Driver Wages - Feeling Squeezed?

A couple of interesting articles out over the past week that you may have seen circling around. The first from Overdrive Online titled 'ATRI:Cost of Trucking Fell in 2012 Due to Driver Pay Decrease'. View it here. The second from 'The Globe & Mail titled Trucking Companies:Stocks for the Long Haul'. View it here.

With all the talk of driver shortages, the need for better training, the fact that drivers are still classed as unskilled labour, and a continuing trend of saddling drivers with greater accountability in meeting safety & compliance standards that do little to improve the quality of working conditions that a driver faces each day, we now see evidence that drivers are doing what they do for less money while others reap the benefits of their hard work. I raises many questions that drivers should be asking themselves.

The industry is forecasting that mergers & acquisitions will continue at a strong pace in 2014. How will consolidation of the industry effect the driver on the front line? Will pressure on wages continue? Will we see any investment in training and education or will "safety through enforcement" continue to be the trend?

Will consolidation and the push for short term financial gains for investors see the push for drivers to become owner operators continue. As pointed out in the Globe article this "asset light" model allows large companies to respond quickly to market conditions. In other words the operating costs have been largely passed on to the individual owner operator and if there is a downturn in the market or loss of a major contract guess who absorbs the bulk of the financial pain.

It was pointed out while discussing this on my twitter feed that there are successful owner operators out there. It's not surprising that a successful O/O also has a strong set of business skills and has aligned themselves with a company that recognizes long term success is built from the ground up. But is that the focus of the large publicly traded corporate trucking sector?

There are many factors to consider but it looks to me like the trend does not bode well for the average driver busting his ass out here on the front lines pretty much 24/7. Nor does it speak to a safer and healthier environment for drivers to work in.

What do you think?

New U.S. Hours of Service Rules Create More Stress For Drivers

This post appears in the September 2013 edition of Truck News

From the driver reaction I've witnessed on social media recently, the half hour compulsory break included in the FMCSA hours of service rule changes that came into effect this past July 1 seem to have released a whole bunch of pent up frustration within the driver pool. I think it is the most foolish rule to be imposed yet. Why? Because how many drivers in North America were not taking at least a half hour break once per day either in the form of a meal break or off duty time at the dock? I've heard the word “stress” used more by drivers since July 1 than ever before.

Stress has been on my mind a lot in the past few years. If your a driver perhaps it has been on your mind too. I've been feeling stressed out despite experiencing many positive things in my life. This had me concerned to the point that I was even perusing mental health websites at one point checking the warning signs for depression. I just seem to be in a funk, a general feeling of fatigue and frustration. I'm generally not unhappy although that pops up from time to time. In a way I've been glad to hear more drivers voicing their concerns over stress on the job. I'm obviously not alone.

As I look back over the columns I have written the issue of time spent on the job comes up quite frequently, and I usually relate that to feelings of stress. I've called it the difficulty in finding a balance between work and home when the scale is always tipped towards the amount of time spent on the job. So obviously I haven't found a solution to resolve the feelings of stress. So I've been asking myself, what gives here? My wife and I have a loving relationship that strengthens with each passing year. We have a wonderful daughter and two beautiful grandchildren. The relationship I have with my employer is built on honesty and integrity and provides well for my family. When I look around at the state of the world I recognize how lucky I am and I am truly grateful.

Despite all those positives I still find myself asking the question: Is this trucking lifestyle really for me? I find myself thinking about the many things I'm missing out on as I cruise down the road. Thoughts of family, of play, of hobbies, and of relaxing and doing nothing at all. As a driver do you find yourself asking similar questions? When you get to your home time is it frenzied and rushed and does that suck some of the enjoyment out of that time?

Here's an example from my own life. Home renovation is something my wife and I enjoy doing together. Our home is somewhat of a playground for us. My wife has a flare for design and can visualize changes in her minds eye. I can make it happen. Our skills compliment one another and we really enjoy that time together. We are just finishing up a major kitchen renovation we started in the fall of 2010! Because of my recent push to see this project finished up I have not been getting to the gym on a regular basis or getting out for my regular runs. A regular exercise regimen has become an important part of my life over the past decade. I'm missing it. That limited home time has seen me sacrifice one thing I enjoy doing for another. That frustrates me. Situations like this arise time and again for me.

