25 Hidden Realities of Trucking Every Transportation Manager Must Understand

Most freight problems that land on a transportation manager's desk were created long before the truck arrived. A load gets rejected, a rate jumps, a driver runs out of hours at your dock, a carrier you relied on stops answering the phone. It feels like bad luck. Usually it is the predictable result of how trucking actually works: how drivers are paid, how the hours-of-service clock runs, how contracts behave when the market turns, and how thin carrier margins really are.

Very little of this appears in a routing guide or a rate sheet. So we went to the evidence: peer-reviewed research, U.S. government data from agencies such as the BLS, FMCSA, FHWA and NHTSA, the National Academies, and the annual research of the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). The result is 25 research-backed realities of trucking and freight transportation. Each one comes with the evidence, an APA citation you can check, and three practical moves for managers who buy, plan or run truck transportation.

Whether you manage a private fleet, buy truckload capacity from carriers and brokers, or run a warehouse that trucks queue outside, these realities shape your costs, your service and your safety record every day.

The short version: Trucking is a low-margin, piece-rate, cyclical business running on a regulated clock. The "driver shortage" is mostly a turnover and working-conditions problem, your dock time is someone else's unpaid time, and contract rates are only as good as the market allows. Managers who understand this get better service, lower total cost and safer freight.

Key takeaways

• Turnover, not a lack of licensed drivers, is the core labour problem. Large truckload carriers averaged 94.0% annual driver turnover from 1995 to 2017, against 11.7% at less-than-truckload carriers (Burks & Monaco, 2019).
• Detention is a multi-billion-dollar leak. Drivers reported being detained at 39.3% of stops in 2023, costing an estimated $3.6 billion in direct expenses and $11.5 billion in lost productivity (ATRI, 2024).
• Waiting time raises crash risk. A federal audit estimated that each 15-minute increase in average dwell time raises the expected crash rate by 6.2% (Office of Inspector General [OIG], 2018).
• Running a truck has never cost more. The industry-average cost reached a record $2.336 per mile in 2025 (ATRI, 2026).
• Contracts are not commitments. In one large shipper's data, spot prices averaged about 62% higher than contract rates, and carriers could reject contract loads without penalty (Scott et al., 2017).
• The freight cycle just ran its longest downturn on record. Cass shipment volumes fell year over year for about 3.5 years before turning positive in August and September 2026 (Denoyer, 2026b).

How to read this guide: The 25 realities are grouped into four parts: the driver labour market, time and the dock, money and markets, and risk and the road ahead. Citations in brackets lead to the full reference list at the bottom. Most data are from the United States, where the research base is deepest, but the mechanisms apply to road freight in most countries. This article is general information, not legal, regulatory-compliance or financial advice. Always check current rules with your regulator and qualified advisers.

Part 1: The people behind the wheel

Reality 1: The "driver shortage" is a contested claim, not a settled fact

Industry groups have warned of a truck driver shortage for two decades. In 2022 the American Trucking Associations (ATA), an industry trade body, estimated the gap at nearly 78,000 drivers and projected it could pass 160,000 by 2031 (Campbell, 2022). Economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Bucknell University tested the claim with government data from 2003 to 2017. They found a tight market but not a broken one: driver employment grew, driver pay stayed above that of other blue-collar workers, and drivers responded to wages the way theory predicts (Burks & Monaco, 2019). They concluded that the market for truck drivers works about as well as other blue-collar labour markets and found no evidence of a long-term shortage. A 2024 National Academies study of long-distance trucking pointed instead to persistently high turnover tied to irregular earnings and stressful working conditions (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2024).

What transportation managers should do:

• Treat "there are no drivers" as a hypothesis. Ask carriers which lanes, schedules and pay levels they cannot staff.
• When capacity is scarce, look at what your freight asks of drivers (waiting, unloading, overnight away from home) before blaming the labour market.
• Read both industry estimates and independent research before building a strategy around a shortage narrative.

