Like I said earlier, the mega carriers have kept this industry stagnant from the check book perspective of drivers. They'll hire anyone with a pulse, put them through their school, and keep them for 2 yrs. During that 2 yrs, they are paying these drivers somewhere south of 40 cents/mile. Mere peanuts. They don't care if they leave at 2 yrs, or even 6 months. They run schools every month, and fill those seats without a second though as to who is filling them. Meanwhile, they're running fleets of more than 10 thousand trucks, and securing contracts to haul an overwhelming majority of freight. Freight prices are kept low because somehow they keep finding drivers to work OTR for peanuts. This keeps the mom and pop companies that try to take care of their drivers and equipment at a disadvantage, because they simply can't haul the freight at a break even cost, or even worse at a loss to stay competitive with the megas. How do these companies keep the revolving door spinning? By filling their schools with people who wouldn't have gotten a glance from a company 20 years ago, paying them nothing, and rotating them in and out on a monthly basis. That is the majority of the OP's observation. I grew up in an O/O business, and know the struggles, time, risk and headache that comes with that. There's still money to be made, but it is much tougher now. My dad would roll over in his grave if he could see some of these jack wagons walking into truck stops now.
