Weather experts are calling Hurricane Florence that hit the Carolinas a “1,000 year flood”, with an estimated 8 Trillion gallons of water dumped into North Carolina alone. Damage estimates have most recently risen to as high as $50 Billion. If we drill down into one local example, like Wilmington, NC which generates about $1.3 Billion in trucking freight annually or $24 Million per week, it saw outbound trucking volumes drop by 63%. This equates to a loss of $15 Million for truckers for just this one hurricane. This is a huge local impact to the workforce and their ability to earn a living.
It is hard to imagine what these areas hit by natural disasters go through, unless you see it firsthand. The financial impact is staggering. Logistics is the common denominator of our economy, and truckers and trucking companies are often the front lines even on sunny days. Congestion, construction and traffic on our roads is a battle truckers are always facing. It also has a big impact on the economy overall.
Freight Waves, a transportation research group recently put out some data showcasing the most and least efficient cities for truckers to get around and through. Truckers only have an allowable 11 hours of service to do their jobs every day, and if truckers are working in cities like Washington D.C., on average they should only expect to be able to drive/work about 4.9 hours a day. This is the least efficient city in the Nation! Chicago however had three surrounding areas in the top-ten.
On the flip side the same research showed Albuquerque, New Mexico as the most efficient city, where a trucker should expect to actually drive about 8.7 of the allowable 11 hours. All the top cities are in the mid-west and south-west where congestion and traffic is not nearly as concentrated, so this makes sense.
This also has an impact on the transportation workforce. First, this is one of the factors that makes trucker employment turnover rates so high. So far this year, driver turnover at large truckload fleets is at a 5 year high, up 10% from last year or 96%. This is better than the all-time high of 136% turnover set in 2005, but not much! Smaller fleets fare better and their turnover rates slightly declined so far this year at 72%.
They have a job to do, and with the shortage of good drivers and limited hours to get it done, it can cause stress and fatigue. This can also lead some drivers to feel the need to rush, and this can obviously lead to injuries and crashes. The National Safety Council recently found that 69% of transportation employees were tired at work, which includes rail, air and trucking. This is clearly a safety issue if not addressed. 100% of employers in the research agreed. However, it was concerning was that only 73% of employees in transportation surveyed felt fatigue was a real safety issue.
We still have work to do as an industry to keep the safety of the workforce as the top priority.
