By Jacob Turner
Just about every casino close enough to be seen from a highway has a designated lot for truck parking. Many offer free overnight parking, discounted meals for drivers who show their commercial driver’s license (CDL), and access to showers and other amenities. As a result, the smoky gaming floors of these casinos are often filled with truck drivers unwinding after long days on the road, playing the slot machines.
That scene is an ironic and fitting metaphor for the current state of the trucking industry.
Since the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, trucking has become a chaotic free-for-all that benefits corporations, undermines workers, and puts the traveling public at risk. Nowhere is this clearer than in the industry’s staggering turnover rate, which is as high as 90 percent. That churn means a near-constant influx of inexperienced drivers operating massive vehicles on public roads. At the root of the problem are the perverse incentives created by deregulation.
Before 1980, carriers were required to secure operating authority for specific commodities and freight lanes. This limited the number of carriers and created a stable balance of capacity and demand. Drivers benefited from steady work, predictable routes, and reliable incomes — often protected by strong unions and contracts like the Teamsters National Master Freight Agreement (NMFA) signed in 1964.
Before the 1980s, trucking was consistent by design. A fleet hauling tomatoes from Florida to Ohio would run that same lane, for the same shipper, day after day. Same freight. Same routes. Same customers.
Today, that stability is gone. In its place is a fragmented and poorly regulated system of carriers, brokers, and customers that behaves less like a national supply chain and more like a roulette wheel.
A single truck from a fleet of thousands might haul shingles from Minneapolis to Denver, insulation to Salt Lake City, and steel to Montana — all in one trip. For long-haul drivers, and even dispatchers, it’s often impossible to predict where a truck will be beyond its next destination. Freight has become a game of chasing spot rates across the country, like an industrial-scale version of driving for Uber.
Having driven for a carrier, I know firsthand that the choices for drivers are grim. You either buy a truck and gamble on the nationwide casino known as the load boards or bounce from carrier to carrier every few months chasing the two most elusive prizes in trucking: consistent miles and a raise.
The deck is stacked in a way that steadily makes the roads more dangerous. As experienced drivers hang up their keys, the industry is flooded with newcomers. Nonunion mega-carriers like Swift and Werner operate their own CDL schools, often recruiting from disadvantaged communities. They entice candidates with inflated promises of high pay and benefits, then put them to work under grueling conditions. Within a year, many of those drivers leave — either exiting the industry entirely or jumping to another carrier.
The result is a massive brain drain. The unspoken rules of the road, the shared knowledge that once made trucking safer, are disappearing.
This churn doesn’t just harm drivers — it puts the public at risk. In 2022, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reported that 6,050 large trucks and buses were involved in fatal crashes, a 40 percent increase over the previous decade. The answer is not to automate the truck driving profession, making it riskier, it’s to protect and build on it through a stable union workforce.
With low barriers to entry, stagnant wages, and relentless pressure, drivers are pushed out of the industry before they build the experience needed for a safe, successful, and long-term career. Many drivers are not staying long enough to pass those skills on to the next generation.
Trucking is essential to the American economy. It relies on public roads and is appealing because of its flexibility. But it cannot be allowed to keep sliding into a dangerous free-for-all of undertrained drivers managed by companies focused solely on widening the gap between their top and bottom lines.
American workers — and everyone who uses our roads — deserve better. Our safety should not be left to a game of chance.