March 1, 2020
News and Events

Everything you wanted to know about

PROFESSIONAL TRUCK DRIVERS AND THE TRUCKING INDUSTRY

But didn’t really want to ask

Professional truck drivers drove over 287.9 billion miles in 2016, more than double 25 years ago. Those miles accounted for 14.2% of all motor vehicle miles and 29.8% of all truck miles.


The trucking industry paid $41.8 billion in federal and state highway taxes in 2016, and represented 13.3 percent of vehicles on the road. The trucking industry paid $17.6 billion in federal highway-user taxes and $24.2 billion in state highway-user taxes in 2016.


The trucking industry consumed 54.9 billion gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline in 2016. Based on consumption and price, ATA reported that motor carriers spent $142.9 billion in 2015.


The federal fuel tax for diesel in 2018 is 24.4 cents per gallon; the average state tax for diesel fuel was 25.2 cents per gallon.


There are 3.68 million class 8 trucks on the road in the United States and 11.7 million commercial trailers were registered in 2016.


There are 7.7 million truck drivers in the United States. Total industry employment is 3.5 million or one out of every 16 people working in the United States.


There are 777,240 for-hire carriers and 700,591 private carriers in the United States; 97.3 percent of them have fewer than 20 trucks and 91% are operating six trucks or less.


In 2016, the trucking industry hauled 10.77 billion tons of freight, or 70.1 percent of total U.S. freight tonnage. Rail was the next busiest mode, moving 13.8 percent of the nation’s freight tonnage.


In 2017, the trucking industry was an astounding $700.18 billion industry, representing 79.3 percent of the nation’s freight bill.


More than 80 percent of U.S. communities depend solely on trucking for delivery of their goods and commodities.


A new truck produces one-tenth the fine particulate emissions and smog-forming NOx emissions as a similar truck manufactured just seven years ago.


Fine particulate emissions from on-road diesel trucks have been cut by more than half over the past decade.


Courtesy of ATA - www.trucking.org 10/2018

 

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Poll Results

Will you make more money in 2020 than you did in 2019?

Yes - 68%

No - 23%

Same - 9%

 

 

Total Replies : 65

ATA Outlines Trucking’s Priorities on Safety, Workforce and Infrastructure

Identifies actionable steps for Congress to save lives, create jobs and rebuild America’s roads

American Trucking Associations President and CEO Chris Spear recently testified at a hearing before the U.S. Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Transportation and Safety, outlining the industry’s top priorities and identifying concrete steps Congress can take to enhance highway safety, expand job opportunities in trucking and revitalize America’s sagging infrastructure.


On safety, Spear emphasized the dangers of speeding and distracted driving among the motoring public, highlighting that “72% of large truck crashes had no truck driver-related factors recorded, fueled largely by the growing addiction to speeding and texting.”


He decried FCC’s proposal to slash the Safety Spectrum for transportation safety purposes and reallocate it for unlicensed Wi-Fi, and urged the committee to end HHS’s unacceptable delays in producing a rule—as required by law now for many years—for hair testing for controlled substances. 


Spear also touted the heavily bipartisan DRIVE-Safe Act and called on the committee’s members to support it:


“Forty-eight states currently allow an 18-year-old to drive a Class 8 commercial vehicle, making it legal to drive an 850 mile stretch of California. Yet, it is federally illegal driving from Providence, Rhode Island to Rehoboth, Massachusetts – a mere 10 miles. The heavily bipartisan DRIVE Safe Act would require 400 hours of apprenticeship training and safety technology.  48 states require none of this, making the DRIVE Safe Act a leap toward safety, and ATA recommends its immediate passage.”


Finally, Spear called for federal investment in infrastructure, touting ATA’s proposal – the Build America Fund – as the most viable, cost-effective and fiscally conservative funding mechanism available in the near-term:


“Trucking now loses $70 billion each year sitting in congestion.  That’s 425,000 drivers sitting idle for an entire year. Sixty-seven million tons of CO2 being emitted.  Passenger vehicle drivers now lose $1,600 a year due to traffic and repairs.  These are the mounting costs of doing nothing.”

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Latest Survey

Results of the TruckDriver.com Future Income Survey have arrived.

Will you make more money in 2020 than you did in 2019?

Yes - 68%
No - 23%
Same - 9%

Looks like some of you will  hold steady and some of you may even get a bit ahead.

Next up, the TruckDriver.com MATS Survey.

 Until next time, keep on truckin' and please drive safely.

 

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We do like to hear from you and invite you to let us know how we can
improve the e-Report. Please send your ideas and suggestions to:
jobs@truckdriver.com