#SWIFT TRUCKING DRIVERS#

Safety advocates say allowing teenagers to drive big rigs on long interstate trips is dangerous.

#SWIFT TRUCKING DRIVERS#

A similar program was already in existence for drivers who operated trucks in the military. The pilot program in the $550 billion infrastructure law allows those as young as 18 to drive across state lines if they complete at least 400 hours of duty time. The trucking industry employed 3.36 million truck drivers in 2020, down 6.8% from 3.5 million in 2019, according to the American Trucking Associations. The median pay for the position in 2020 was $47,130 per year, according to the U.S. Long distance truck drivers average about 125,000 miles (201,168 kilometers) per year and spend an average of 300 days on the road, according to the Woodford, Virginia-based CDS Tractor Trailer Training school. вЂњOlder drivers are leaving and retiring and weвЂ™re not bring in younger drivers to them fast enough,вЂќ he said. John Stomps, 66, president and chief executive officer of Total Transportation of Mississippi, said lowering the age limit is likely the only way to address the supply-chain crunch as it relates to trucks. Greg Regan, president of the AFL-CIOвЂ™s Transportation Trades Department, last month told a House committee that his union вЂњwants to make sure that every worker has the protectionsвЂќ of the Occupational Safety and Health AdministrationвЂ™s vaccine mandate that applies to companies with 100 or more employees.ДЇor the foreseeable future, lowering the minimum age to haul cargo across state lines appears to be the closest to being enacted. вЂњThirty-seven percent of all drivers said they would go to a company that doesnвЂ™t have a vaccinate mandate or leave the industry all together.вЂќ вЂњWeвЂ™re not anti-vaccine, but in our our survey of 120,000 truckers, 50% were vaccinated and 50% werenвЂ™t vaccinated,вЂќ Bill Sullivan, executive vice president for advocacy at the American Trucking Associations, said.

The industry argues that truck drivers should be exempt because they spend most of their time driving alone. They also want truckers to be left out of the federal vaccine mandate that is currently on hold after a federal court temporarily halted implementation. The coalition of industry groups that represent frequent shippers that wrote to Biden includes the Agricultural Retailers Association, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the American Trucking Associations and American Frozen Food Institute. вЂњLong workdays, excessive driving hours, and unreasonable delivery demands jeopardize the safety of truck drivers and motorists,вЂќ Dawn King, president of the Truck Safety Coalition, said in a statement. Safety groups have said Congress should steer clear of relaxing the scheduling rules for truckers. An exemption put in place by the Trump administration last year allows drivers making trips within a few hours of their starting point to work a 14-hour shift. And they have to be given at least one 30-minute break during the first eight hours of their shift. The Department of TransportationвЂ™s rules currently limit truckers to 11 hours in a work day and 70 hours in a week. вЂњRegulatory flexibilities, especially during emergencies, are vital to supply chain continuity,вЂќ a coalition of about 100 different trucking-related associations wrote in a Nov. But there is renewed pressure to do it as a way to ease the backlog. Like lowering the age of drivers, some of the other proposals for government action to get more people behind the wheel raise their own safety concerns.ДЄ proposal to relax federal rest requirements, for example, has been mired in controversy since the Obama administration. That lack of drivers has sent a ripple through the economy, contributing to backups at ports and kinks in the supply chain that threaten delivery of holiday gifts. But it was included in the infrastructure law at the urging of the industry, which says itвЂ™s 80,000 drivers short of where it needs to be to meet demand projections. The three-year pilot program was opposed by safety advocates who point out that teenagers crash at four times the rate of older drivers. But the new infrastructure law signed by President Joe Biden will let some drivers as young as 18 make interstate trips, a move aimed at easing the nationвЂ™s supply-chain squeeze but one thatвЂ™s raising safety concerns. He assumed he would have to wait until he turns 21 to book the lucrative, cross-country runs he took with his father.

Swift trucking