Reality 2: The real problem is churn, and it is concentrated in one segment

Using ATA data, Burks and Monaco (2019) report that annual driver turnover averaged 94.0% at large truckload carriers and 79.2% at small truckload carriers between 1995 and 2017. At less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers, which typically offer more regular routes and home time, turnover averaged just 11.7%. Turnover at large truckload carriers fell as low as 39% in early 2010, during a deep recession, which shows how much it moves with the economy. The authors describe long-distance truckload as a segment where high turnover is a business choice that keeps costs down in a fiercely competitive market. In other words, much of what gets called a shortage is the cost of constantly replacing people who leave.

What transportation managers should do:

• Ask carriers for their driver turnover rate during qualification, and treat very high churn as a service risk.
• Favour freight designs that look more like LTL work: regular lanes, predictable appointments and reliable home time.
• If you run a private fleet, measure turnover monthly and calculate what each departure costs you in recruiting, training and lost loads.

Reality 3: Drivers are paid by the mile, so your waiting time is their unpaid time

Nearly all long-distance truckload drivers are paid by the piece: per mile or per load, not per hour (NASEM, 2024). A driver waiting four hours at your dock is usually earning little or nothing. The National Academies report notes concern that output-based pay can encourage drivers to speed to maximise miles within their legal driving hours. Belzer and Sedo (2018) estimated the labour supply curve of long-haul drivers and found it bends backwards. Drivers work very long hours until they reach a target income, and once pay rises above that level they choose to work fewer hours, which the authors link to less fatigue and safer highways.

What transportation managers should do:

• Every time you plan an appointment, remember that delay costs the driver money, not just time.
• Pay detention promptly and ask carriers whether they pass detention pay on to drivers.
• When negotiating rates, recognise that very low per-mile pay pushes drivers toward longer hours and riskier driving.

Reality 4: Better pay is a safety tool, not just a recruiting cost

Rodríguez et al. (2003) analysed 26 months of driver-level data from a large truckload company. Pay, job tenure and the share of winter miles explained crash frequency better than demographics did, and higher pay rates and pay increases were linked to fewer expected crashes. The authors caution that the data come from one firm, but the pattern matches later national survey evidence that higher-paid drivers work fewer hours (Belzer & Sedo, 2018). Book-length studies of the industry tie today's low pay to the deregulation of trucking around 1980, when competition intensified and earnings for many drivers fell (Belzer, 2000; Viscelli, 2016).

What transportation managers should do:

• When you pick carriers, weigh safety records and driver pay practices, not just the lowest rate.
• Be wary of rates so low that they only work if someone breaks hours or speed rules.
• In a private fleet, test hourly pay, guaranteed minimums or paid waiting time, and track the effect on crashes and retention.

Reality 5: Turnover hurts safety, but good management routines blunt the damage

Miller et al. (2017) studied how driver turnover affects motor carrier safety using longitudinal data. Higher turnover was associated with worse safety outcomes. The effect was weaker at carriers with strong "activity control", meaning formal routines that specify and monitor how work should be done, especially in areas drivers control directly. Separately, a study of more than 1,000 of the largest U.S. for-hire carriers found that how fast a carrier grew or shrank affected its safety scores differently across safety categories (Miller et al., 2018a). Rapid change strains a carrier's ability to train and supervise.

What transportation managers should do:

• Ask carriers how they onboard and coach new drivers, not just how many they hire.
• Watch for carriers that are growing very quickly. Fast growth can outrun training and supervision.
• If you run a fleet, write down standard routines for pre-trip checks, backing, coupling and customer sites, and audit them.

Reality 6: New drivers overestimate what they will earn, and that shapes who stays

Hoffman and Burks (2020) combined weekly productivity data with drivers' own weekly predictions for a large sample of new truckers over two years. Drivers systematically and persistently overpredicted how many miles they would drive. Drivers with higher beliefs about their productivity were less likely to quit. The authors estimate that this overconfidence moderately reduces worker welfare but substantially increases firm profits, because it keeps people in the job longer than accurate expectations would. The flip side is that when reality catches up, people leave disappointed.

