Texas trucking companies reaching all-time high for driver shortage

One of the newer trucks recently purchased by Highway Transport. Keeping their trucks and facilities up-to-date are part of their goal to attract new and young drivers. Photo: Contributed by Highway Transport.

FREEPORT — A national shortage of truck drivers spells bad news for consumers across the United States, whether the products are food, technology, clothing or even chemicals. If a product comes in by sea or by air, or is made within the country’s borders, a truck is needed to deliver it directly to the people that need it.

“You. Me. Mom and dad. It hurts anybody that’s buying bread, milk, eggs. I mean, at the end of the day, there’s not a single thing that doesn’t come to you via truck,” President and CEO John Esparza of the Texas Trucking Association said. “Unless you live on a dock in a port of Houston or in the Gulf of Mexico or you live high up in the mountains where only at an airport you can get your goods. We’re reminded that everything comes to us, even if it’s the first mile or the last mile, on the back of a truck.”

In Texas, Esparza said he estimates as many as 50,000 drivers are needed, a number that could triple by 2025. Sammy Golden, a retired truck driver living in Sweeny, said he thinks those numbers could actually be worse.

“Keep in mind, those numbers given by the state, those testing for a license to drive a bus are included with the truck drivers. You have 98 percent of people passing the test for the bus,” Golden said in regards to the difference between Class A (for 18-wheelers) and Class B (for garbage trucks, school buses, etc.) CDL licenses.

The Causes

Many factors can explain the shortage but none weighs more heavily than the simple lack of new drivers. Esparza said, initially, it was the low pay, long hours on the road and time away from family that deterred people from becoming a trucker.

“The pay was so low compared to the expenses on the road, it wasn’t feasible unless you ate Twinkies and drank coke all the time,” Golden said.

The American Trucking Association attributes the high number of truckers retiring compared to a strikingly low number of new, young drivers replacing them as the primary reason for the shortage. Adjustments to testing requirements by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) may also be a factor in the shortage according to Esparza.

“At the Federal level, they changed aspects of the test that now essentially add a backup maneuver. This maneuver requires you to have more space to be able to take a test. When that happened, they reduced 190 locations in the state of Texas where you could get your CDL testing done down to 25,” Esparza said. “Now, it is not uncommon to have an eight to 10 week wait to be able to take your CDL test in the state of Texas. That can be frustrating to people who are ready to go earn after they get their CDL. Now they have to wait two months. I might lose them to a better job or any job at that point.”

On the other hand, Alejandra Cid, management consultant with AAA CDL School in Houston, said the new regulations are meant to make drivers safer.

“They’re doing it to have better qualified drivers so they raised the standards,” Cid said.

If longer wait times for the exams don’t deter future licensees, the cost of the training and exam might. At the AAA CDL School, the cost of the minimum training required by the government is $3,000, a standard price for many CDL schools. For those that already have training and only need to take the exam, it’s $600 to rent a truck. Inexperienced truck drivers make just under $21,000 a year according to the American Trucking Association.

Testing packages include two chances to pass the test. After that, students have to pay extra. Cid said while many students fail the test the first time, most of their students pass it the second time.

“The ones that really really get into studying and throw their energy into it are the ones that pass,” Cid said. “We also have a language barrier because we have students from all around the world. We have students from Nigeria, from Salvador, from Mexico, from China and from Iran.”

Technology is also shaping the trucking industry. Some companies are creating self-driving trucks to put out on the road meaning drivers aren’t even needed. Meanwhile, companies like Amazon and Wal-Mart are offering free shipping, making it difficult for trucking companies to compete.

“It kills me in this day and age that someone can order from Amazon Prime and it says ‘free shipping’. There’s no such thing as free shipping,” Esparza said.

According to a May 28 report by The Washington Post, even Amazon and Wal-Mart are facing a trucker shortage. The report states that around 51,000 drivers are needed to meet their demand, a demand that is only growing as more and more people flock to their websites to purchase goods.

