The Mercury News is reporting that a new rule will allow teens as young as 18 years old to drive big semi trucks across state lines.
With the trucking industry facing a shortage of qualified drivers, the US government is setting up an apprenticeship program for young truckers. The new program will allow people as young as 18 to drive big interstate semi trucks. The new program is coming on-line as the industry complains of driver shortages, which have gotten worse during the coronavirus pandemic. Last October, the head of the American Trucking Associations said the industry needed about 80,000 more drivers.
Mercury News
For the past decade, we’ve been hearing about how driver less robotic trucks will be killing all the trucker jobs and the latest news is that it is still coming.
Wallace said TuSimple already has more than 6,700 reservations for the vehicle it’s building with Navistar, a self-driving International LT Series tractor expected to be available within a couple of years.
Fleet Owner
Do you prefer teen drivers or robotic trucks? Neither choice is appealing to us but that’s the new reality of an aging demographic and labor depletion as boomers retire.
We leave you with this super cut video of Elon Musk claiming driver less autonomous vehicles will be here next year (since 2014). Perhaps by 2030 it will finally be here…
Stay tuned and stay solvent…