Well, here we are
heading towards the end of another tough year. Still lot's of
economic uncertainty to go around and austerity measures are all the
rage. Is that what we have to look forward to in 2013? I sure hope
not. Maybe we should all get together and form a 'Truckers Bank',
then we would be too big to fail and someone would come along and
bail us out. Just a thought.
Yes, 2012 has been a
real grind for me. It's not that I don't enjoy what I do but I spend
more time on the job for the same money I was earning ten years ago.
I feel like I'm treading water and I'm not sure if I can keep it up
until I reach retirement age. For me that's 15 years or so in the
future. That's a difficult thought to face every morning. Finding the
time to rest, relax, and recharge is becoming more difficult with
each passing year.
I'm an optimist at
heart so I have a difficult time sharing thoughts about our industry
that at first glance appear to be coming from a negative centre. But
that's not the case. I, like most of you, recognize that the trucking
lifestyle is unique. It's not a job you start at 9 and finish at 5.
It requires a strong commitment, work ethic, and self discipline.
Although you have to except the fact that you will be away from home
and family for extended periods you should still be able to have the
time over the course of each year to meet the obligations to your
family and to yourself.
Over ten years ago I
started on a course that saw me give up tobacco, adopt a healthy
eating regime, lose a pile of weight, and take the time each day to
get the exercise I need. By eliminating all of those high risk health
factors I feel better, at least physically, than I have at any point
in my life. Yet I still feel the daily stress from the time crunch.
It's not without irony that the time I have to take to get the
exercise I now crave, and the time I take to prepare healthy food
choices, and the time I take to rest when I need it all add to that
feeling of stress that comes from not having enough time in the day.
So is a healthy lifestyle part of the trucking lifestyle or not? Many
carriers, including my own, recognize the importance of this issue
but we still have a long way to go on making sure all drivers at
least have the opportunity to take the time to invest in their health
if they so choose. The trick is to be able to do it without giving up
any of your income stream.
Also over the past ten
years we have seen stricter enforcement of hours of service laws, the
ongoing adoption of electronic on board recorders, the implementation
of speed limiters, laws put in place to control distracted driving,
and much tougher laws in the States to rate carriers and drivers.
Soon we may also see legislation that requires testing for such
things as sleep apnea. Drivers no longer have the option to cut
corners to get the job done. Doing the job right, doing the job by
the book, requires taking the time to make sure all your ducks are in
a row all of the time. So again, the trick is to also do all of these
little extras without giving up any of your income stream.
Drivers are not the
only ones finding themselves stretched a little thin. Carriers have
faced very tough competitive pressures over the past four years along
with increased costs and the challenge of finding seasoned drivers to
get the job done. There has been a lot of pressure on driver salaries
as a result. We seem to be caught in the eye of a perfect storm.
So what is 2013 going
to bring us? Probably more of the same. I think what we really need
is some imaginative thinking. Hours of service laws, implementation
of electronic on board recorders, and carrier/driver safety ratings
are definitely not going to go away. We need to find some creative
ways to use those laws to benefit drivers directly when it comes to
issues of health and time management. I think we spend far too much
time looking backwards at what used to be and trying to reclaim
successes of the past rather than looking forward despite the current
gloomy view. It would be nice to find our way out of the eye of the
storm in 2013 wouldn't it?
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