[rajeev k]

It appears that truck drivers are not available today, reason being nobody prefers to get buoyed down behind the wheel for long and preference is for other jobs where earnings could be less but one can stay near their homes. Spending months on the road away from family being the the major deterrent.

source Hindu Business line
link: http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx

[RS_DEL]

Originally Posted by rajeev k

It appears that truck drivers are not available today, reason being nobody prefers to get buoyed down behind the wheel for long and preference is for other jobs where earnings could be less but one can stay near their homes. Spending months on the road away from family being the the major deterrent.

source Hindu Business line
link: http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx

Truck driving is one horrible job, which most of these guys take because they are unable to get other work to put food on their table.

Add to this the conditions under which the large fleet operators make these guys work. No security about how long the fleet owner will give them a gaadi to drive, no certainty of income, any penalties imposed by the consignor due to delay in transit time - more often than not part of it is passed on the driver. Last but not the least highway robberies, yes robberies by organised gangs working under the protection of local police and politicians.

[ramzsys]

We regularly hire one truck driver who does Coimbatore-Chennai trips for about 15 days a month and spends the rest of the month at home.
He makes decent income(12-15k) but he says it is not possible to sit long in the cabin because he gets heat pustules at the sitting area which makes it miserable in the long drives.

And this is the reason i give way for trucks and don't honk at them unnecessarily even when one truck overtakes another at cycling speeds on the highway.

[shankar.balan]

Contrast this with the Union Rules that Truckers in developed countries work on!

First class, safe, comfortable trucks. No driving more than 8 hours at a stretch max. Compulsory sleep or rest breaks.
Maximum permissible number of hours that they drive in a month and other such rules are rigidly enforced.
Decent pay. Social security and medical benefits from the government.
Good treatment overall and to cap it, the dignity of labour accorded to a service person.

We are generally a greedy bunch of people as a race and if possible will exploit those who are beholden to us, in a worse way than the proverbial Shylock himself.

Having said this, look back into the 1960's in England and you will see that Truckers operated under quite primitive conditions even as recently as that. It is only from the 1970's onwards that these ' best practices' started coming in, even there.

[GTO]

@ Shankar Balan : A terribly unappealing job, it's the same situation even in countries with good roads, excellent trucks and better facilities : USA Today Article on Truck Driver Shortage

[RS_DEL]

@GTO:

True the situation is same. However the shortage there is more due to systemic reasons and also the one major bugbear of every long distance hauler across the globe - protracted periods of absence from home.

The shortage in India is however mystifying , because we have more than enough of young men with higher secondary education seeking gainful employment and rotting in the ranks of the unemployed , and we do not have any systemic constraints as in the U.S. per the news report you have referred to.

[apachelongbow]

Regarding plenty of 'young' men hopefully available in India, welcome to the world of labor shortage. There are more than enough men/women populating India, but employable men/women? definitely not enough. This goes across sectors, right from very basic, informal employment in say tilling a field, to slightly higher, say an ITI graduate to run a CNC/lathe machine or even high tech, say an employable software engineer to work in any of the big IT firms.
Main reason is, people are now not willing to travel out of state/home to work and migration is at an all time low. Example, the construction/cab transport and kirana walla business in Mumbai faces acute shortage in hiring people, simply because the migration from Bihar/UP is dwindling and with better infrastructure being built there, people are migrating back in increasing numbers.

Truck driving is hard hard, thankless work. Especially in the primitive wooden and tin shacks we call as trucks. Unless truck companies migrate to mordern air conditioned machines, the tribe of long haul truckers is dwindling. People are refusing salaries of 12-15k Rs for long haul, instead prefer to drive short haul dumpers or delivery vans making 8-10k Rs with incentive per extra trips!!!

[RS_DEL]

Originally Posted by apachelongbow

Truck driving is hard hard, thankless work. Especially in the primitive wooden and tin shacks we call as trucks. Unless truck companies migrate to mordern air conditioned machines, the tribe of long haul truckers is dwindling. People are refusing salaries of 12-15k Rs for long haul, instead prefer to drive short haul dumpers or delivery vans making 8-10k Rs with incentive per extra trips!!!

Yes I know that.

I too was a lorry owner and only left the business because of personal reasons. However that was a long time back - nearly a decade now. So in all probability my information is dated and maybe irrelevant to today's context.

At that time we used to pay our drivers a salary plus any savings they could make in the diesel consumption which was fixed for the 3k Km Del-Mum round trip. At that time our drivers used to net 10K-12K a month after paying off the cleaner - cleander per the drivers. This was based on the driver doing 30-32 round trips through the year(calender year).

