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Trucking, Texas

5 mind-boggling numbers about the trucking industry in the US

The trucking industry is one of the largest industries in the United States. To take it even a step further, logistics is something that will always be necessary — even if technological changes take place, items need to get from point A to point B.

As a result, some of the numbers that you see in reference to the trucking industry are truly appalling. Today, I’m going to give you five interesting numbers about the trucking industry.

5 mind-boggling numbers in the trucking industry

1. The trucking industry brought in $875.5 billion in total revenue in 2021

Yes, you’re reading that correctly. The highest-earning logistics company in the world is UPS, which has an annual revenue of roughly $24 billion. Total revenue in the industry continues to grow.

2. The most common state for truckers is Texas, where there are around 172,000 drivers

There are almost exactly one million truck drivers in the US as of the most recent census. The most common state is Texas, where there are just over 172,000 drivers in an industry that is looking to grow. 15 of every 1,000 jobs in the Lone Star State is a trucking job. Other common states for truck drivers include California, Florida, and surprisingly, Pennsylvania.

3. US truckers moved over 10 billion tons of freight in 2021

So if there are one million truckers in the United States that work year-round, there must be a lot of freight. . . right? If you’re thinking that, you’d be right — in fact, over 10 billion tons of freight is shipped each year in this country, which is especially impressive considering the DOT’s gross weight limit is 80,000 pounds.

4. The trucking industry moved 71.6% of all goods in the US last year

According to CFS, that 10 billion-pound total of freight has a dollar value attached to it. That value is $10.4 trillion dollars. . . that’s right. Trillion. This accounts for 71.6% of all goods in the country.

5. 97.4% of trucking companies have fewer than 20 trucks

Even though the trucking industry is huge, the companies with it in aren’t necessarily giant corporations. In fact, an extremely high percentage of logistics companies are very small, with 97.4% of these companies having fewer than 20 trucks. Take an even closer look and you’ll see that around 91% have fewer than seven trucks.

Trucking, Mexico double tractor-trailers

Trucking: Why Mexico almost banned double tractor-trailers

The trucking industry in Mexico is often thought of as being a bit sketchy. Trucks are notoriously not monitored as much as they are in the United States, with plenty of vehicles driving over weight limits and without proper upkeep. It’s not so much a negative about Mexico — rather, this is a testament to just how strict the US Department of Transportation is.

That said, the Mexican government is constantly working to improve these driving conditions.

A strong example of this is their attempt to ban double tractor-trailers, an initiative that officials have been wrestling with for the past couple of years. The reader’s digest version of this story is that some believe the elimination of double tractor-trailers would reduce fatal car crashes. Some officials have gone so far as to claim that up to 8% of car crashes are caused by double trailers, though that number is not substantiated.

Mexico decided to shoot down the elimination of double tractor-trailers in the trucking industry

There was no immediate explanation on why the push to ban double-trailers was dropped but here’s how CANACAR announced it.

“Lara announced that, in the coming days, an update of the NOM-012 will be carried out, with technical and mandatory measures for greater road safety for all, without [double tractor-trailer] restrictions.”

They would later explain why this initiative could actually have a very negative effect on the very things that they are trying to improve, stating that it would require “37,100 new tractor-trailers and 106,000 [box] trucks, which would also have implications for mobility, road safety, and the environment.”

It looks like everything will stay the same for trucking in Mexico.

Truckers on Christmas

3 things all truckers want for Christmas this year

Truckers are unlike any other type of person in the world. For better or worse, the occupation is one of the most iconic ones throughout the history of pop culture, with truck drivers being well-represented in films and TV shows.

And many of the stereotypes hold true.

A large handful of truckers are very unique people. While some people might want more traditional gifts like a new TV or a pair of shoes, truckers’ interests are totally different. Here are three things all truckers want for Christmas this year.

1. Christmas Day off

If you’re a trucker, you’ve had to learn the hard way — there’s no true vacation. Most trucking companies require some drivers to deliver shipments on Christmas Day, as this is still a huge day in the logistics industry. If you don’t want to, you have to schedule out paid time off in advance.

This is just part of the job, so most truckers won’t normally complain about it. That said, they’d all love to have the day off to see friends and family.

2. Clear roads with minimal traffic

Again, this is pretty unrealistic. Unfortunately, truck drivers don’t just have to drive on Christmas Day — they have to deal with traffic that is associated with the holiday. This means the millions of Americans who travel to see family each year in December.

This makes their job extremely difficult — you won’t find a driver around who doesn’t get frustrated during the holiday season.

3. Gasoline

This one will ring especially true for owner-operators, who pay for their own gasoline. This one is also coming true this year… sort of.

While diesel prices are still very high around the country, they’ve actually been dropping for the past month. They’re down over $0.15 from a week ago and continue to drop as we approach the holiday season. This means that while OOs might lose mileage during the holiday season due to traffic, they’ll save a little bit of money on gas.

