The American Trucking Association (ATA), the largest trade association in the trucking industry, testified in late July before a Senate committee urging lawmakers to lower the required age for interstate driving from 21 to 18, claiming this move would address a “driver shortage” in interstate freight.
Currently, 18-year-olds can hold a Commercial Drivers License (CDL), but cannot generally operate commercial vehicles across state lines until turning 21 years of age. Contrary to the claims of the ATA, the monopoly magazine Freight Waves argues that the the freight market is already over-saturated with truckers and that lowering the age limit would exacerbate this glut of available capacity.
The ATA’s lobbying continues a recent trend in efforts to overcome the economic crisis in logistics by seeking to allow teenage interstate truckers—in 2021 President Biden created the Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program to allow CDL drivers under 21 years of age to drive across state lines under the supervision of an older driver.
According to Freight Waves, active trucks have surged from 1.5 million in 2017 to 2.1 million today, an increase facilitated by a steady stream of new drivers.
Lowering the interstate driving age means more and younger drivers competing for jobs, depressing wages for both old and new drivers. These younger drivers will also be more susceptible to increased exploitation and deteriorating working conditions at the hands of their employers, while owner-operators compete for fewer jobs and falling rates across the board. Further, younger drivers are more prone to accidents according to numerous studies.
This push to hire more drivers, at lower wages, into an already highly-saturated market is reflective of the larger crisis of overproduction gripping all areas of the economy. According to the competing claims of the monopolists there are both too many and too few drivers. The common aim of the monopolists is seen in both complaints, however, with the joint desire to undermine the workforce through creating a cheaper labor pool and through mass layoffs.
These contradictions are seen in rail and ocean freight as well, with capitalists there massively expanding the size of freight trains and cargo ships in recent years while reducing staff and skirting safety regulations.
The ATA has also been lobbying Congress to facilitate automation in the trucking industry. Starting this year, driverless trucks began making their first long haul runs in regions across the country without safety drivers. As with flooding the market with younger inexperienced drivers, automated trucking also has the effect of depressing wages and eating away jobs.
These changes in the trucking industry are accompanied by reactionary attacks of the Trump’s administration on non-English speaking drivers, with federal requirements demanding all drivers operating on interstate roads speak English “with proficiency”. These measures also attempt to alleviate the economic crisis by providing cover for mass layoffs.
Image: Walmart trucks in 2010, Walmart Corporate.
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