The following is the first of a multi-part series that addresses the issues surrounding attracting younger drivers. Other parts in the series will include input from experts on how the insurance industry is approaching coverage of interstate drivers under age 21 and how trucking companies can use technology to attract younger generations to a career in trucking.
High schools across the U.S. have over 1,200 career technical programs for woodworking, over 1,400 for automotive and over 3,000 for construction, but there are only around 180 diesel technology programs and just nine with CDL programs, said Lindsey Trent, president and co-founder of the Next Generation in Trucking Association (NGTA), a crowd- and member-funded nonprofit trade association that focuses on creating career paths into the trucking industry for high school students.
“We're way behind as an industry,” Trent said.
That’s not good when the trucking industry is already short 80,000 drivers and expects to see that number surpass 160,000 by 2030 according to the American Trucking Association.
Trent said what’s holding the industry back is the federally legal age for driving interstate. That age is 21, but 37% of students decide their career choice by the time they're juniors in high school and 43% decide by the time they’re seniors with most of those students ranging between 16 and 18 years old.
Bryan J. Nelson, a partner at Taylor Johnson PL, said during a breakout session at TCA Truckload in Las Vegas that young people are three years into their careers already by the time they’re old enough to cross state lines with a CDL.
“Nowadays, if you don't know what you're doing in high school or middle school, you're already behind because you didn't take that class,” Nelson said. “They need to know this career exists … There's just a general lack of education within our schooling system (about) what those opportunities are for young people.”
