Fall is in the air, school is back in full swing, and I completed my annual end-of-summer ritual by partaking in my fantasy football draft. This year’s team looks like a winner—but I say that every autumn. Invariably something will happen that will require me to scour the waiver wire and add and subtract players. I liken the draft process to the market for drivers and carriers' ability to add them.
Everyone has their No. 1 pick when it comes to drivers: safety-minded individuals who have driven for years and have maintained perfect safe driving records with sparkling motor vehicle records. These pros have been entrenched with their carriers for years, nominated for every award, and competed in state and national truck driving championships—proverbial ambassadors of our industry, examples of a rewarding career that awaits anyone with skill and motivation.
Finding that driver—or any drivers—hasn’t been easy for anyone lately. However, the industry has new demographics from which to recruit candidates interested in this career. After a long wait and a few starts-and-stops, the Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program is finally open for business. This program is designed to answer the question of whether 18- to 20-year-olds can operate commercial motor vehicles safely—or even more so—than seasoned veterans.
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Certainly, there are caveats to participating in this program, but many carriers have already had their training platforms registered and have signed on to be part of the pilot. Open to 3,000 potential drivers, the program certainly represents a pool large enough to gather data and justify an under-21 driver's ability to cross state lines. Data is the key to this program because no publicly available data supports or refutes this opportunity for commercial vehicle operations.
Introducing trucking to prospective drivers right out of high school can only be described as a win-win. Our industry will benefit from this younger demographic to operate past state lines, and these younger drivers can start new careers in an industry that they may not have considered before because they were limited by federal law to operating within the boundaries of their states.
The under-21 demographic isn’t the only candidate pool in which our industry has interest. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration recently announced its Women of Trucking Advisory Board, another effort to develop solutions to retain and recruit drivers. Women make up about 8% of the driver population, a number that should be growing. Women also should see that trucking can be rewarding. Ensuring a safer environment for them will go a long way toward attracting women and will strengthen the driving workforce as a whole, which certainly benefits the nation.
As part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law last fall, this Women of Trucking Advisory Board can and will evaluate barriers that women face when they try to enter this industry and continue the process of expanding roles for women. Coming out of COVID-19, the nation has recognized the value of the professional truck driver and wants to grow the profession for anyone interested.
Obviously, none of this can really get done without paying attention to safety. The apprenticeships only will improve the performance of any driver—female, under 21, or otherwise. Based on the new Entry Level Driver Training Rule, standardization of training emphasizes safe operations, rather than the old CDL mill practice of focusing on licensing above creating safe drivers.
As an industry, we are there. Partnering with FMCSA and our friends in Congress, we’ve recognized the need to grow our driving force, and the presence of apprenticeships, the under-21 driver pilot program, and the Women of Trucking Advisory Board are steps in a direction that enhances our industry and grows our driving force to be ambassadors of the highway. Sounds like opportunity abounds for all carriers across the nation to pick first-round draft choices.
David Heller is the senior vice president of safety and government affairs at the Truckload Carriers Association. Heller has worked for TCA since 2005, initially as director of safety and most recently as the SVP of safety and government affairs.