Still, any truck driver in the world would take a free tank of gas any day of the week. In some areas, that is valued at around $1,000.

Red Giant semi-truck

The story behind the world’s longest sleeper cab semi-truck

When it comes to semi-trucks, length isn’t necessarily something that most drivers are eager to increase. A longer truck will be harder to maneuver, and from a logistical standpoint, it will increase the weight of the vehicle.

That said, not all trucks serve the same purpose.

Sometimes, trucks have a very unique purpose — just look at Bryan Dax, a Wisconsin owner-operator who has taken a unique path in the trucking world. He began with a traditional trucking occupation and has changed it into something that better suits his interests.

Bryan Dax’s “Red Giant” doesn’t actually haul any cargo

According to 10-4 Magazine, Bryan Dax doesn’t actually haul anything. In fact, what was once a long-haul sleeper cab has quickly turned into nothing but an advertising machine. That’s what the two 11′ by 6′ LED TV screens are for on the vehicle.

In fact, Dax doesn’t cease to haul cargo because he doesn’t want to — he cannot physically carry more than a few thousand pounds. Without any cargo, the vehicle and trailer weigh a whopping 72,000 pounds, meaning a small addition could put it over the 80,000 maximum gross weight limit.

But Dax has an extremely consistent stream of money coming in as a result of this.

The coolest part? The idea was actually given to him by former boxing champion Roy Jones Jr. You see, Dax was a friend of Roy Jones Sr. and eventually developed a relationship with his boxing son. Jones Jr. would eventually suggest the idea of putting advertising on the side of his truck over a game of pool.

Dax ran with it.

How long is the “Red Giant” anyway?

Before I tell you how long the “Red Giant” is, I’ll give you a frame of reference. The average semi-truck is around 72 feet long — that is not a number that varies too greatly. Many trucks will be under that number, but few exceed it greatly.

The “Red Giant” is over 93 feet long.

Technically speaking, there was a truck that was longer than this — much longer than this. That truck measured nearly a mile long with 112 trailers being carried behind it. The caveat here is that this truck was more of a publicity stunt than anything else. There was nothing functional about it.

The longest single-trailer, fully-functional semi-truck is Bryan Dax’s Red Giant.

Live Streaming Trucker

This live-streaming trucker crashed when a four-wheeler entered his lane

Trucking isn’t like any other profession. Truckers don’t get to go into an office and sit behind a desk for eight hours — they have to risk their lives on the road, rain or shine.

And with that comes a certain level of danger. According to Dolman Law, somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 crashes involving large trucks happen per year. Around 4,600 of these are fatal.

I say this to make the point that trucking is not a walk through the park. Yes, you’re simply sitting behind the wheel for hours and hours each day, but one small incident can have serious consequences. This trucker/Twitch live streamer learned that the hard way.

OTR_Penguin, a truck driver, swerved away from a four-wheeler in the wrong lane and crashed his truck

On December 14th, a popular eSports account re-posted a video of a trucker who crashed his truck. That truck driver was OTR_Penguin, who actually live streams during much of the time that he’s on the road. The driver had posted the video to Twitch a day early.

And it may pay off to post this clip.

In the video, OTR_Penguin can be seen driving normally on what looks like a two-lane expressway. With a double-solid line, there wasn’t much need for concern from the driver. Unfortunately, most of the time that CDL drivers get into crashes, it’s not their fault. That held true here.

A pickup truck is seen entering the frame and appears to be a bit too far toward the middle of the road. They continue to drift into the opposite lane to the point where the semi-truck driver has no choice but to move out of the way, where he catches some grass and begins to shift into the grassy knoll. The truck hits a couple of trees before eventually tipping into its side.

Some have been quick to blame the truck driver.

This simply does not make sense. Semi-trucks are not only longer than most trucks but they’re less maneuverable — you can’t just swerve over and return to your original position too quickly without risking a crash. Momentum is not on their side. All things considered, the driver in this scenario handled things pretty well.

Some companies do keep cameras in their trucks, but if this one doesn’t, it’s a good thing he was live streaming.

Whiteline Express, Winter Trucking

Trucking: 3 important things to remember as winter approaches

The trucking industry can be one of the best in the entire world. There aren’t many jobs out there that give you the same level of freedom as trucking, with the opportunity for you to explore the world. But as with any industry — and perhaps to an extreme — trucking has its pitfalls.

One of those is in relation to winter driving.

Nobody likes taking a vehicle out on the road in bad conditions. Even light rainfall will complicate your drive and probably add to your trip time. But something that can really mess up your drive is the wintertime. Snow, ice, dry conditions, etc. — it makes truck drivers’ jobs infinitely more difficult. Today, I’m going to give you three things for truckers to remember as winter approaches.