Okay, so as drivers we know we can't have it all. This profession requires that you commit a large block of your time to the job. That's why it is so important that we maintain the ability to decide for ourselves how we use that time. I think the mandatory imposition of the half hour break has hit a sore spot in this regard. It's politics, not common sense. It's window dressing to satisfy the strong safety lobby that exists out there but does nothing more than place an additional burden of compliance on the driver.

As far as the stress I feel goes, I know that for the most part it is self imposed. When I stop thinking about all of the things I want to do when I get home and bring my mind into the present moment I enjoy every minute I am out on the road. When I am at home and put aside thoughts of the limited time I have available and of all of the things I won't get done and simply enjoy the present moment, again, I am able to enjoy every minute of that time. That advice I give to myself appears to be a simple and sensible solution. It's anything but.

Why We Do What We Do

This post appears in the August 2013 edition of Truck News

A Week in the Life

Despite being passionate about what you do and the enjoyment you may derive from your work, there are times when you ask yourself why it is you do what you do. It's a question that usually arises after an unusually busy or challenging time. Sometimes I experience a week on the road like this. You would think that doing a dedicated route week in and week out life would be somewhat predictable. But when you choose truck driving as a means to earn a living 'predictable' is a word that you quickly learn to treat with a good deal of skepticism.

My work week starts every Saturday morning at my home terminal in Ayr, ON. The week before my vacation in July was like most weeks for me. A bit of a scramble to get out of the house, then an hours trek to the yard, then pack my gear in the truck, then a thorough pretrip, and then hit road. I typically find myself in Wawa on Saturday nights with a 1000 kilometers under my belt. But the trucking gods had other plans. I hit fairly heavy rain showers as I headed through Toronto and the heavy weekend traffic was playing stop and go across highway 401 and then north up highway 400 to the highway 89 interchange. By the time I got up to Sault Ste. Marie I was a couple of hours behind my normal travel time and fighting fatigue. I ended up stopping short of Wawa and sleeping the night away parked in a snowplow turn around.

Waking up refreshed on Sunday morning I was raring to go but the day was going to be filled with fog and rain. The rain I don't mind but the fog is another issue. This was patchy fog rolling in off Lake Superior. At times it was so thick you couldn't see much past the front of your hood then it would thin out to a mist for a few kilometers teasing you with the expectation that you were driving out of it. That's the way it was for over 600 kilometers until I cleared Thunder Bay, then it was just misty rain that cleared up as I approached Dryden. The clouds parted just in time for me to drive into a blinding sunset.

The traffic and weather had added a couple of hours of drive time to my trip on this week. When I stepped out of my seat at the end of the day on Sunday I experienced that lightheaded mental fatigue unique to the world of driving. It's a feeling that comes with almost 13 hours of straining to see beyond and through the fog. I hate fog. I'd rather spend a week driving in blinding snow. I'd better be careful what I wish for.

Monday morning found me just east of Winnipeg with 8 drops to do. The first was a simple drop in Arborg, MB about 100 kilometers north of the Peg. After completing my drop in Arborg I headed down into Winnipeg and banged of 4 drops then headed east to Portage La Prairie. So far things had been pretty smooth. It was a beautiful sunny day and my drops were going well but that was about to change. I had some store fixtures to drop at a small retail outlet in Portage La Prairie. It turned out that it was just one man and myself to unload these blanket wrapped store counters. It was 28 Celsius outside but in the nose of my black trailer with a fiberglass roof the temperature was well into the 40's. A solid 90 minute workout. Time for a clean dry shirt.

From Portage La Prairie it was off to MacGregor, MB to drop off a single skid. This delivery was to a Hutterite colony off the beaten path south of MacGregor so it took a little time to navigate the gravel farm access roads. That was drop number 7, just one more to go.

My last delivery of the day was a 2 hour drive from MacGregor in Altona, MB. This was a delivery of home furnishings to a small retail store only accessible after hours due to its central location in town and lack of a truck level dock. Hand bomb time again, a sweaty end to the day.

I arrived at the truck stop in Morris, MB with 5 minutes left to go before my 16 hour window closed. It was almost 10:00 PM. With over 400 miles driving and 8 deliveries completed it was another exceptionally busy day. I was just shy of 38 hours total on duty time in three days. That's when I found myself asking the question, “why do I do what I do”? The really scary thing is that after 2 weeks of vacation I know I'll be itching to get back on the road.

