown. Some research associates the risk of crash-related deaths with job-related fatigue. Other studies suggest that the risks of cancer, heart attacks, and other disorders may be associated with aspects of long-haul driving such as loading and unloading cargo, irregular schedules, long hours of driving, a sedentary lifestyle, and the nature of drivers’ food choices on the road.
To help address these research gaps and better understand the risks faced by truck drivers, NIOSH is undertaking a national survey of truck driver safety and health. The survey, which grew out of stakeholder identified needs, will focus specifically on gathering baseline safety and health information among a large, representative national sample of truck drivers. We are seeking...
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