What transportation managers should do:

• If you hire drivers, give realistic job previews with actual weekly mile and pay ranges, not best-case numbers.
• Track the gap between promised and actual earnings in a driver's first 90 days. That gap predicts early exits.
• Build trust by being honest. A workforce that stays only because it misjudged the job is not a stable one.

Reality 7: Driver health is a hidden capacity and safety risk

A national NIOSH survey of 1,670 long-haul truck drivers at 32 truck stops found that 69% were obese and 51% smoked, roughly twice the rates in the 2010 U.S. working population. Sixty-one percent had two or more risk factors such as hypertension, smoking, no physical activity or six hours or less of sleep (Sieber et al., 2014). Sleep disorders matter directly for safety. In a study at a large carrier, drivers with obstructive sleep apnea who did not follow their prescribed treatment had about five times the rate of serious preventable crashes of matched controls. Drivers who followed treatment had crash rates similar to the controls (Burks et al., 2016).

What transportation managers should do:

• Make it easy for drivers to stay healthy at your sites: clean restrooms, water, safe walking areas and somewhere to rest.
• In a private fleet, offer sleep apnea screening and support treatment adherence. The evidence links adherence to fewer crashes.
• Avoid schedules that routinely cut sleep, such as early appointments after late unloads.

Part 2: The clock, the dock and the parking lot

Reality 8: Hours-of-service rules turn your dock into the driver's biggest risk

In the United States, property-carrying drivers may drive up to 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty, and may not drive beyond the 14th hour after coming on duty. Off-duty time does not extend that 14-hour window. A 30-minute break is required after 8 cumulative hours of driving, and drivers may not drive after 60 hours on duty in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration [FMCSA], n.d.). The clock keeps running while a truck sits at your door. Research on crash risk shows why the rules matter: in less-than-truckload operations, crash odds rose steadily as driving time increased beyond the fourth hour, and breaks from driving reduced crash odds by as much as 50% (Jovanis et al., 2012).

What transportation managers should do:

• Plan loads so that drivers can finish within their legal hours, including realistic time for loading, unloading and traffic.
• Never pressure a driver to "just make it". If the hours are gone, the load waits.
• Train your planners and dock staff on the basics of the hours-of-service rules that apply where you operate.

Reality 9: Detention happens at four in ten stops, and fees rarely get paid

Detention is when a truck is held at a shipper or receiver for longer than the agreed free time, commonly two hours. ATRI's 2024 study, an industry-funded research institute's survey and GPS analysis, found that drivers were detained at 39.3% of all stops in 2023. The rate was 56.2% for refrigerated drivers, 49.1% for women drivers and 42.5% for spot-market fleets. Drivers lost between 117 and 209 hours a year to detention, and for-hire trucking lost more than 135 million hours. ATRI estimated the cost at $3.6 billion in direct expenses and $11.5 billion in lost productivity. Although 94.5% of fleets charge detention fees, fewer than half of those invoices are paid (ATRI, 2024).

What transportation managers should do:

• Measure dwell time at every one of your facilities, by shift and by customer, and publish it internally.
• Pay valid detention invoices quickly. Disputing them by habit tells carriers your freight is a bad deal.
• Use appointment scheduling, drop trailers and live-unload staffing to keep turn times under two hours.

Reality 10: Detention is a safety problem, not just a cost problem

The U.S. Department of Transportation's Office of Inspector General estimated that a 15-minute increase in average dwell time raises the expected crash rate by 6.2%. It also estimated that detention reduces truckload drivers' annual earnings by $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion, or $1,281 to $1,534 per driver, and cuts for-hire carriers' net earnings by up to $302.9 million a year (OIG, 2018). The audit stressed that its estimates relied on limited data and recommended better data collection. ATRI's GPS analysis adds a mechanism: detained trucks drove an average of 14.6% faster than non-detained trucks, and trucks also drove faster on trips to facilities where they had been detained before (ATRI, 2024).

