Truck drivers make how much?

Apparently, America has a shortage of truck drivers.  To such a degree that at least for private fleets, the average trucker salaryis $73,000.  I’m not going to specify what exactly I make a year, but it’s not $73,000, and I have to imagine driving long distances is vastly less prone to dealing with office bullshit than my job is.

The amazing thing is the allegation that the reasoning for such a shortage is simply the fact that there aren’t enough people qualified to be truck drivers actually applying for these jobs.  I’m not going to assume it’s as simple as driving a Honda Civic for 12 hours straight, because I know that at least there’s the double clutch to consider and the sheer knowledge of physics that comes into play when traversing varying elevations.  But it still boils down to the fact that when all the training and preparation is done, it’s basically sitting in a gigantic car, driving things from point A to point B.

Just how much qualifications are required to be truck drivers?  They certainly can’t be that much, if the people driving all these trucks are the same people I see getting lost on the country backroads in the areas surrounding my home, or the litany of dumbasses who are crashing their cargo of food stuffs all over Metro Atlanta highways.

Continue reading “Truck drivers make how much?”