Drivers Need to Participate in the Rulemaking Process

This post appears in the July 2013 edition of Truck News

We're now into our sixth year since the amended Canadian Hours of Service regulations came into effect on January 1, 2007. Remember those heady days? I remember being impressed by the sleep research that had been done leading up to those changes. I felt at the time that they were much needed changes and they made a lot of sense. A driver would be able to operate based on their circadian rhythm and reduce fatigue by getting a better quality of sleep/rest. It was a good plan on paper. But even though the intent was to benefit the driver I can remember twisting myself in every direction that first year to accommodate the movement of freight. It fell to drivers (and safety departments) to adapt the new rules to the existing business model. I can remember the general sentiment being, “Well, you can't expect shippers and receivers to change how they do business overnight. They're our customers after all.”

As a consequence of how these rules were implemented we (drivers) continue to love to hate them. The one size fits all application doesn't work for all drivers. The rules often hinder the efficient use of a drivers time which ends up adding to their level of fatigue. Is it fair to say we were victimized by a piece of legislation that was originally proposed to make life better/safer for the commercial driver and for the public we share the roads with? I think it probably is. In fact more and more drivers are endorsing the use of electronic recorders to enforce these rules in order to bring the rest of the industry in line. Now this is only my opinion based on my experience and feedback from other drivers, but I think it paints a fairly accurate picture.

So what happened? Why did we not benefit from all the years of research focused on the driver? Why do we continue to struggle with this legislation today? I think it is because of the lack of driver feedback at the planning stage.

For the last three years or so I have been participating in a couple of transportation health & safety groups. I've been attending monthly meetings as much as I possibly can and offering a drivers perspective on the topic(s) being discussed. One thing quickly became obvious to me. I am often the only driver in the room. So when it comes to raising driver concerns about pending legislation or rule changes that affect them, drivers are often represented by proxy only, in the form of a company’s safety & compliance department. So despite the best effort and intentions of all the other parties involved in putting forward and implementing rules that effect drivers those rules usually come up short in the eyes of the commercial driver.

There are over 300,000 active commercial drivers in Canada. That's a big number. With so much at stake am I the only one that finds it unusual that drivers are grossly underrepresented when it comes to how they are governed? How would the hours of service rules look today if drivers were represented in the planning stage in the same proportion they are represented in the industry? I think things would be different in a very positive way. But we'll never know. What a shame.

By being involved in the planning and implementation process people usually take ownership of the final product which helps to insure a positive outcome. By standing apart from the process people tend to feel the final product has been foisted on them. So it's not surprising that rules originally intended to empower drivers have left them feeling victimized.

So what is going to happen as the collection of data is expanded to in cab monitoring? Is this the direction telematics is headed in? Is this how high risk drivers will be identified as technology rolls out? How will it effect the morale of the existing driver pool and does it matter to the next generation of drivers or will monitoring technology simply not be a big deal to a new generation of drivers brought up living openly online? I think it's very important to the industry as a whole that we find a way to include a high level of driver feedback about data collection. If drivers don't buy into this expanding technology that monitors their behavior it could present another roadblock in the recruiting and retention of professional drivers.

I don't have a ready made solution to resolving this communication problem but it is becoming more important than ever that drivers be involved in the planning process. If drivers truly want to feel like partners in the process rather than victims of circumstance they need to step up and take a seat at the table.

Loss of Independence, Freedom Causes Drivers too Adopt Victim Mentality

This Post Appears in the June 2013 edition of Truck News

It's become increasingly difficult over the past decade for drivers to maintain a positive outlook day in and day out as they go about their daily business. I think the greatest challenge that drivers face in this industry is to not subscribe to a victim mentality. But unfortunately I think that a great majority of drivers do just that. Many drivers appear to believe that decision making is becoming increasingly out of their control, whether it is decisions made at the company policy level or decisions made at the legislative / compliance level. In an industry that markets commercial driving as a career providing a high level of freedom and independence to the individual that's a big problem don't you think?