What transportation managers should do:

• Put dock dwell time on your safety scorecard, not only your cost scorecard.
• When a truck has been held, adjust the next appointment instead of expecting the driver to make up the time.
• Include detention performance in your quarterly reviews with receivers and suppliers, with targets.

Reality 11: The electronic logging mandate fixed one problem and may have moved another

Since December 2017, most U.S. carriers have had to record drivers' hours with electronic logging devices (ELDs). Before the deadline, compliance among small and medium carriers varied with carrier size and how widely they operated (Miller et al., 2020). Scott et al. (2021) used millions of roadside inspections and crash counts and found the mandate did what it was designed to do: hours-of-service violations fell. But drivers at small carriers, who were most affected, appear to have increased unsafe driving such as speeding, and their crash counts did not fall relative to large carriers. The authors explain this as "offense displacement": when one behaviour is monitored, pressure shifts to another. Earlier research found that carriers gain most from monitoring investments at moderate levels of capability (Miller et al., 2018b).

What transportation managers should do:

• Don't assume monitoring equals safety. Ask what pressure your schedules put on drivers once their hours are tracked precisely.
• Build schedules with buffer time so drivers are not forced to choose between their hours and the speed limit.
• If you run a fleet, pair ELD data with speed and harsh-braking data, and coach rather than only punish.

Reality 12: There is nowhere to park, and that costs drivers about an hour a day

The Federal Highway Administration's first Jason's Law survey documented a little over 300,000 truck parking spaces in the United States, most of them at private truck stops. More than 75% of truck drivers and almost 66% of logistics staff reported regularly struggling to find safe parking when they needed rest, and 90% reported struggling at night (Federal Highway Administration [FHWA], 2015). Preliminary results from a 2019 FHWA update, as reported by trade press, found 98% of 11,696 drivers had trouble finding safe parking, 75% at least weekly, and 79% of 524 truck stop operators had no plans to add spaces (Fuller, 2020). In ATRI's parking diary study, drivers gave up an average of 56 minutes of drive time a day by parking early to secure a space, worth about 9,300 revenue miles and $4,600 in wages a year (ATRI, 2016).

What transportation managers should do:

• Let drivers stage or rest on your property when it is safe to do so, especially if they arrive early or finish late.
• Avoid appointment times that leave drivers out of hours far from legal parking.
• Support local planning for truck parking near your facilities. It protects your neighbours as well as drivers.

Reality 13: Most people killed in truck crashes are not in the truck

In 2024, 5,340 people were killed in U.S. traffic crashes involving large trucks, a 2.5% decrease from 2023. Seventy percent of them were occupants of other vehicles (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration [NHTSA], 2026). Truck drivers face serious risk too. In 2024, transportation incidents caused 38.2% of all fatal work injuries in the United States, and transportation and material moving occupations recorded 1,391 fatal work injuries, more than any other occupational group (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics [BLS], 2026). Every scheduling and carrier-selection decision you make sits on top of these numbers.

What transportation managers should do:

• Check carriers' safety ratings and inspection records before tendering, and recheck them regularly.
• Make sure your own schedules never require speeding or hours violations to work.
• Investigate every serious incident involving your freight, including the role your own timing or loading played.

Part 3: Money, markets and the freight cycle

Reality 14: Trucks carry most of the economy, and most of your logistics bill

Trucks moved about two-thirds of U.S. domestic freight by tonnage and three-quarters by value in 2021, according to Freight Analysis Framework data (U.S. Department of Energy, 2023). The Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals' annual State of Logistics report, prepared with Kearney, put U.S. business logistics costs at $2.40 trillion in 2025, or 7.8% of GDP. Trucking-related spending made up about 36.8% of all logistics spending, according to one summary of the report (Gilmore, 2026). Small percentage improvements in how you buy and use truck capacity therefore move real money.

What transportation managers should do:

• Know your total truck spend, including accessorials, detention and spot premiums, not just base linehaul rates.
• Benchmark your transportation cost as a share of revenue or cost of goods over time.
• Give trucking decisions senior attention. They are often your largest controllable logistics cost.

