?This used to be a great job?: US truckers driven down by long hours and low pay

Tim Clemons has driven nearly 3m miles around the US in his 30 years as a truck driver. "This used to be a great job," said Clemons. "I provide a valuable service to this country. It would be nice if we weren't looked down upon like trash."

While the industry says there is a national shortage of drivers and complains regulation is holding back hiring, Florida-based Clemons has another theory: working conditions have deteriorated since he started driving, he said. It's more difficult to find parking and access to bathrooms. Dispatchers and brokers are pushing harder to deliver loads in a certain amount of time or else drivers face fines or deductions. Drivers earn less.

All these factors may explain why annual turnover at big trucking employers averaged 94% between 1995 and 2017. And that's before Covid upended the supply chain and increased demand for drivers, and the pressures they face.

Most facilities Clemons drives to do not provide bathrooms for truck drivers, and many truck stops are backed up with wait times to refuel and use the bathroom.

"If you haven't found a place to park by 2 or 3pm in a truck stop, you're looking for any place to park, yet we're fined and towed for just trying to be safe," Clemons said. "When you have a 300-mile run and six to seven hours to be there, you don't have time to waste, so either you're late or you're on time and refused use of the facilities. As nasty as it may sound, most of us experienced drivers carry garbage bags and a five-gallon bucket, or a potty chair with plastic grocery bags."

According to the American Trucking Associations, the lobbying organization for large trucking employers, the US has a shortage of 80,000 truck drivers that is disrupting the nation's supply chains, and the shortages are projected to worsen over the next few years.

This claim has been repeated consistently over the years and has recently been cited by industry groups in favor of a bill in Congress to lower the commercial driver's license age requirement from 21 to 18. But truck drivers are quick to highlight the low pay, poor treatment and tough working conditions they endure throughout the industry as prevailing issues for employers who claim to have trouble finding and retaining enough drivers.