Walmart to Pay Truckers $110,000, More Than Double What Average College Grad Makes

[Ray From Cleveland]

And you’re also a person who has never owned a computer and doesn’t understand how much technology has changed since “back in your day”.

Your detachment from reality and lack of common sense aren’t my problem.

How did I get on this forum without a computer? I know how technology changed. In high school back in the 70's I went to vocational school for data processing. When I got out into the work field my company wanted me to attend electronics school which I did for several months. As I told you before, I'm a technology whore: 80" high def television, Apple computer, iPhone, remote start for my car on my smart phone, several security cameras on the outside of my house with a DVR that records 7 days of streaming video, a dash cam in my car. I love it. But at the same time, I also realize it's flaws and limitations.

And it's not that I totally disagree with you. There will be successful autonomous trucks some day, it's just that our timeline is where we differ. You think it's around the corner and I believe it's decades away. In fact in another forum, I'm arguing with Rigby5 about autonomous cars. I say we are on the verge of them becoming reality and he holds my stance that I have on trucks which it will never happen anytime soon.

My flow chart is this: Perfect autonomous cars, make them affordable where they can be sold by the millions, work out the flaws which will come out when you sell that many, extrapolate that technology to trucks, sell them by the millions, work out the flaws there, and alas you will have successful autonomous trucks. But as you can see, it's a lot of trial and error until we actually get to that point.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Home phones?

Do people even use those anymore?

Believe it or not yes they do. My mother still has hers and a few of my tenants also have home phones. I gave mine up 10 years ago. They are totally worthless, especially today. Check with your cable company. Most all of their packages come with a home phone.

 

[XponentialChaos]

How did I get on this forum without a computer?

On your phone I assume. You said yourself that you don’t have a computer.

“Technology is great and I love it, but it's also fallible. I've yet to own a computer…”

 

[XponentialChaos]

Believe it or not yes they do. My mother still has hers and a few of my tenants also have home phones. I gave mine up 10 years ago. They are totally worthless, especially today. Check with your cable company. Most all of their packages come with a home phone.

Home phones are irrelevant. Technology made them extinct for the majority of households. The same will happen with self-driving cars.

 

[Batcat]

Probably will have to work 110 hours a week to earn it.

There are all sorts of limits on the number of hours a truck driver can drive. Smart truck drivers can fake logs but computers are making that very difficult today.

How Many Hours Is A Truck Driver Allowed To Drive?

We've made it easier to understand all the rules and regulations when it comes to how many hours can a trucker can drive.

latruckdriving.com

***snip***


During any seven- or eight-day period, a truck driver cannot be on duty more than 60 0r 70 hours, respectively.

For example, if you begin your seven-day period on a Sunday (Day One), over the next seven days you cannot be on duty for more than 60 hours. On the eighth day, your Day One hours (the first Sunday) will drop off, and you can continue being on duty until you hit your 60-hour limit again. Think of it as a rolling seven- or eight-day period.

34-Hour Rest Break​

In order to “re-set” your 60- or 70-hour duty limit, you must take a minimum of 34 consecutive hours off duty.

Once you re-set that limit, you will have your full 60 or 70 hours again to be on duty. This is not a mandatory break, but instead an optional one for drivers.

During your rest break, you can do paperwork, loading, unloading, or other duties besides driving. Once your 60- or 70-hour limit has been reached, you cannot legally drive your truck on a public road.

 

[DudleySmith]

Like I said, I sure as hell wouldn’t want to sit on my ass for 60+ hours a week, doing something completely monotonous, and not getting to see my family

Truck drivers are exempt from Federal labor laws for overtime, so even local drivers will be worked without time and a half pay by companies taking advantage of that. The turnover rate speaks for itself, despite the rubbish being spread about the 'career' here; it is sweated labor for the most part and a shitty job at the majority of companies. And again, '$55K' is barely above minimum adjusted for inflation, probably less in a few more months of inflation at the current rate.

Go ahead, automate it all, and then see what happens when 320,000,000 people out of 340,000,000 in this country are unemployed.

 

[there4eyeM]

Perhaps basket weaving should be replaced with "weaving through traffic".

 

[DudleySmith]

Oh yes, we've been joking about this for years.

"Attention passengers, this is your autopilot speaking. Please fasten your seatbelts in preparation for takeoff.....for takeoff.....for takeoff.........we are sorry your autopilot is experiencing technical difficulties."

The first time some hacker working out of an abandoned cargo container in Mubai hijacks the network of a large trucking company and manages of kill people in traffic all over the country we will see that 'automation' gimmick go away.

 

[XponentialChaos]

Truck drivers are exempt from Federal labor laws for overtime, so even local drivers will be worked without time and a half pay by companies taking advantage of that. The turnover rate speaks for itself, despite the rubbish being spread about the 'career' here; it is sweated labor for the most part and a shitty job at the majority of companies. And again, '$55K' is barely above minimum adjusted for inflation, probably less in a few more months of inflation at the current rate.

Go ahead, automate it all, and then see what happens when 320,000,000 people out of 340,000,000 in this country are unemployed. The turnover rate speaks for itself.

I agree that they get taken advantage of. They usually get paid per mile. So when they get stuck in traffic or need to wait at a weigh station, they’re not getting paid for all the time they’re working but not driving.

Why would unemployment get that high?

 

[Jarlaxle]

Truck drivers are exempt from Federal labor laws for overtime, so even local drivers will be worked without time and a half pay by companies taking advantage of that. The turnover rate speaks for itself, despite the rubbish being spread about the 'career' here; it is sweated labor for the most part and a shitty job at the majority of companies. And again, '$55K' is barely above minimum adjusted for inflation, probably less in a few more months of inflation at the current rate.