Reality 15: Running a truck has never cost more, and driver pay is lagging

ATRI's annual survey of carrier finances put the industry-average cost of operating a truck at $2.336 per mile in 2025, up 3.4% and the highest in the report's history. Excluding fuel, costs rose 4.2% to $1.854 per mile. Tolls (up 13.2%), repairs and maintenance (8.6%), driver benefits (6.6%) and tires (6.4%) rose fastest, while fuel and, for the second year in a row, driver pay rose more slowly than inflation (ATRI, 2026). In 2024 the total was $2.260 per mile, of which $1.779 was non-fuel (ATRI, 2025a), which implies fuel was roughly 48 cents per mile, about a fifth of the total. Equipment payments hit a record $0.390 per mile in 2024.

What transportation managers should do:

• Understand your carriers' cost structure before pushing rates down. Rates below cost do not last.
• Use fuel surcharge tables tied to a public diesel index, so fuel risk is shared transparently.
• Look for cost savings in your own operations, such as faster turns and fewer empty miles, rather than only in rate cuts.

Reality 16: Many carriers are working for almost nothing

In 2024 the truckload sector averaged an operating margin of minus 2.3%, and every sector except LTL averaged below 2% (ATRI, 2025a). In 2025 truckload and refrigerated margins improved only slightly, to below 1%, and flatbed carriers averaged minus 0.5%. ATRI reported that the freight recession began in 2022 and that carriers made their largest capacity cut since then, reducing truck counts by 2.4%, with about 10% of trucks sitting unseated on average (ATRI, 2026). A carrier losing money on every mile is a carrier that may cut maintenance, delay hiring or simply disappear.

What transportation managers should do:

• Monitor the financial health of key carriers, especially small ones, and have backup capacity for critical lanes.
• Avoid squeezing core carriers to the point where your freight is their least profitable work.
• Agree rate review triggers in advance so contracts adjust before carriers walk away.

Reality 17: About one mile in six is driven empty

ATRI's 2025 cost survey found carriers drove an average of 16.7% of their miles empty (ATRI, 2025a), and its 2026 report said deadhead mileage remained elevated (ATRI, 2026). Empty miles cost almost as much as loaded ones and earn nothing, so carriers build them into your rates. Information is a large part of the fix. A classic study found that advanced on-board computers increased capacity utilisation among adopting trucks by 13%, by helping dispatchers make better load-matching decisions (Hubbard, 2003).

What transportation managers should do:

• Offer carriers consistent, balanced lanes and backhaul opportunities. Lower deadhead should mean lower rates.
• Share forecasts and load visibility early so carriers can plan return loads.
• Look for continuous-move or round-trip opportunities across your own network and with partner shippers.

Reality 18: The freight market moves in long, painful cycles

The Cass Freight Index tracks shipments and spending on freight paid through Cass Information Systems. In September 2026, shipments rose 1.9% year over year, a second straight annual gain after a 3.5-year downturn that ACT Research's Tim Denoyer called the longest on record by that measure. Expenditures were up 20.4% and the Cass Truckload Linehaul Index was up 10.1% year over year (Denoyer, 2026b). The downturn was severe: freight expenditures fell 19% in 2023 and 11% in 2024, and truckload linehaul rates fell 10% in 2023. By mid-2026 Denoyer noted volumes were soft partly because capacity was shrinking (Denoyer, 2026a). Cycles like this mean the cheap capacity of one year becomes the scarce capacity of the next.

What transportation managers should do:

• Follow at least one public freight indicator monthly, such as the Cass indexes, and brief your leadership on where the cycle is.
• Don't lock in a strategy that only works at the bottom of the market.
• Budget with ranges and scenarios for rates, not a single number.

