Defining Moments: Are We in This for the Long Haul?
By Tra Williams Every industry has defining moments, windows of time when near-term opportunities and transactional successes obscure an entire population’s ability to think strategically and anticipate long-term, unintended consequences. It happens the same way every time. The window always opens with industry pros sprinting toward low-hanging fruit and snatching up unheralded victories. Unfortunately, the sprinters learn all too late that it isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. They were so focused on winning the first mile that they now cannot finish the race. So focused on the battle that they lost the war. Their early celebrations are eventually marred by an industry-wide economic implosion. In their mad dash to grab quick and easy dollars, they fail to realize that they stand atop a house of cards. The dotcom boom and subsequent collapse in the late ‘90s, along with the real estate boom and eventual collapse in the mid-2000s, are both shining examples 16 | WINTER 2021
Tra Williams with students at FleetForce Truck Driving School
of our curious and tragic propensity for shortsightedness and immediacy.
of over-the-road transport is a house of cards… and the wind is starting to blow.
The trucking industry is currently facing such a defining moment. Absolutely everyone in the industry has been aware of the driver shortage for decades. It’s not news, or at least it wasn’t until COVID revealed to the nation that we as an industry have been shortsighted. That we were too busy sprinting toward dollars, too focused on the first mile in this marathon. The whole nation now knows that the reliability and consistency
There is no quick or easy solution. America needs 1.1 million new professional drivers in the next 10 years. That’s 110,000 per year or about 350 per day. And that number, taken straight from the American Trucking Associations’ website, does not include the Class B drivers needed to sustain the concrete, waste management, or food and beverage delivery industries... not to mention school buses.
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