So if the same system of remuneration is prevalent today with today's diesel prices and better trucks and even better roads leading to lower diesel consumption - an experienced long hauler will clock in at something like 20-22K per month - salary and diesel savings combined. If in spite of that there is a shortage of drivers, I can only shake my head in amazement.

[veedub89]

The condition in which the truckers work are truly deplorable. My source of information is the TV and may not be as true to the actual picture but i believe there is some truth in it.
I am talking about a show called IRT: Deadliest Roads-Himalayas. The show basically had some firangs drving our very own Tata trucks in the Himalayas.
The guy who had won the last season (which was shot on the icy roads of Alaska)walked away from the show on the first day citing safety concerns!
The others laboured on and gave us a rare glimpse into what the truckers in our country have to bear with.
Bad truck design. zero safety, inhospitable driving conditions and most of all overloading of trucks all contribute to a truly horrid enviornment.

[greenhorn]

There is a huge opportunity here, but has its own share of issues. The key problem is that of who will pay the fees vs retention of drivers. One of my friends had explored the idea of setting up a training school for drivers. On the face of it, it seems attractive - large pool of unskilled talent who want to take training, CV manufacturers are willing to assist financially, large demand for trained drivers. The only fly in the ointment is that a lot of these truck drivers, after training, simply disappear to escape from their liability to the institute or whoever put up the money to train them, and because of this problem, people are also unwilling to invest in training them. Unlike white collar workers, bond enforcement for blue collar workers is easier said than done.

If someone can solve this problem, they have a viable business plan in their hands

[mayankjha1806]

25K per month? My house maid and cook make over 30K every month with both working as cook or one as cook and one as maid. This coupled with they get to spend evenings/nights with their family and don't have to drive for over 12 hours every day, apart from this its much safer.

Considering what they have to put up with, the remuneration seems to be way too low. They can make more than this by doing cooking (Which takes about a month to master). Also there are better paying jobs (apart from cooking) and it does not take too long to master them.

No wonder they are moving from this torturous job to a better paying and more satisfying job.

[RGK]

To add, higher loads than the prescribed ones make driving horrible for the poor drivers. They too accept for the extra penny and work hard.
Non availability of return load, police problems, poor vehicle condition also contribute to their woes.
Unfortunately this space is occupied by the very low income group which is exploited by some greedy owners.

I have seen a family having two trucks where son, father drive and earn well.

Have travelled in some trucks and admired their driving skills. They do with perfection and ease.

[rajeev k]

Indian truck drivers do they drive in peace.
The below mentioned link makes some interesting reading on the subject and highlights the common problems faced by the long distance truck drivers.
http://blog.mahindranavistar.com/201...-drive-in.html

[Carrera555]

There are a lot of reasons affecting the shortage of Drivers of Trucking companies. We own few trucks & we have experienced this. And tell you, its getting worse with every passing day.

Firstly, you cannot get the Driving license unless you have completed your High School Education (of course renewal is possible). The awareness has spread & those who already drive the trucks strongly insist their children to acquire a peace of mind job. Moreover if a person clears High School Education, he can get a better job as compared to Driving a truck.

Secondly, to get a loan & own a Truck has become a breeze. The private finance companies can fund almost anybody with little down payment. The ones who used to work for Trucking company started owning Trucks (and drive on their own). At the end of the day they also become owners & its adds to their status.

Lastly, majority of the Truck Drivers are from rural areas & most of them are directly or indirectly involved into agriculture. The land prices have gone up to a level which can feed their 7 generations if they en-cash it. So once again they started giving up their jobs & preferred to stay back home & enjoy with the family. This scenario is quite common in Gujarat.

[sen2009]

I interact with truck fleet owners very frequently. The shortage of drivers is the single biggest problem haunting the cargo transport industry today. There are a few good reasons for it -

1. Shortage of Cleaners - A 14+ year old boy can make 8-10K a month easily, if he migrates to a big city. In a truck cleaner job, he would make max 3-4K + food + acco (in the truck), which will not be more than what he can make as a liftman or security guard. And he don't need education to get promoted there.

2. Education - Education is mandatory for getting a DL. Hence, cleaner to trucker growth path is shot to hell. (How would a cleaner, who stays in the truck, go to the school?)

3. Health and Safety Hazards - What more can be said?

4. Rising Prices of Diesel in a slowing economy - Freight is not increasing proportionately with the diesel price, thanks to the slow growth of manufacturing. Hence, driver's margin and owner's margin both are thinning down.

And, there are many more reasons.


PS- I know and keep in touch with a lot of drivers. If forum members want, I can carry out first hand interviews. Post the questions you want to ask, I will find answers from 5 truckers for each question.