Reality 19: A contract rate is not a promise to haul your freight

Truckload contracts usually set prices but create no legally binding obligation for the shipper to tender loads or for the carrier to accept them (Scott et al., 2017). Shippers rely on "routing guides" built from annual bids, and turn to the spot market when the guide fails (Caplice, 2007). Using a large national shipper's transaction data, Scott et al. (2017) estimated that spot prices averaged about 62% higher than contract rates. Operational and economic factors drove rejections, and a strong shipper-carrier relationship deterred them. Later research found that when the market is tight, long-term relationships become less of a deterrent, and carriers respond to short-term demand surges with higher rejection rates (Acocella et al., 2024).

What transportation managers should do:

• Track tender acceptance by carrier and lane every week. It is the earliest warning that your rates no longer work.
• Keep tender volumes close to what you awarded. Surges and droughts both erode carrier commitment.
• Consider index-linked or shorter-term contracts on volatile lanes, so rates can follow the market.

Reality 20: Carriers have short memories, so being a good customer is a daily job

Many shippers hope that treating carriers well in a soft market will earn loyalty when capacity tightens. Acocella et al. (2020) tested this with truckload transaction data and found carriers behave more like "goldfish" than "elephants". They did not appear to remember shippers' previous-period pricing, tendering behaviour or performance when deciding whether to accept freight. Instead, they responded to how the shipper was behaving in the current market period. Loyalty earned last year is a weak shield this year.

What transportation managers should do:

• Be a "shipper of choice" all the time: fast loading, fair detention, accurate forecasts and on-time payment.
• Re-check whether your rates are competitive whenever market indicators move, not only at the annual bid.
• Talk to key carriers about what makes your freight attractive or unattractive right now, and act on it.

Part 4: Risk, regulation and the road ahead

Reality 21: Lawsuits and insurance now worry carriers almost as much as the economy

In ATRI's 2025 survey of more than 4,200 trucking stakeholders, the economy ranked first for the third year running, followed by lawsuit abuse reform and insurance cost and availability. Lawsuit abuse reform reached its highest ranking in the survey's 21 years (ATRI, 2025c; Transport Topics, 2025). An earlier ATRI study of trucking litigation reported that mean jury verdict awards grew by about 51.7% a year from 2010 to 2018 (ATRI, 2020). ATRI is affiliated with the trucking industry, and plaintiff lawyers have disputed its methods, but the direction is clear: large verdicts drive up insurance costs that carriers pass on to shippers.

What transportation managers should do:

• Verify carriers' insurance limits and certificates, and recheck them at renewal.
• Review your own contracts for indemnity and liability terms with legal counsel.
• Remember that the best protection against verdicts is fewer crashes. Safety decisions are financial decisions.

Reality 22: Cargo theft is a growing, under-reported cost

ATRI's 2025 cargo theft study collected data from carriers, logistics service providers, insurers and others. It found that motor carriers report average annual theft losses of more than $520,000, and logistics service providers more than $1.84 million. ATRI estimated the annualised cost to the industry at up to $6.6 billion, or more than $18 million a day (ATRI, 2025b). Because many incidents fall below insurance deductibles, a large share of the loss never shows up in claims data.

What transportation managers should do:

• Verify carriers' identity and authority before tendering, especially new or unfamiliar ones, and watch for altered contact details.
• Limit how long high-value loads sit unattended, and plan secure parking for them.
• Report every theft, even small ones, so you and your partners can see the real pattern.

Reality 23: Drivers and carriers rank the industry's problems differently

In ATRI's 2025 survey, motor carriers ranked the economy, lawsuit abuse reform and insurance as their top three issues. Drivers ranked compensation, truck parking and English-language proficiency first (ATRI, 2025c; Transport Topics, 2025). Notably, the 2025 overall top-ten list included driver training standards but not a driver shortage item. Federal entry-level driver training standards took effect on 7 February 2022, requiring new commercial licence applicants to complete training from a provider listed on FMCSA's Training Provider Registry (FMCSA, 2022). The gap between how carriers and drivers see the job is itself a reason why turnover stays high.