1. If you don’t feel safe, do not be afraid to prioritize your safety

As much as you might feel pressure to accumulate miles or deliver your load in a timely manner, nothing is more important than your safety. If you feel like you cannot physically drive your vehicle without risking your safety, park it. Even if only for a few minutes.

Snowy conditions, especially in areas like the northeast, can make it nearly impossible to drive. It’s not worth your safety and the safety of others on the road to deliver a single load on time. They can wait 30 minutes longer.

2. Prepare for the worst-case scenario on bad days

If the weather seems particularly bad in the wintertime, make sure you’re prepared for the worst. As uncommon as breakdowns or accidents may be for you, you’d regret NOT packing extra clothing, blankets, food, and water in the case of an emergency. Whether there’s a repair vehicle coming or you’re doing the repairs yourself, it will take longer if you’re in a blizzard. Here’s a list of items that can help to have in the winter, according to Advanced Career Institute.

  • extra clothing layers
  • gloves
  • flashlight
  • rain gear
  • windshield fluid
  • blankets
  • bag of sand or salt
  • tire chains
  • jumper cables
  • snow scrapers and brushes

3. Bring sunglasses with you

Sunglasses? If you’re new to trucking, this may seem like a bizarre thing to pack in the middle of winter. That said, it might be one of the most important things to remember on this list.

Something that won’t necessarily be at the forefront of your mind when it’s 25 degrees and snowing is “snow blindness.” Snow blindness describes the glare directed into a vehicle driver’s eyes caused by an excess of snow. Not only will it reduce your visibility while driving — it can actually cause serious damage to your eyes. Generally, this is an issue in the artic, but nobody is totally safe from it.

Pack some sunglasses.

Independence Avenue Bridge

This bridge is notorious for causing semi-trucks to crash

Getting into a crash is a truck driver‘s worst nightmare. Even if the driver themself isn’t injured, there’s a good chance another person involved in the crash will sustain injuries. In fact, it’s estimated that semi-trucks are involved in over 4,000 deaths per year in the US. It’s nobody’s fault; simply the reality of driving a 12-ton vehicle with much smaller four-wheelers on the road.

But not all crashes are deadly.

In fact, there is a location in the United States that causes crashes multiple times per year without any deaths. That location is the Independence Avenue Bridge in Kansas City, Missouri.

The Independence Avenue Bridge causes multiple crashes per year and the city doesn’t know how to fix it

If you’re a trucker who is unfamiliar with the Independence Avenue Bridge, you need to get familiar with it. The Kansas City location seems to cause multiple crashes every year. Each time, it’s the same story — a trucker thinks their truck can make the clearance and it just can’t.

I can’t find specific statistics on how many crashes there have been, but a quick google search of “Independence Avenue Bridge” will reveal a plethora of articles detailing crashes at that location.

Last week, the bridge took another victim, slicing off the top of a semi-truck despite a 12-foot clearance sign. Here’s a video of that.

You can even see the truck begin to stop as the driver realizes that it’s too short.

Again, this is not an isolated incident. If you want, you can take a deep dive into that Twitter account — it exists for the sole purpose of documenting anything crash-related that has to do with the Independence Avenue Bridge.

Steps are being taken to help drivers avoid the Independence Avenue Bridge’s trap

Thankfully, this is an issue that Kansas City officials are working to fix. After decades of trucks crashing, you’d hope they’re looking to do so. Thankfully, it looks like changes are on the horizon, according to KMBC. Here’s what they said.

“The city has said that as long as the bridge has been there, trucks have been hitting it. As KMBC reported in June, Kansas City is working with Kansas City Terminal Railroad, which owns the bridge, to install a warning system with plastic tubes to let truck drivers know if they can clear it before they get to it. When a truck hits the tubes, they make a loud warning noise.”

Hopefully

Smokey and the Bandit, Snowman's Truck

‘The Snowman’ from Smokey and the Bandit drove a 1974 Kenworth W900A

The trucking industry is well-represented throughout popular culture. Whether trucking is being used to create a villainous antagonist or being used as the good guy in a film, there is no lack of semi-trucks in the industry.

And more than a handful of these trucks have become infamous over the years.

One that we’ve discussed in the past is the Green Goblin from Maximum Overdrive, a 1986 film about a self-aware, evil semi-truck. Optimus Prime from the Transformers series is another big one.

Another one, often forgotten about, is The Snowman’s truck from Smokey and the Bandit, an extremely popular movie from nearly a half-century ago. But what truck model was driven in this movie and why?

“The Snowman” drove a 1974 Kenworth W900A

If you are unable to read the title and the headline above, “The Snowman” from Smokey and the Bandit drove a 1974 Kenworth 900A.

Why?