Potential Solutions

As trucking companies are grow desperate for drivers, they are offering more and more benefits, higher pay and flexible schedules in an attempt to attract drivers. Highway Transport, a chemical transport company based in Knoxville, Tennessee with a service location in Freeport, is targeting new, younger drivers by updating their facilities and trucks.

“We do that by having Wi-Fi in all of our service centers, by having really nice driver facilities such as really nice showers. Just creature comforts for them,” Wendy Drummer, a spokesperson for Highway Transport, said. “Also, we try to have the latest driving fleets with the latest technology. All of the latest technology and creature comforts that might pique the interest of a driver from a different demographic.”

The Texas Trucking Association is working with Sen. John Cornyn and other representatives in the state of Texas in the hopes of getting laws passed or regulations changed. For example, nationally, drivers don’t get feedback if they fail any portion of the three-part test and must retake the entire test even if they only failed one part. Recently, the Texas Trucking Association was able to work with the Texas Department of Public Safety to change that Esparza said.

“Fortunately, we worked with our DPS and we were able to do some things in the state of Texas. Now, you are able to see what things you did wrong. We also got third party testing which has been running as a state-wide pilot. But it only adds a little bit to [the driver shortage]. We’re at maybe 26 locations instead of 25,” Esparza said.

Esparza said he thinks allowing drivers between the ages of 18 and 20 to get their license could also significantly increase the number of drivers. Those under the age of 21 are allowed to start driving trucks within the state but have to wait until they turn 21 to get their CDL. According to Esparza, the Texas Trucking Association is trying to change that.

“We have to talk about integrating more of the 18 to 21 year olds. We lose them at times when we wait before they’re 21, as law requires, for them to hold a CDL but at 18, you can go out there and drive intrastate. You know there’s experienced drivers out there that show up at 21 and now they can drive interstate,” Esparza said. “We support a pilot program to allow 18, 19 and 20 year olds that demonstrate the skills to acquire the CDL earlier when it can be identified that you have certain skill-sets that suggest to us this is going to be a qualified driver.”

Another solution that could potentially add hundreds of drivers to the field is veterans. Esparza said many in the military receive the same training and experience needed for truck driving to drive certain military trucks during their service but still have to go through CDL training and testing once they retire.

“We have worked with John Cornyn to help pass laws at the national level to recognize that you have veterans coming back from overseas that have experience driving trucks. We want to recognize that experience and clear a path for them to attain their CDL in recognizing that experience,” Esparza said. “If someone has just driven motor pool for two years in a tour of duty overseas and they come back and want to be a truck driver, gollee, there is a chance they’re going to be a truck driver.”

Offering a small glimmer of hope is the sudden uptick in women drivers in the past two to three years. Women once made up only three percent of truck drivers. Now, that number has climbed to roughly seven percent according to the Texas Trucking Association. AAA CDL School said females once made up only three percent of their student body but now make up six percent.

Is it too late?

While all of these solutions will add truck drivers back into the pool, there is no guarantee they will bring a significant increase in truck drivers. Trucking companies are already suffering. According to a 2016 report by the Wall Street Journal, 120 trucking companies went out of business that year, a sudden jump from 70 companies that went out of business the year before.

Drummer said Highway Transport has as many as 20 unused trucks out of their fleet of 350 due to driver shortage on any given day. Sometimes, they even have to turn down customers.

“Not being able to grow your sales as much as you would like, that definitely has an impact,” Drummer said. “We are growing. We’re in a strong growth pattern right now. But even with that being said...our sales force is challenged because we wouldn’t want them to go out and try to capture a piece of business that we didn’t have the capacity to staff.”

Esparza said even with the many solutions available, eliminating the trucker shortage is complicated at best.

“No one has a silver bullet, I think that’s the problem,” Esparza said.

For the entire country, the shortage is already in the triple digits, though the exact figure is constantly changing according to the American Trucking Association. They estimate the shortage to be as high as 175,000 by 2025.