What transportation managers should do:

• Talk directly to drivers who visit your sites. Ask what makes your facility good or bad to serve.
• Fix the issues drivers rank highest that you control, such as parking, restrooms and waiting time.
• If you run a fleet, survey drivers and managers separately and compare the answers.

Reality 24: Electric trucks are coming, but charging, not the truck, is the bottleneck

Nykvist and Olsson (2021) challenged the view that heavy battery-electric trucks are impractical. Their analysis found that if heavy trucks can fast-charge during required breaks, batteries can stay smaller and lighter and electric trucks become far more competitive with diesel. The catch is infrastructure. An ATRI analysis estimated that electrifying domestic long-haul trucking would use more than 10% of current U.S. electricity generation, that some states would need to generate up to 60% more power, and that chargers would cost about $112,000 each to buy and install, more than $35 billion system-wide (ATRI, 2022). ATRI's figures come from an industry-affiliated body, but they show why electrification is first succeeding in shorter, return-to-base operations.

What transportation managers should do:

• Start electrification pilots on short, predictable, return-to-base routes where charging can be controlled.
• Involve your utility early. Grid connection can take longer than buying the trucks.
• Judge electric trucks on total cost and duty cycle, not on headline range claims.

Reality 25: Automation won't remove the people problem soon

A 2018 report for the UC Berkeley Labor Center by sociologist Steve Viscelli estimated that autonomous trucks could replace as many as 294,000 long-distance driving jobs. It also argued that full automation on local streets could take decades, that humans would still handle many tasks such as coupling, fuelling, inspections and loading, and that new local and last-mile jobs could be lower-paid unless policy intervenes (Viscelli, 2018). Viscelli's earlier book, based on more than 100 interviews and six months working as a trucker, showed how the industry's labour model, including lease-purchase deals that push drivers into debt, shapes who drives and why they leave (Viscelli, 2016). Technology will change trucking, but the realities in this guide will shape freight for years to come.

What transportation managers should do:

• Plan for a long period of mixed operations, with human drivers at both ends of the trip.
• Invest in the driver experience now. It pays back long before any autonomous truck reaches your dock.
• Assess technology claims carefully: ask which lanes, which conditions and which tasks are actually automated.

Your 10-point action plan

You can't control the freight cycle or the regulations. You can control how your freight treats the people and companies who move it. Across all 25 realities, the same moves keep coming up:

1. Measure dwell time everywhere. Make turn time a published metric with a target under two hours.
2. Pay detention fairly and fast. It is cheaper than the rejections and rate premiums that follow if you don't.
3. Track tender acceptance weekly. Falling acceptance is your early warning that rates or service no longer work.
4. Follow the cycle. Watch one public freight index monthly and budget with scenarios, not single numbers.
5. Know your carriers' economics. Rates below cost lead to failure, poor maintenance or walkaways.
6. Qualify carriers on safety and turnover, not just price, and recheck insurance and authority regularly.
7. Design driver-friendly freight. Regular lanes, reliable appointments, balanced volumes and backhauls.
8. Respect the clock. Plan loads within legal hours, with buffers, and never pressure drivers to rush.
9. Support parking and rest. Let drivers stage safely on site and avoid appointments that strand them.
10. Pilot new technology on the right routes. Electrify and automate where duty cycles fit, and keep investing in people.

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Frequently asked questions

Is there really a truck driver shortage?

It depends on who you ask. The American Trucking Associations estimated a gap of nearly 78,000 drivers in 2022 (Campbell, 2022). Independent research using government data found a tight labour market but no evidence of a long-term shortage, and points to very high turnover in long-distance truckload as the real problem (Burks & Monaco, 2019; NASEM, 2024).

What is detention time in trucking and why does it matter?

Detention is the time a truck is held at a shipper or receiver beyond the agreed free time, often two hours. It happens at about four in ten stops and costs billions of dollars a year (ATRI, 2024). Because drivers are usually paid by the mile, detention also cuts their earnings, and it has been linked to higher crash risk (OIG, 2018).

How much does it cost to operate a truck per mile?

