PHOTO: DESIREE RIOS/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Where Are All the Truck Drivers? Shortage Adds to Delivery Delays
“The trucking industry has long churned through drivers, and the pandemic has made the job even harder
Truck driver Chris Wagner pulled his big rig into a grain processing plant in Sidney, Ohio, on a recent afternoon to pick up a load bound for the Chicago suburbs. He’d lost his scheduled place in line because of delays at an earlier delivery, so it was 10:45 p.m. before the plant was ready to load his trailer.
By then, the clock had run out on his federally mandated 14-hour workday, so Mr. Wagner couldn’t pull up to the dock. He slept that night in his truck on the plant’s lot and left empty-handed the following morning, unable to reschedule the pickup.”