I'm into my fifteenth year now as a long haul driver and I've met some of the most creative problem solvers in the guise of other drivers over the course of that time. But these days it seems the outlet that trucking has provided for that creativity and independent thinking is drying up. I think in large part that is due to how the trucking industry is adopting all the technological changes. I believe the driver has a lot bigger part to play in how technology is adopted and deployed than what we currently do. Whether we are talking about engine emissions, telematics, or EOBR's, the operations, safety, and compliance side of trucking see technological advances in these areas as positive whereas drivers see these as the opposite.

Okay, I'm painting both sides with a very broad brush here so cut me a little slack. Let me see if I can use my own experience to make a few points.

Let's start with emissions systems. First off let me say that I believe the intent behind the adoption of this technology is sound and I'm all for leaving a better world behind for my grandchildren or at least a world that offers them the same opportunities I've had. But eliminating pollution of any type is ongoing and repairing damage already done through past activity is a long term endeavor that all of us will have to pay for. The free ride on the fossil fuel train is over. But that doesn't mean all the hardship should fall on the shoulders of one group, such as owner operators. Freight rates have to increase to cover added costs. Fragile economy or not, consumers need to bear the true cost of getting products to market. Period. This technology comes with a price tag for the positive changes we all benefit from in the long run. We're all consumers, we should all pay. If you disagree with me on this point that's fine. Let's move on to how I think this effects a drivers freedom and independence.

It was not many years ago that the engine in your truck was free from any form of electronic gadgets. No electronic control modules and no sensors. Like any mechanical device they were not too difficult to understand. Mechanical controls can be seen and fairly easily understood. The relationship between working parts is fairly obvious. For a driver, especially a driver that owns their own truck, maintaining that piece of equipment was simply part of the driving job. It was a part of the job that many of us took pride and pleasure in. The ability to service and maintain your own equipment added to the freedom & independence you would experience on the road. A driver would not find themselves sitting on the side of the road waiting for a tow because the engine had shut itself down.

This past winter I've experienced down time as a result of DEF pump failure, DEF dosing valve failure, and cracked DEF hoses. In each instance the only indication I have of a problem is a check engine light and a malfunction indicator lamp lighting up on my dash accompanied by a loss of power of at least 25%. I have no idea how long I can drive before the engine derates even further. I have lost all independent control over my equipment with no means to correct it myself. Only other drivers can relate to the immense sense of frustration and stress this brings on.

Drivers are also experiencing this sense of 'loss of control' in other areas. The introduction of Electronic on Board Recorders and the ensuing expansion of telematics within the industry is leaving drivers with the feeling that big brother is watching every move and decision making is increasingly being removed from the confines of the cab to the home office. This translates to a loss of independent control the driver experiences and hence the loss of the sense of freedom that is a integral part of attracting professionals into this field.

I'll come back to this topic next month and dig a little deeper into that victim mentality we seem to have fallen into.

The Importance of Having a Support Network

This post appears in the May 2013 edition of Truck News

So you found that deep desire to make a lifestyle change, then you took it one step further and put a plan together to tackle that change. Doing this filled you with energy and motivation for the first month but you're discovering that implementing that plan each day is not so easy. When you woke up this morning your first thought was of how little time was available to get to your first drop or pick. The morning walk you planned is going to have to wait. You were going to follow up that walk with cereal and fresh fruit in the truck. No time for that either. A reheated breakfast sandwich from the truck stop along with a coffee on the fly is how you start your day. That's a bit of a step back for you.

After looking after the morning business you'll take a two hour break and have that walk along with a healthy lunch. But you're delayed at the shipper and dispatch just sent you a message, your pick up appointment has been moved forward this afternoon. On top of that it's starting to rain. You're not going for a walk in the rain, even if you did have the time.

Now you're hungry, frustrated, and short on time so for lunch you opt for the meal deal at the restaurant across the street from where you are parked. You can go for that walk when the day is over and you'll keep dinner to soup and salad that you have in the truck. That will make up for the breakfast and lunch plans that didn't pan out as you planned. At least you hope that's the way the rest of the day will go.

Does this sound familiar? Despite all your best intentions and desire to do a better job of caring for yourself trucking will always throw roadblocks in your way. You can't be blamed for throwing up your hands on days like this and telling yourself it's simply not doable, but it is, believe me. These are the times you need a network of support to help you along.