According to ATRI's annual survey of carriers, the U.S. industry average was $2.336 per mile in 2025, the highest on record, with non-fuel costs at $1.854 per mile (ATRI, 2026). Costs vary widely by region, fleet size and type of operation.

Why do carriers reject contract loads?

Truckload contracts usually set prices without binding either side to tender or accept loads. When spot rates rise above contract rates, or a shipper's volumes surge, carriers often reject contract freight for better-paying loads (Scott et al., 2017; Acocella et al., 2024). Tracking tender acceptance and keeping rates aligned with the market reduces rejections.

What are the main hours-of-service rules for truck drivers in the U.S.?

For property-carrying drivers: up to 11 hours of driving after 10 hours off duty, no driving after the 14th hour on duty, a 30-minute break after 8 hours of driving, and limits of 60 hours in 7 days or 70 hours in 8 days (FMCSA, n.d.). Check FMCSA's current guidance for exceptions and updates.

Are electric trucks ready for long-haul freight?

Battery-electric trucks are increasingly competitive, especially if fast charging is available (Nykvist & Olsson, 2021). Charging infrastructure and grid capacity remain the main obstacles for long-haul use (ATRI, 2022), so most early deployments are on shorter, return-to-base routes.

About this research

This guide was compiled by the Better Leaders Training Institute (BLTI) research team. Every source below was checked for authors, year, title, publisher and DOI or stable link, using Crossref and the publishers' or agencies' own pages. We prioritised peer-reviewed studies, U.S. government data, the National Academies and established research bodies. ATRI is a research institute affiliated with the trucking industry, and the ATA is an industry trade association; where figures come from them, a working paper or a trade-press summary, we say so in the text. Statistics describe specific years, samples and countries; your operation may differ. This article is general information, not legal, regulatory-compliance or financial advice.

References

Acocella, A., Caplice, C., & Sheffi, Y. (2020). Elephants or goldfish?: An empirical analysis of carrier reciprocity in dynamic freight markets. Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, 142, Article 102073. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2020.102073

Acocella, A., Caplice, C., & Sheffi, Y. (2024). Great expectations: The moderating effects of supplier service model and market dynamics on relational contract performance. Production and Operations Management, 33(11), 2121–2138. https://doi.org/10.1177/10591478241277463

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American Transportation Research Institute. (2020). Understanding the impact of nuclear verdicts on the trucking industry. https://trid.trb.org/view/1759238

American Transportation Research Institute. (2022, December). New ATRI research evaluates charging infrastructure challenges for the U.S. electric vehicle fleet [Press release]. https://truckingresearch.org/2022/12/new-atri-research-evaluates-charging-infrastructure-challenges-for-the-u-s-electric-vehicle-fleet/

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Burks, S. V., Anderson, J. E., Bombyk, M., Haider, R., Ganzhorn, D., Jiao, X., Lewis, C., Lexvold, A., Liu, H., Ning, J., Toll, A., Hickman, J. S., Mabry, E., Berger, M., Malhotra, A., Czeisler, C. A., & Kales, S. N. (2016). Nonadherence with employer-mandated sleep apnea treatment and increased risk of serious truck crashes. Sleep, 39(5), 967–975. https://doi.org/10.5665/sleep.5734

Burks, S. V., & Monaco, K. (2019). Is the U.S. labor market for truck drivers broken? Monthly Labor Review. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. https://doi.org/10.21916/mlr.2019.5

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Videos

Caplice, C. (2017, March 7). Chris Caplice on FreightLab [Video]. MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ukJSk75PME

Caplice, C. (2018, September 11). Full remarks: Forecasting freight transportation rates with MIT's Chris Caplice [Video]. Volpe Center. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpDuquvXPnk

McKown, J. (2017, September 13). How a truck driver sees and saves people on America's highways [Video]. TED Institute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKHLsOEaep0

Shorosky, R. (2025, November 14). Outside the frame: A long-haul trucker's stories on roads less traveled [Video]. TEDx Talks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Atet3IsCZU8