Dear Editor,

At a U.S. hearing about hours of service rules, a labor expert said that to reduce driver turnover, drivers should make a minimum of U.S. $10.30/hour or 25 cents a mile (single) and 32 cents a team, with time and a half after 50 hours in eight days. Yet in this labor market, a driver does not make U.S. $40,000 a year.

I worked for a large Canadian carrier with four different drivers in a little over a year. One driver went from long haul to city work. The second driver went to a factory job for more money. The third driver, who was an accountant, went back to his original career (partly because he was not being paid for detention time.) The fourth driver went to work for a U.S. carrier for more money. I left, too.

The only real solution to the turnover problem is to pay drivers what they’re worth.

Steve Webster,

Brownville, Texas.