Give young truckers the chance to drive
Our dynamic Texas economy sets a high bar nationally as well as globally. We’re an energy giant, producing nearly 40 percent of America’s crude oil and a quarter of the nation’s natural gas. We account for 10 percent of total manufacturing in the country and export our goods all around the world. We capitalize on our position as a border state, sending more than $92 billion of exports south to our No. 1trade partner in Mexico, every year.
This economic engine requires an extensive transportation network to move the goods Texas produces. As a result, we have the largest road network in the United States, stretching more than 313,200 miles. We are home to a strong and proud trucking industry that keeps our economy churning. There are approximately 65,000 trucking companies across the Lone Star State, providing nearly 700,000 jobs.
Texas is better for it. A career in trucking offers real opportunity and a road to the middle class without the requirement of a fouryear college degree. These are good-paying jobs, too. Truck drivers in Texas earn an average salary of $44,260. However, according to the latest estimate from the American Trucking Associations, the trucking industry was short roughly 60,000 drivers at the end of 2018. If current trends — including economic growth, workforce attrition through retirements and other factors — continue, the shortage could top 160,000 by 2028.
Today, there are regulatory roadblocks that deny young Texans from participating in the trucking industry and the rewards it offers. While it is legal in Texas (and every state in the United States except Hawaii and Alaska) for 18-yearolds to obtain a commercial driver’s license and operate trucks within our state borders, a federal rule prevents them from driving across state lines.
That means a 20-year-old Texan can drive a truck the 745 miles from Houston to El Paso and then back but is legally prohibited from driving the mere 20 miles from El Paso across the border into New Mexico. This makes no sense.
Worst of all, it denies these young job-seekers access to the lucrative freight corridors that crisscross our state and connects Texas with the rest of the country. Unable to participate in interstate commerce, where the greater pay is, they are often wooed away by jobs in manufacturing, retail and food service.
Fortunately, there is a solution. The bipartisan DRIVE-Safe Act introduced in Congress would fix this legal loophole and align federal rules with the state laws currently in place, allowing those under 21 with commercial drivers licenses to operate in interstate commerce and cross state lines. The bill has 32 Democrat and Republican co-sponsors in the U.S. Senate, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. It also has more than 100 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, including nine from Texas.
Most important, this bill would significantly strengthen safety and training standards for 18 to 20-year-old drivers and raising the bar far above where it is today. Such drivers would have to get their commercial driver’s license and then undergo two rigorous probationary periods totaling 400 hours, while being graded against specific performance benchmarks.
In addition, any truck operated by the 18 to 20-year-old apprentice during this training period must have automatic or automatic-manual transmissions; active braking collision mitigation systems; forward-facing cameras; and caps on speeds at 65 miles per hour. Apprentices involved in a “preventable accident” or “a moving violation that is reportable to the Department of Transportation” would be subject to remediation and additional hours of training until they demonstrate the 10 performance benchmarks to the employer’s satisfaction.
By establishing new and rigorous safety standards that far exceed current requirements for drivers between 18 and 20 years old, the DRIVE-Safe Act will improve highway safety while opening up the industry to a new pool of highly trained talent. If we can train and send our nation’s young men and women overseas to fight our wars, there is no credible reason we cannot train them to operate a Commercial Motor Vehicle across state lines.