Sep 22, 26
Could More Flexibility Help Keep Drivers in Trucking?
This article is based on reporting originally published by Trucking Dive and Werner Enterprises.
Ask two truck drivers what they want from the job and you probably won't get the same answer. One may want to stay over-the-road and maximize miles. Another may be looking for a dedicated route that gets them home more often. And someone who's been driving for years may be ready to train new drivers or move into a different role altogether.
That's part of what makes driver retention so complicated. Pay matters, but so does having some control over what your career and your day actually look like. And lately, that idea of flexibility has been showing up in more than one part of the trucking industry.
On the career side, carriers are looking at ways to give drivers more options as their lives change. A driver might start OTR, move into a regional or dedicated route later, earn additional endorsements, become a mentor, or eventually transition into another position within the company. The point is that choosing trucking doesn't necessarily mean choosing the exact same job for the rest of your career.
Drivers' priorities can change a lot over the course of a career. Someone who was happy running OTR when they first got their CDL may want a dedicated route five or ten years later. Home time, family responsibilities, pay, and even the kind of freight they want to haul can all look different as life changes.
How much control drivers have over their day on the road is getting attention too.
FMCSA is preparing pilot programs that would test changes to current Hours of Service rules. One would allow participating drivers to pause the 14-hour driving window for anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours. Another would test different sleeper berth arrangements, including 6/4 and 5/5 splits.
The pilots aren't about simply giving drivers more hours to drive. They're designed to study whether drivers can have more flexibility in deciding when to work and when to rest without increasing maximum driving time or reducing required rest.
A driver's day rarely goes exactly according to plan. There can be hours of detention at a shipper, traffic that suddenly stops moving, bad weather, or an appointment time that leaves a driver sitting when they would rather rest. Meanwhile, the 14-hour clock keeps running.
More flexibility could give drivers a chance to make better use of that time. That's what the pilots are intended to study, and FMCSA will need data from participating drivers before deciding whether any of these ideas should go further.
Both ideas come back to giving drivers more control. One is about having options as their career and life change, and the other is about having more flexibility in how they manage their time behind the wheel. For some, that could mean choosing between OTR, regional, dedicated, or local work as their priorities change. For others, it could mean having more say in when they rest during a long day on the road. And for drivers thinking several years ahead, it could mean knowing there are opportunities to move into mentoring or other roles without having to leave the industry altogether.
Of course, not every driver wants the same thing, and not every proposed Hours of Service change will work for everyone. That's exactly what the pilot programs are there to find out, but trucking is a career filled with people at very different stages of their lives, and giving them more than one way to build that career could make it easier for experienced drivers to stay.
Recruiting drivers is one challenge and giving experienced drivers enough reasons to stay is another.
Better pay will always be important, but drivers also have to think about home time, schedules, family, the type of work they want to do, and where they want their career to go.
If the industry wants people to see trucking as a career they can build a life around, giving drivers more flexibility may be a good place to start.
The real question now is—
what would make the biggest difference in your life as a driver: better pay, more home time, more control over your schedule, or more opportunities to grow?