This morning's RGJ has a pretty good article by Jason Hidalgo about the problems rising fuel prices are causing for local trucking companies. Since you and I depend on what arrives here on trucks, their problems are our problems.

A few thoughts came to mind while reading the article.

Trucking company owner Chad Bowen says:

In the past, we've always budgeted more for our drivers than we have for fuel. But now the cost of fuel far exceeds the cost of a good employee. It's just insane.

I've been wondering lately—will we reach a point where high fuel prices will reverse or at least alter globalization? In other words, will fuel eventually cost so much that it's cheaper to pay Americans to build and grow things here than to user cheaper labor in other countries and ship their products here? (I know at the moment we're talking about moving things around once they're already in the country, but fuel costs have to be rising for the ships that move products around the world, too.)

Driver turnover is another major problem for trucking companies nationwide, costing them $3,000 to $5,000 for each driver. Truckload carriers with more than $30 million in annual revenues saw a driver turnover rate of 121 percent during the third quarter of 2006, according to the American Trucking Associations.[See update below.]

...And with a projected driver shortage of 110,000 nationwide by 2011, the trucking industry is now resorting to creative measures to address the issue.

You might start thinking this could be a good career opportunity, but wait. Paul Enos, chief executive office of the Nevada Motor Transport Association, says

Being a trucker isn't the easiest life so replacing retired drivers has been one of the industry's biggest problems. It's also expensive because you need to have all this training and meet all sorts of regulations. Many people don't realize that truck drivers are professionals. You can't just replace them by picking someone off the street. [My emphasis.]

So the trucking companies probably have to pay them well, right? Actually, no. The average salary in the Nevada trucking industry in 2005 was $36,440.

But there's an excuse for keeping the wages down—that vital element of a free market, competition. Guy Packer, president of Packer Transportation Co., says

There's not much going on with construction, so the competition is extreme for the few loads that are out there. You have companies out there that are going broke hauling for cheap just to keep their wheels moving. But they're hurting everybody else.

They underpay their employees, so we have to underpay ours. That's called "the race to the bottom," Guy. Hurray for the free market!

UPDATE  3/18/08: The RGJ published a correction this morning saying the turnover rate was incorrectly reported. It says the correct rate is 121 drivers in a year. That doesn't make sense to me; maybe it should be 121 percent in a year? Who knows?