There’s no concrete answer here but hotcars.com theorizes that the truck’s main appeal for the film was it’s look. After all, if you’re shooting a movie with a prominent truck in it, you’re going to want that truck to look as truck-y as possible. Here’s how Hotcar’s Edwin Karicho described it.

“With a big hood and a ton of power beneath said hood, the truck is heaved by a twin-turbo Cummins, with the occasional truck carrying a 3408 Cat instead. The BBC (bumper to back-of-cab) for the W900 model ranges from 121 inches to 130 inches, which makes it one of the largest cabs you can find.”

This truck did have its flaws, but it was perfect for the film.

But if you already knew all of this, here’s something you may not know. Smokey and the Bandit actually used three different trucks to shoot this movie. Two were nearly identical 1974 W900As, while the third was a 1973 model with a gold Kenworth logo, according to Hotcars.

Unfortunately, nobody knows where these trucks are today.

Women in Trucking

The trucking industry is “getting a lot better for women truckers”

When you think of the stereotypical trucker, what comes to mind? Answers may vary to an extent but generally speaking, you’ll think up a tough-looking man who might be rough around the edges. Perhaps a similar profile to that of a construction worker or any other profession in manual labor.

Oh, and most importantly — you’re probably picturing a man.

And rightfully so. After all, women only make up 24% of the transportation industry, with just 7-8% of truck drivers being women.

Trucking isn’t where it needs to be for women, but it’s getting better

There are a couple of reasons why women don’t get into trucking.

For starters, they’re not necessarily encouraged to enter the field; recruiters generally target men. And again, this makes sense — nearly 93% of CDL holders are men, so why would companies be targeting an empty audience?

Then there’s the issue of safety for women.

This is something that is being spearheaded by organizations like the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which recently spoke on issues regarding women in trucking at the Women In Trucking Association’s Accelerate in November. Administrator Robin Hutcheson referenced findings in a federal study that surveyed over 500 truck drivers. She called these findings “disturbing and unacceptable.”

And the sad reality here is that you don’t need a study to confirm its results. Anyone who has spoken about the issue with a woman in trucking will have heard more than a handful of stories. These often range from derogatory comments to full-blown sexual assault.

It’s being addressed, but there’s still a long way to go.

Experienced women in trucking, however, do report a much safer environment than in their earlier days in the industry. Take Connie August, who spoke with Quartz, as an example. Here’s what the 49-year-old trucker said.

“From when I started to now, I have to say the whole trucking industry atmosphere has gotten much more agreeable—a lot better for women truckers”

Desiree Wood, president of Real Women in Trucking, mentioned that trucking is actually a very good option for women without a degree. She references other options for these same women, including being a stripper, bartender, or cocktail waitress. Compared to those, trucking is a promising career option, Wood says.

Trucking is a solid industry, women just have to be careful with the companies that they work with.

Trucking, Gas Prices

Here’s Why 91% Of Trucking Companies Could Shut Down

It’s a bad time to be an owner-operator in the trucking industry, as gas prices don’t look like they’re coming down anytime soon. After a couple of years of a booming economy for OOs, it may be time for some of these drivers to settle down and drive for a big company.

It’s simple, really — gas prices continue to surge and OOs pay out of pocket for these expenses. While the larger trucking companies can take on expenses like this, it leaves OOs earning lower pay than they would like. With other expenses on their budget, profit margins are looking low for many of them.

But it’s not just OOs. In fact, some would consider OOs pretty lucky, as they’re still making really solid money. But small trucking companies are not and as gas prices continue to surge, we’re starting to see more and more of these companies shut down.

91% of companies are at risk of shutting down due to high gas prices

I just said smaller companies are at risk — so let’s define what a smaller company is. South Carolina Trucking Association CEO Rick Todd defines it as a company with “six or fewer” trucks. Perhaps even more terrifying — companies of this size account for 91% of trucking companies, according to Todd via Fox News.

If you’re a company driver, there is good news here.

The good news is that you won’t have trouble finding a job; at least not in the immediate future. There’s still a major shortage of truck drivers and even though you likely will not have the same available CPM rate, there are plenty of high-quality companies out there thriving like Whiteline Express, which continues to increase its pay for over-the-road drivers.

But for more than a handful of companies, profits are not high enough to do this. A lot of the same companies that are advertising 75-80 cents per mile for company drivers will not be able to offer those same prices. Actually — scratch that — they won’t even exist anymore.

A lot of these companies are shutting down with no warning, too. Look at Freon Trucking, a company that filed for bankruptcy after failing to pay their employees for weeks. Apparently, the company owes up to $16,000 to some employees. And Freon wasn’t even a tiny company — their company had around 25 drivers. This is the unfortunate risk you run when you drive for a smaller company in 2022.

If you’re a company driver, be careful out there. Until the economy, and specifically gas prices, stabilize, only jobs at large companies are safe.