Baton Rouge / louisianaradionetwork.com
At least a partial answer to the truck driver shortage is contained in President Biden’s new pilot Drive-Safe Act which would allow 18-year-olds to start driving big-rigs across state lines. Renee Amar, executive director of the Louisiana Motor Transport Association, favors the change. “If you were stationed out of Lake Charles with a company, you couldn’t drive from Lake Charles to Beaumont, which is roughly about a one-hour drive, you don’t have the ability to cross state lines currently,” said Amar.
Younger drivers can now haul goods within the state, but have to be 21 to take on interstate assignments, possibly contributing to the driver shortage if individuals are looking for long-haul work with a company.
Amar says under the pilot program of the Drive Safe Act contained in the infrastructure bill the number of drivers 18 to 20 would be limited in number to interstate assignments. She says, “What they passed in the bill was that they would do a pilot program for 3,000 slots across the nation, FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Association) I’m assuming under the Department of Transportation, is going to have to figure out how they allocate those slots for each state.”
Amar says supply chain issues and driver shortages nationwide are being exacerbated by the ongoing COVID pandemic, something lowering the age for interstate truckers could help with. “The numbers we were looking at before were roughly about 60,000 across the nation and currently were sitting around 80,000 short across the nation,” said Amar.
louisianaradionetwork.com/2021/12/08/biden-infrastructure-bill-includes-pilot-program-to-lower-minimum-age-of-interstate-truckers/
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