Andrew Yang and Truckers

I drove non-union OTR for nine years and I am struck by how autonomous trucking is viewed by non-truckers as a pressing issue. There are other more immediate major abuses of non-union truckers taking place every day, among those long hours, low pay, pay by the mile pay rates, regulatory abuses, using non-union sub-contractors by union carriers, family separation, the loss of per diem tax deductions in the Trump tax legislation, etc. I'm sure if you average in union paid drivers with non-union drivers you can get this $46,000 figure, that Andrew Yang cites, but non-union drivers don't make this much and they have substantial expenses living and working on the road. The experienced drivers that I've met that made more than this were either union or driving illegally. Many of these issues are aggravated by the mandate for electronic logs which were inherently inflexible under the pre-mandate hours of service regulations. Yet transportation interests lobbied for regulations which, in effect, allow MORE HOURS of duty per day. "Independents," many of whom drive under a faux "independent contractor" model similar to uber, which I think is well known now, has its own set of issues.

It's very difficult to come up a regulatory scheme to address these real and diverse immediate issues. Autonomous trucking is more of an issue that dilettantes like to discuss. I'm not saying that it won't conceivably become a major issue in the future, but drivers driving now face more immediate issues, like falling asleep at the wheel from onerous just in time demands placed upon them by the industry, that cause them to drive irregular hours under regulations that serve the industry and not the driver. The focus on autonomous trucks avoids the discussion of the causes of exhausted drivers falling asleep or lapsing into inattentive driving, killing thousands as Yang notes in one of his campaign videos. Yang, as a technocratic politician doesn't offer a regulatory solution directed at this major safety issue but poses autonomous trucking as the solution because robotic trucks "don't get tired." If you had a small group of experienced truckers from different groups, union, non-union, employee, independents, and the "faux independents," you'd get a more serious discussion and more substantial proposals for meaningful change than Andrew Yang's approach as is described in Krystal Ball's "Rising" video for The Hill or from his own campaign video on the subject. I'll apologize in advance if Mr. Yang has addressed these thorny regulatory issues already. Perhaps his message just didn't "reach" me yet. These observations are intended to be constructive.