Shawn Shemelia’s Post

The trucking industry is en flux. Attrition is eating away at our driver resources. My generation is leaving in droves, but not always by choice. For some, the technology is too much to deal with. For others, ageism has made them give up. Whatever the reason may be, experience is leaving, and trucking is trying hard to make up for the losses by hiring students directly out of CDL school and training them on the fly. As a result, poorly-trained drivers are being seated in CMVs everywhere in this country, resulting in accidents like the ones we have seen make the news in the past few years, months and weeks. How many others occur that we never hear about? Training must be enhanced beyond the level of that which is offered by CDL schools whose only objective is to help a person pass a CDL test. There is nothing wrong with that but between that, and OJT type training, is a gap, a vacuum, and a measure of deficiencies a mile wide. If we are seriously concerned about safety, CSA scores, and nuclear verdicts, companies must implement advanced training programs that genuinely enhance the skills of those entering this industry. This is a high risk occupation. We can no longer pay lip service to proper training and turn it over to people who care little to nothing of its tremendous value to all concerned; especially the public at large. Those who do not understand the value of such training see it as just another burden to bear for the industry. Those who receive this higher level of training appreciate the difference it makes at the start of their careers.