Where the Good Drivers Are

You’re never very deep in a conversation about this industry before somebody brings up the infamous “driver shortage” that’s supposedly going to be the undoing of us all. The Canadian Trucking Human Resources Council is eager to point out that we’re going to need something on the order of 37,000 new drivers every year and that between 18,000 and 22,000 drivers will switch to other jobs at the same rate.

And it’s true.

Still, whenever we publish an issue of Today’s Trucking or our brother publication highwaySTAR, we’re constantly reminded that although there’s a shortage of drivers out there, the folks behind the steering wheels are doing us proud. And that in all the talk of shortages, we can’t lose sight of those people who are staying in the industry, year after year.

There’s no shortage of those guys.

We’ve met guys who’ve driven a gazillion miles with nary a tap on an ICC bumper, let alone a full-bore accident. How on earth do they do that?

Guys who can make a truck last reliably-profitably-for so long that the run-of-the-mill trucker would go through three rigs in that stretch, maybe four. They define the word “professional”.

Guys who risk their lives to pull four-wheeler people from burning wrecks but don’t stick around to snag the hero’s spotlight. There’s freight to deliver, man.

Guys who battle raging blizzards with a tanker full of fuel bound for some way northern town when nobody else will go, and do it time and time again. Because they couldn’t risk ambulances up there running out of gas.

Guys who routinely cook real meals for their fellow truckers stranded foodless in godforsaken warehouse yards miles from nowhere. Can’t let ’em starve, can I?
Guys who somehow find the time to organize the local Santa Claus parade and have done it every year for as long as anyone can remember. Somebody has to do it, so what if it costs me a week’s pay?

Guys who bring disadvantaged kids from the rude streets of the Bronx up to the wide-open spaces of Canada for a couple of weeks every summer and marvel at their joy in seeing… well, just grass. Simple things, big effects.

Guys who create hockey leagues for disabled kids from scratch and see it expand over the years from two players to well over a thousand.

Just because it needed doing.

Lots of guys who coach a baseball team, a soccer team, guys who clean up their local park every weekend, unasked and maybe even unappreciated, guys who just plain pitch in to get stuff done.

Many of the truckers we meet look beyond their front bumper and see themselves as part of a larger community and are sure enough of themselves to play a role in it. People for whom generosity is second nature. Who always want to do it right, no matter what the task.

You don’t need me to tell you that it’s mighty tough to be a truck driver or owner-operator today. And mighty tough to attract the good ones to your company.

But you all know guys like the ones I just described too. Another common thread that ties these folks together is that they often act as mentors and role models for younger drivers. Not everyone can be as good as they are, of course, and cloning isn’t yet a reliable technology, so their example is more than a little valuable and ought to be on display.

Letting a potential hiree in on some of your best people’s activities might just be the key to attracting some new people to your flock. After all, who wouldn’t want to be working among the best of the best?