Why should you pursue a career in commercial truck driving? That is a very good question. Hopefully, by the end of this article, you will have enough valuable information to answer it yourself. So, why should anyone pursue a career in commercial truck driving? Let me start by giving you some fascinating statistics about the trucking industry Vehicle Storage near Me.
Did you know that of all the modes of shipment in the commercial transportation industry, the trucking sector dominates the field with 83.7% of the revenue? The rail industry comes in at a distant second with only 5.6% of the total revenue. The air sector is third with 3.2%, and the oceanic freight sector is barely in the running with only 1.4% of all revenue being transported by ships. As you can see, the trucking industry isn't going away anytime soon. In fact, the trucking industry alone collects 650 billion dollars in annual revenue each year. That's 5% of the nation's GDP! The trucking industry also pays out 35 billion dollars in federal, state, and highway use taxes per year and will grow by 21% over the next ten years. Not many career fields can promise you such great job security without a four year college degree like the trucking industry can.
Speaking of job security, in May of 2013 there was an estimated 1.5 million heavy truck and tractor trailer drivers earning an average median salary of $38,700 a year, which calculates to roughly $18.61 an hour. In fact, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that truck drivers who were at the lower end of the pay scale still made $25,330 a year and truck drivers who were at the high end of the pay scale made $59,620 per year. How many other jobs can boast such a wide range of salaries without a four-year or two-year college degree? Not many. So, where are more truck drivers employed than anywhere else? Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Illinois. The state of Texas hired 157, 260 truckers in 2013 while Illinois employed an estimated 66,050 truck drivers. But, don't think you will have to relocate to one of these five states in order to find a decent truck driving job. The entire east coast is full of states that have an average 40,210 to 157,260 working truck drivers. If you're looking for the states with the highest concentration of truck driving jobs in the U.S. look no further. North Dakota boasts 15,310 trucking jobs with an average median salary of $47,580 while Arkansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Wyoming follow closely. Truck drivers in Alaska have the highest median salary at $53,440, while truckers in North Dakota, Massachusetts, District of Columbia, and Wyoming make an average $47,000 a year. If you were to look at a map of the United States showing the areas where the most truck drivers are employed, you would see that truck drivers are heavily employed from Texas all the way over to Pennsylvania and Florida, and all the way up to Michigan. Califonia and the Pacific Northwest also employ many truck drivers. Which areas have the least amount of working truck drivers? The midwestern states. That is why truck drivers in these states make more per year. Here's one more thing to consider. U.S. intracontinental truck driving jobs cannot be outsourced.
Here are some more fascinating facts about truckers. The total distance traveled by truck drivers per year is 93.5 million highway miles? To put that in perspective, that's 256,197,260 miles per day, 2,965 milers per second, and 3.7 million times around the earth or 195,713 round trips to the moon! That's a lot of truckin'! Of course, with all those miles it would be nice to get good gas mileage. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen. On average, long haul trukcs can carry 300 gallons of fuel, but can only travel eight miles per gallon. That's about 6.8 gallons of fuel an hour at 55 miles per hour. That means it would take a class 8 tractor trailer 44 hours and 347 gallons of fuel to travel from Los Angeles to New York City. Of course, with a 300 gallon fuel tank, you would only have to stop for gas one time. With all those miles to travel, one of the perks of long haul truck driving is being able to see the beauty and splendor of the United States countryside and getting paid to do so!