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Truck drivers
- Thread starter MrJim
- Start date
You can thank the mega carrier CDL mills for this. They've driven the small fleets and owner operators out, driven the cost of freight down to margins that small companies can't afford to haul it. Then they fill their seats with anything that can fog a mirror and run them through their CDL schools and put them on 2yr contracts for the cost of the schooling. Thats why you see piss bottles and trash littering truck stops and rest areas. The quality of driver has been diminished to nothing because of them.
U.S. Dept of Labor says the average income for a big rig driver is $45,000 a year.
Figure 51 weeks of working and one week vacation per year, and that's $880 per week.
Now, since this kind of driver will LIVE ON THE ROAD with the truck, sitting in the truck almost every waking moment, sleeping in it at night, I'd say he's "working" an average of 16 hours a day, which is all the time he's not in the sleeper berth.
Some of that "work" is not driving, and it may not be difficult work, but he's still there on the job site supervising that truck and babysitting it, not free to leave it and go play on the other side of town.
So, I'd say he's working 16 hours out of each 24-hour day, and sleeping for 8.
Five consecutive days on the road per week, and he's "worked" 80 hours.
So if he earns $882 for those 80 hours on the job, he's making $11 an hour.
Any pimply-faced teenager who has graduated high school can make $11 an hour at various jobs in restaurants, retail stores, part of a work crew of entry level cleaners or landscapers or mechanics, etc.
Should the driver of a 70-foot long, 80,000 pound big rig sharing the crowded highways with YOU and your loved ones get paid the same as the airhead girl who works at the ear-piercing kiosk at the mall?
Figure 51 weeks of working and one week vacation per year, and that's $880 per week.
Now, since this kind of driver will LIVE ON THE ROAD with the truck, sitting in the truck almost every waking moment, sleeping in it at night, I'd say he's "working" an average of 16 hours a day, which is all the time he's not in the sleeper berth.
Some of that "work" is not driving, and it may not be difficult work, but he's still there on the job site supervising that truck and babysitting it, not free to leave it and go play on the other side of town.
So, I'd say he's working 16 hours out of each 24-hour day, and sleeping for 8.
Five consecutive days on the road per week, and he's "worked" 80 hours.
So if he earns $882 for those 80 hours on the job, he's making $11 an hour.
Any pimply-faced teenager who has graduated high school can make $11 an hour at various jobs in restaurants, retail stores, part of a work crew of entry level cleaners or landscapers or mechanics, etc.
Should the driver of a 70-foot long, 80,000 pound big rig sharing the crowded highways with YOU and your loved ones get paid the same as the airhead girl who works at the ear-piercing kiosk at the mall?
Just recently learned what a trucker bomb is.
Its just crazy. Haven’t seen a old white guy in what seems like years.
CDL drivers are entry level workers. Scary as hell. But everyone want's there Chinese junk hauled around for nothing cause Merica.