Go ahead, automate it all, and then see what happens when 320,000,000 people out of 340,000,000 in this country are unemployed.

Every word of this is bullshit.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

Truck drivers are exempt from Federal labor laws for overtime, so even local drivers will be worked without time and a half pay by companies taking advantage of that. The turnover rate speaks for itself, despite the rubbish being spread about the 'career' here; it is sweated labor for the most part and a shitty job at the majority of companies. And again, '$55K' is barely above minimum adjusted for inflation, probably less in a few more months of inflation at the current rate.

Go ahead, automate it all, and then see what happens when 320,000,000 people out of 340,000,000 in this country are unemployed.

I don't agree with what you say but you did skim across a point I do agree with: Government is the problem with trucking today and it makes it less desirable. It's like nearly every year these pinhead dress shirts have nothing better to do in these federal agencies but to make it look like they're actually doing something. So they unconstitutionally write laws, fines, red tape that make it harder and harder for drivers to stay on the road. I know, I'm one of them.

This year the new thing is forcing new drivers and those wanting to upgrade their license to take a government class and pass that. This is on top of the training you get from an employer or school, and your CDL. It won't make the road one iota safer, but like I said, these commies have nothing better to do.

Like a lot of companies, my former employer had a hard time finding drivers, so he promoted our straight truck drivers to tractor-trailer drivers. We needed somebody to back us up if one of us were on vacation or called in sick. On Saturdays or when things were slow, the straight truck driver would go out with the bosses son and learn how to drive, then when ready, take the test. You can't do that any longer. As of this year before a driver gets an upgrade, he would have to go to these government approved schools in spite of the years of experience he had driving a CDL vehicle.

So as Ronald Reagan so famously said, government is not the solution to our problems--government is the problem. As long as we let these out of control bureaucracies make driving less and less desirable, we will see less and less people getting into that field of work.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

On your phone I assume. You said yourself that you don’t have a computer.

“Technology is great and I love it, but it's also fallible. I've yet to own a computer…”

Nice try, but you clipped my statement. Would you like me to go back and post the actual full quote? You are a liar.

 

[AsherN]

Right. It’s going to go along with what it’s programmed to do. Thank you captain obvious.

And you can't program them for every situation. There will always be something that the computer can't know that a human driver would adjust to.

 

[Ray From Cleveland]

And you can't program them for every situation. There will always be something that the computer can't know that a human driver would adjust to.

Exactly. A few years ago I was going down a main street and came to a stop light in a school zone. The kids standing at the bus stop were bored and decided to play a little truth or dare game under my trailer. They were going back and forth to the other side of the road. When the light turned green I hit the parking breaks (which is very loud if you're next to them) and the kids ran back to the side of the road laughing. Would a computer know that there were kids playing underneath the trailer? Of course not. Who would think of that? The truck would have just started to go possibly running over one or more of those rug rats.

 

[XponentialChaos]

Nice try, but you clipped my statement. Would you like me to go back and post the actual full quote? You are a liar.

What did I lie about? I just posted the relevant part of your post.

Here’s the full post of yours:

“Your first link discusses driver-less straight trucks. They are not nearly as complicated as tractor-trailers to drive in the city. Once they reach their destination the store employees can back them into a dock and unload the thing themselves. Your second link is more concerning as they will eventually take jobs like taxi and Uber. But I'm sure they too require their passengers to have a legal drivers license in case they have to take over if something goes wrong. That was the problem when Uber went to autonomous vehicles. It would often have malfunctions forcing the passenger to manually drive the vehicle the rest of the trip.

Technology is great and I love it, but it's also fallible. I've yet to own a computer (and I use Apple which are very high priced) or cell phone that always worked perfectly. So total reliance on these things is a long way down the road. Yes, it will happen some day, but not any day soon.”

=========================

According to you, you have yet to own a computer. What are you confused about? What did I lie about?

 

[XponentialChaos]

And you can't program them for every situation. There will always be something that the computer can't know that a human driver would adjust to.

Explain that to the programmers who have already created self-driving cars.

 

[Harpy Eagle]

The truck would have just started to go possibly running over one or more of those rug rats.

and the rest would have learned not to play in traffic

 

[AsherN]

Explain that to the programmers who have already created self-driving cars.

In limited numbers and usefulness. if the numbers grow dramatically, you will see an increase of accidents due to unforeseen circumstances. Or a lot of frozen in place vehicles because they can't deal with what is happening. The early Google cars would get stuck at 4-way stops because the other vehicles would never come to a complete stop. Go, no-go in that situation is a judgement call that a computer may not be able to make.

 

[XponentialChaos]

In limited numbers and usefulness. if the numbers grow dramatically, you will see an increase of accidents due to unforeseen circumstances. Or a lot of frozen in place vehicles because they can't deal with what is happening. The early Google cars would get stuck at 4-way stops because the other vehicles would never come to a complete stop. Go, no-go in that situation is a judgement call that a computer may not be able to make.

Wow, you should explain your brilliant insight to the companies who are investing billions of dollars into this. I’m sure you know far more than they do.

 

[AsherN]

Wow, you should explain your brilliant insight to the companies who are investing billions of dollars into this. I’m sure you know far more than they do.

We are decades away from a completely human less driving system. You'll see cars before trucks, because you can have a self driving car with a human there behind the wheel. A truck starts to negate the benefit because if you have a human, they will still have hours restrictions. And spending all that money does not mean it will be achievable to the extent that will satisfy everybody.