Dear Editor,

Re: word of the driver shortage and push to find new recruits.

Truck manufacturers are building the safest, most comfortable trucks ever, and we can’t supply even the most important safety feature – qualified drivers.

Many carriers are lowering their standards in hiring drivers.

This solution was a costly one for at least one company I spoke to who experienced increases in costs in damages and efficiency.

Most carriers seem to be experiencing a high volume of business, and shippers are often scrambling to get their freight moved. This seems to be the time to put pressure on those shippers to increase their rates and invest the revenue directly into increasing driver wages.

It doesn’t make sense to hire unqualified drivers and overwork qualified drivers to handle a 20 per cent increase in freight if 20 per cent of the freight you are moving is not paying enough to merit the increased exposure to damages and accidents.

Perhaps this is the time to tell those shippers that we cannot endanger our businesses and the public to help out their bottom line.

Allow them to look for another carrier. n

Paul Ming

New Hamburg, Ont.