Why The Decline Of The Trucking Industry

History
Before the days of trucking there was the railroad. The railroad was responsible for shipping goods across the country. Today we still have the railroad, but the trucking industry is what dominates shipping in our society. As of 2012 68.5 percent of our goods were shipped on tractor trailers, with only 14.8 percent of freight being shipped in rail cars (Costello, 2012). The railroads began to see a decline around the time of World War I. During this time the railroad had 254,000 miles of line. The decline began to happen because of increasing government regulations along with new modes of transporting. By 1966 the mileage of the rails had dropped to less than 213,000 miles, most of which was lost between the 1930s and 1940s. (Stover
In 1956 Congress passed legislation to build the National Interstate Highway System. Between the late fifties and the early seventies the majority of the interstate was built. Today the interstate covers forty-six thousand miles. The interstate and highway systems made everything more accessible. Before the roadways were built there were many small towns that were not able to get their goods, as there were no rails that came through their area. The trucking industry was virtually unregulated in the early days, which is much of the reason why trucking was able to gain much of the traffic from the rails. The railroads were losing much of their less than carload shipments, after World War I, to the trucking industry. The total tonnage went from 53,000,000 in 1919 down to 1,400,000 by 1965. The rails also lost much of their animal freight during this same period of time. The railroad went from shipping 35,000,000 tons of animals in 1919 down to 9,500,000 by 1960 (Stover 195). The trucking industry began to see a surge in demand and the modern trucking industry
In July of 2013 a regulation went into effect which mandates the amount of time a driver is to work. This regulation limits the amount of hours a driver is allowed to work in one week to seventy hours down from a maximum of eighty-two. A driver must also take at least a thirty minute break during the first eight hours of a shift. According to Anne S. Ferro, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration or FMCSA administrator “These fatigue-fighting rules for truck drivers were carefully crafted based on years of scientific research and unprecedented stakeholder outreach. The result is a fair and balanced approach that will result in an estimated $280 million in savings from fewer large truck crashes and $470 million in savings from improved driver health, most importantly, it will save lives.” It has also been estimated that the new regulations will save nineteen lives, prevent about one thousand four hundred crashes and five hundred sixty injuries each year. If companies and drivers commit violations of these rules they could face penalties. The companies who allow their drivers to commit the acts could be fined up to $11,000 per offense, the drivers could face civil penalties of up to $2,750 for each offense. ("New Hours-of-Service Safety Regulations to Reduce Truck Driver Fatigue Begin