Support can come in many different forms. One of the best things you can do to support yourself and keep yourself motivated in the short term is to measure your progress. Recording your weight and calculating your BMI (Body Mass Index) once or twice per month is one of the simplest ways to track progress. Recording your RHR (Resting Heart Rate) once per month is a great way to track improvements to your cardiac health from those walks your taking. Simple things you can record on a calendar and look at each day to remind yourself of the benefits to the effort your putting forth and to keep you motivated.

One of the greatest supports can come in the form of your smart phone or laptop. I've mentioned a number of times the importance of counting calories and a smart phone application makes this quick and simple to do. Not only do these apps track your calories in & out, and the composition of your food, (fats, protein, carbs etc.) most of them also have a social media aspect to them. You can share information on your progress with people of your choosing. This is a fantastic way to find support. It adds a challenge in the way of a little competition with friends and gives you some people to share with when you are facing difficulties in sticking to your program.

What about the carrier you work for? Do they support a healthy lifestyle for their drivers? They should because besides being the right thing to do for their employees it also is very beneficial to their bottom line in. Do they have an EAP (Employee Assistance Program) you can make use of to meet your weight loss goals, to help you quit smoking, or to help you deal with the daily stresses you face?

What about your family? Have you included the people closest to you in your plans? Again, this is an area that social media can play a strong roll for truck drivers and their families. I use Facebook as a means to stay in regular daily contact with my immediate family. It's one of the great advantages we have over drivers of the past.

Networks of support are almost endless. The Canadian Cancer Society, Heart & Stroke Foundation, your local Y or health club, as well as all levels of government, just to name a few, have vast resources of information and personnel available to you.

It's no easy feat to spend your life on the road and care for yourself at the same time. Taking that time is difficult to do, I speak from experience. Yet every time I take my wife into my arms and look into her eyes I am reminded of the benefits the future holds for me by caring for myself today. There's no bigger reward than that.

Don't Set Sights Too High When Striving For Better Health

This post appears in the April 2013 edition of Truck News

Last month I introduced you to my personal doctrine that has improved my health and quality of life on the road. This personal wellness program has three principles. First you have to answer the question; 'do I really want to change'? If you answer yes then you should move forward and identify your own personal desires, passions, and ambitions that make up that lifelong aspiration for change. I talked about this last month. The second principle is to develop a flexible plan, I'll address that today, and the third principle is to develop a support network.

The trick that I have learned over the years is not to set my sights too high. I've learned that all my short term goals are subject to change and need to adapt to the constant changes that occur in a truckers daily life. This is the essence of a flexible plan. The last thing you want to do is to add even more stress to an already stressful life.

My first goal was to quit smoking on my 40^th birthday, I viewed this as a birthday present to myself. After multiple attempts over the years I finally got that monkey off my back I promised myself that first year that I wasn't going to worry about what I ate and I wasn't going to start a high intensity exercise program. I focused on quitting smoking and didn't worry about the rest. I did have a second goal on that birthday morning and that was to be in the best shape of my life by the time I reached my 50^th birthday. I didn't know how I was going to reach that goal exactly, but I had 10 years to figure it out. That's definitely not setting your sights too high.

Six months in I felt I had the smoking habit beat. I'd been packing on some weight but I had given myself the freedom to not worry about that hadn't I? But If I could beat the smoking habit I could control my diet couldn't I? I started to think about what I was eating and how much. At 9 months in I bought a calorie counting program for my PDA (before the era of smart phones) and started tracking what I ate. I wasn't dieting, I was just eager to establish some new goals when I reached my 1 year non smoking anniversary. Success was building my self confidence in reaching the 10 year goal I'd set. I still had 9 years left and I was on a roll. But then I hit a big obstacle.

Changing my eating habits was far more difficult than quitting smoking. I never have to smoke again but I have to eat everyday and I love food. It looked so easy on paper when I input my weight loss goals into a software application. But that application doesn't account for the deep emotional ties I have to what I eat and why I eat it. Cutting my calorie intake down from over 3000 calories a day to around 2000 per day was a big shock. In our line of work how do you lose weight and change eating habits you've developed over a lifetime without setting your sights too high? I struggled with this problem for years. Calorie counting showed me that empty calories, fat, sugar, and salt were coming from the comfort foods that had become staples in my diet. Common sense told me I should be eliminating these foods and replacing them with healthier fare. But I depended on these foods to pass the time, to keep me awake, and to reward myself for the long hours I worked. It was years before I came to accept that the short term sensory pleasure I gained from these foods was the primary cause of my long term suffering with obesity. Not setting my sights too high when it came to weight loss and changing deeply ingrained eating habits was a long and difficult lesson to learn. I'm still learning.

