Rich Forshey, 49, Wheeling, WV
Professional driving experience: 33 years

“The shortage is definitely real. Ask any of these companies. When you’re looking at 120 percent turnover for the large companies, you know there is a shortage, but they don’t want to pay the drivers any more. Marketing conditions are pretty much dictating what’s happening right now. The industry’s solution is to bring in drivers from the other side of the border, from the Middle East and from the old Soviet Bloc. How would I solve it? Well, capitalism has always worked in this country. If you can’t get drivers who will work for what you’re paying them, pay them more.”

Kevin Fletcher, 50, Mount Vernon, KY
Professional driving experience: 3 years

“I don’t know. One of the things that a lot of people don’t understand about the trucking industry is it seems to have more negatives associated with it than it really does. It has a lot of negatives, no question about that, but there are negatives about every job. I’m not sure what can be done to change that, but if we could, it would certainly attract more people and help the driver shortage situation.”

Lorinda Fletcher, 36, Mount Vernon, KY
Professional driving experience: 3 years

“Good question. Yes, I think it is real. I don’t know how to best promote driving as a career. Maybe if they talked to younger individuals who are thinking about college. You can have a relatively small amount of school and make a pretty good paycheck in this industry. I don’t think a lot of people know that. The industry is changing and the image of the typical driver is changing. It’s not as rough and tough anymore. It’s becoming more professional, and that’s really good. I think some of these newer TV shows like ‘Trick My Truck’ are getting a lot of younger people excited about it. Of course, it’s not all about fancy trucks, but it’s a great job. It really is.”

Gary Close, 43, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
Professional driving experience: 24 years

“I think it’s real. I think a lot of these younger guys coming into the industry don’t want to be truck drivers because they see all the hassles and stuff that the older guys are going through. At one time, the money actually wasn’t there. Now that the money is coming up, maybe it will entice some of the younger guys. Of course, you can only offer so much money. I guess there are different ways to go about it.”

Bill Hausley, 48, Seneca, MO
Professional driving experience: 25 years

“Yeah, we have a driver shortage, but in my book, it’s not an excuse to put inexperienced, dangerous drivers out there in 80,000-pound missiles. Granted, they may not be ‘bad’ people, terrorists or anything like that, and they may not be out to do something bad purposely, but because they don’t have the right attitude, they are a danger nonetheless. The problem is, we haven’t come together as an industry to effectively weed these people out of the system, so they keep churning through it.”