Originally published at: The ATA has damaged the economics of trucking while compromising public safety - FreightWaves
The American trucking industry is facing unprecedented challenges, marked by a deepening economic crisis and deteriorating highway safety standards. While supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic brought attention to the transportation sector, the narrative surrounding these issues has been largely mischaracterized, particularly regarding the nature and extent of the purported truck driver shortage in…
Mr Spear has done more damage to our industry than good. If you see their recent Facebook post he is back pedaling on what he lobbied for.
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This article is 100% on point! I have been saying for years the driver shortage was a hoax. Market rates would not be so low if there ever was a shortage. Big corporations persuaded ATA and Transport Topics to push the driver shortage hoax to keep rates down. Basic supply and demand = market price showed there was never a shortage except the covid bubble years. Bold article!
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Let’s not forget to mention that many of these foreign, non-domiciled CDL drivers work for mostly foreign-owned trucking outfits that swap out DOT numbers whenever they get burned. These foreign-owned companies often run their operations from overseas. Their ELD compliance departments manipulate the logs, creating ghost drivers so they can run those 20-hour days.
It’s also worth mentioning that many of them send nearly all their money back home, meaning those dollars don’t circulate within the U.S. I’ve personally seen many living like squatters in their trucks because they don’t maintain a residence here. I don’t even think they understand the concept of U.S. truck stops offering free showers with a 50–60 gallon fuel purchase—because honestly, they often smell so bad it seems they believe the only way to shower is to buy one. I’ve seen plenty washing their heads, underarms, and FEET right in the restroom sinks! Many like to defec@te in a bag and throw it out the window on the floor. They also love to litter like it’s nothing. It must be normal for them back home. Absolutely disgusting!
They have no first-world expenses—no mortgage, no rent, no car payment, no insurance. Of course they’ll work for peanuts. In their eyes, they’re rich compared to what they’d earn back home. The American truck driver cannot compete with sl@ve wages. We put down roots here because we live here for the long term. This is our home. Many of these foreign drivers just plan to make enough money and retire back home. They have no allegiance or love for America. They need to go!
I used to work in a warehouse, but a while back I decided to jump into trucking. My retired uncle had made good money in it up until around 2017, and everywhere you looked, folks were talking about the so-called “driver shortage” and how truckers were cashing in. So I figured, why not give it a shot? I went and got my CDL thinking I’d finally hit something big.
Man, I knew I screwed it a few months after getting that license. I couldn’t land a job anywhere, and when one finally came by luck, it paid less than my old 8-hour warehouse gig. The work was way tougher, longer hours, and the pay didn’t come close to what I expected. That’s when it hit me — the shortage everyone talks about ain’t existing 
Swift , Werner, Schneider all got what the wanted in the long run. The ability to alaways replace cheap labor after they chewed up amd spit out the laat batch