What I eat is one factor in the weight loss equation, the other factor is exercise, not just to aid in weight loss but to improve my cardiac health and overall physical health at the same time. How did I find the time to exercise in a truckers day? Again I was faced with the challenge of not setting my sights too high, and constantly adapting to find the right mix.

I attained the goal of being in the best shape of my life by age 50 but it wasn't just because I had a flexible plan that adapted to my daily circumstance. That plan is sandwiched between two powerful sources of motivation. First is the passion, desire, and resolve to live a healthy life. Second are networks of support to get me through the daily grind. That's what I'll look at next month.

Achieving a Healthy Lifestyle Begins With an Aspiration

This post appears in the March 2013 edition of  Truck News

I closed off my February column with a commitment to sharing some thoughts about how I keep myself motivated to exercise and eat right while dealing with the rigors of the trucking lifestyle. I started laughing at myself over this. After all I'm a truck driver not some sort of motivational guru. There is no sugar coating the fact that it is as hard as hell to put in all the hours we put in as professional drivers and still find the time to exercise and prepare healthy meals. The availability of time, or lack of it, is most often cited by drivers as the reason we don't take better care of ourselves. I don't disagree with that statement at all. It's a fact.

The irony is that successful professional drivers possess the personal traits required to create the time in their lives to make that lifestyle change. Professional drivers are self starters, they have the ability to plan and organize, they have the ability to solve problems as they arise, they are able to roll with the punches, they are patient, they are tenacious, and they posess a high level of commitment.

I can share three things with you that I have learned since I smoked my last cigarette in the fall of 2000 and kicked off my quest to improve the quality of my life. These are not mind blowing ideas or practices. I haven't developed some sort of revolutionary health plan. To me these three things are just common sense.

• I have maintained an aspiration to make healthy choices and practices a priority in my life.
• I have an ongoing and flexible plan to adopt those healthy choices and practices.
• I have developed a support network to help me stay focused on those healthy choices and practices.

So you see I don't have any big motivational secret or quick fix solution to the health challenges we face everyday as professional drivers. In effect I don't allow my personal health and well being to be less important than the freight I handle everyday. When I started it didn't look this simple or straightforward to me. It was a messy struggle that started with a deep desire for change.

I often say that there is no point trying to make a change in your life if you don't want to change. It's why I use the word aspiration and not goal or objective. To aspire to change speaks to an emotional need, a passion, an ambition, a deep desire. It's often a significant emotional event you have experienced that triggers the deep desire to make a change in your life. For me it was a noticable decline in my health between the ages of 38 and 40. I described myself at that time as a train wreck just waiting to happen. I possessed, and practiced, all the high risk factors associated with heart disease. I believed then that if I didn't make a change I'd be lucky to make it to retirement. It was a very emotional time for me. I think it was the first time I had come face to face with my own mortality. So this is where my aspiration to make healthy choices and practices a priority in my life comes from. It is a very powerful source of motivation for me. It's a place I have left behind and will never go back to.

So when it comes to your health and well being what is your greatest aspiration? Forget about how you would accomplish it at the moment, forget about goal setting and planning. Don't think about having to exercise or quit smoking or change your eating habits. Put those thoughts aside for the moment. Just picture yourself 5 to 10 years down the road. How do you picture yourself? What would you have to change in your daily life to meet that aspiration? The answer is different for each one of us. It takes a lot of introspection, a lot of time being brutally honest with yourself to answer those questions. It's not comfortable for most of us to do. It's far easier to leave your life on cruise and wait until you run into something.

But having a lifelong aspiration is the 'Big Idea' and it won't resolve all the issues you face in the daily grind of a drivers life, or any life for that matter. That's where devising a flexible plan and developing a support network comes in. This is where you do all the hard work, especially at first. The trick I learned is not to try to do to much, not to set your sights too high. Slow and steady wins the race when it comes to forming new habits. More on this next month.