These days, most semi-truck drivers are compensated by the mile or by the job, not hourly. The federal government is trying to work out how the trucking industry might decrease preventable crashes. Its efforts include studying whether paying truckers more in general would help make the industry safer. This week, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a new study, “Pay and Working Conditions in the Long-Distance Truck and Bus Industries.”

The results aren’t necessarily spelled out in layman’s terms. However, its authors indicate an “assumed connection” between the trucking industry’s typical compensation model and its potentially negative effects on safety. Unfortunately for drivers, though, the study didn’t decidedly link “higher pay” to “safer driving.”

Semi-truck driver pay structure, incentivized fatigue, and preventable wrecks

The fresh paper cited an eye-crossingly large number of older studies. For instance, “fatigue” was cited as the underlying factor in 13% of semi-truck accidents in 2006.

In the same year, “unfamiliar with roadway” was linked to 21.6% of accidents. “Traveling too fast for conditions” accounted for 22.9% of truck crashes. Notably, “prescription drug use” was cited in 26.3% of crashes. Strikingly, “brake failure” accounted for 29.4% of wrecks…the most flagged underlying factor.

The underlying factors listed and their associated percentages, when totaled, actually exceed 100% because semi-truck accidents often involve multiple factors.

The authors explored the connection between driver fatigue (hence, preventable wrecks) and compensation models deeply.

In a survey years prior, truck drivers shared they worked 60 hours weekly on average. This compared to 42 hours weekly for “other general, full-time employees.” The new study confirmed that many long-distance semi-truck drivers work closer to 65 hours per week. Moreover, they cited their compensation model as an incentive for putting in more hours.

In turn, “Driver fatigue may result from behaviors such as working long hours induced by the incentives of compensation and the requirements of working conditions,” the paper says. “Lack of opportunities for restorative sleep associated with working conditions, such as sleeping in berths while vehicles are in motion or at noisy truck stops and irregular work hours and sleep patterns, also cause fatigue, as does the high prevalence of untreated obstructive sleep apnea among long-distance truck drivers.”

In other words: “Compensation incentives can cause fatigue independent of sleep.”

Emphasis on “can.” Ultimately, the new study didn’t seem to be able to conclude that modern compensation models alone cause fatigue. Or that current pay structures cause any other preventable crash factors, either. This is for multiple reasons:

• Since most truck drivers these days are paid via the same “per X” models, this doesn’t explain why some drivers are “much safer” than others.
• It’s too challenging to collect “needed” hard data from carriers.
• There are just too many unexplored factors at play to make solid conclusions about higher pay leading to fewer preventable crashes.

“Studies have shown associations between level of per mile pay and crashes, but whether higher pay makes drivers safer or, for example, simply attracts safer drivers, is unclear.”

Among industry insiders advocating for increased driver pay, this conclusion is more than frustrating.

Carriers have argued that lack of higher pay isn’t the problem…it’s a driver shortage, which this study arguably debunks.

The paper also acknowledged previous studies that concluded that pressure to pick up and deliver loads on time might add to semi-truck crashes linked with “driving too fast for conditions, following too closely, and aggressive driving.”

In my mind, if drivers feel pressured to operate rigs dangerously in order to make money [read: a decent living], higher base pay would solve this problem. Or am I crazy?

This all sounds so familiar to me…

This whole narrative reminds me of the now years-long struggle over the national shortage of automotive mechanics.

There certainly is one. The causes are complexly layered.

For one, Millennials like myself were taught that trades were “low bar.” They were meant for folks too stupid or underperforming for college. “Thank goodness,” the absolutely crippling costs of student debt (paired with few, if any, quality-of-life increase guarantees) are changing this notion. Smh.

Second, working on cars…really learning them…is a lot harder than typing on a computer all day. Stand under a frozen, dripping, broken car in the middle of February in a cold shop diagnosing a fluid leak. Tell me that’s easy. I suspect driving a rig in all elements is just as tough…not to mention being away from family and friends.

Lastly, the pay. Techs that turn high flat-rate hours make the most out of their careers. Building up the skills to turn 60+ quality hours during a 40-hour workweek takes years of dedication (and mind-boggling tool debt). Note my emphasis on “quality.” No one wants to drive a car a tech blasted through because they had their paycheck in mind, not safety.

By the way, after 10 or 15 years, the backbreaking work gets to be too much for now-Master Certified techs, and they look at managing and mentoring. If you don’t have the people skills and patience for that, though, you run out of options quick.

I suspect semi-truck drivers might feel similarly here.

Are certain swaths of drivers less safe because the would-be “safest” drivers don’t even work in the industry? Maybe. I’ll tell ya that a lot of what would have been highly skilled Millennial techs went and got IT degrees and landed cubicle jobs at Big Data. Do I blame them? Nope.

In any case, despite the lack of a solid judgment affirming higher pay, researchers interviewed dozens of drivers on the “how compensation affects safety” topic.

Truck drivers were quite blunt about “chasing miles.”

Land Line magazine, a publication of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA), swept over the study. It pulled some insightful quotes from real (anonymous) drivers:

“Well, if you’re hourly you can focus on safety first. If you’re paid by the mile, your natural instinct is to focus on how much how quickly you can get it done. Because that’s when you make your money over safety.”

“A big portion of it is we’re not incentivized to be safe [with] paid per mile. So the faster you go, the better you are off money wise … somebody that runs 3,000 miles shouldn’t get paid the same as somebody that runs 2, but you know, you’re also lying if you say it doesn’t incentivize people to drive in bad conditions, speed and roadwork.”

“Too much trying to hustle to get miles, you know, you’re chasing miles, you know and you got to consider traffic all get running together. I think that’s one big cause of an accident, the following distance, you know just you’re chasing miles, you know this hurry up and wait [nonsense], hurry up and be on time hurry up hurry up, we both know only [a] late load is a dead load.”

You can read the full online version of the study on the National Academies Press site.

The conversation takes me to philosophical and infrastructural zones we don’t have the time or space for here. But, if anything, actually figuring out how to make semi-truck driving safer and more lucrative for human operators (while we’re still manually operating them) seems like a good bet to me.