The transportation industry affects our daily lives

I was having a very interesting conversation with a friend who owns a local trucking company in Tacoma, WA, and I was surprised by some of the things he said to me.

The average person has no idea how much their life depends on trucking and this industry as a whole is much more important than people realize.

You may or may not realize it, but trucking is the backbone of our economy, from the national level to the local city level. Without it, our entire way of life would come to a screeching halt.

We take trucking companies for granted, we don’t give them much thought unless we’re bothered that they’re clogging the road, and we never come to a complete stop and think about how almost everything we buy is shipped through them.

Think of everything you have in your pantry, cabinets, fridge.

Where did you get those items?

You bought them at a supermarket, store, mall, or retail establishment of some kind.

Now take a moment and think about how all those hundreds of goods got to those places.

Thanks to the national and local shipping companies, you can buy any product you want and can pay with such ease.

Most items, from food to clothing, are produced at the manufacturing plant (or field).

A trucking company takes the following goods and transports them to ships or trains for transport to various distribution centers in the US.

If there is an urgent need to get a certain good to a location, they may do so by air (such as fresh seafood), although this is generally the most expensive route.

It is from the local city or regional distribution centers that stores can purchase these items that they would like to sell to the public. Once they do, a trucking company is contracted to transport them from distribution centers to local stores (from Kroger and Fred Myer to Banana Republic and Nordstorms).

You can easily get any food, clothing, electronics, entertainment, movies, and other gadgets because a trucking company brought them to you. They allow you to avoid having to fly across the US to get various wants and needs.

In the past, people generally only had items available to them that could be produced in our area. People in Washington state can’t be pineapples or mangoes. People in Texas would not have access to Granny Smith apples. They would all have to be producers from other regions and buy items that could be made locally. This whole idea that we can buy goods that are produced all over the world is relatively new. And one of the main components for us to do it is trucking.

Truckers who cross the open highways, put their lives in danger and sit behind the wheel for hours are the reason we can have that standard of living.

You should thank a trucker for what he does the next time you see him. While the trucking industry is well compensated, even though diesel prices have eaten into its gains over the last five years at an alarming rate, it is not a glorious industry to be in.

Trucking as a whole is considered a dirty business and not something many people want to achieve. It’s a shame because many people make an above average living driving trucks.

There are many owner-operators who make over $100,000 working 40 hours a week in the trucking business. One can easily earn between $60 and $80,000 working for a national trucking company with good benefits.

The industry as a whole has a shortage of qualified drivers with valid CDLs, so there is never a shortage of employment opportunities here.

So I hope I’ve given you something to think about. It’s amazing how we think so little of this particular industry and yet have so much trust in it.

Next time you hear the trucking industry complain about rising diesel costs and labor shortages, pay attention. Their problems affect you in ways you probably don’t realize.

This is an industry where all your problems are leaked to the public. If your costs go up, your costs will go up.

Let’s hope you see the industry as a whole in a new light.