Trucking Accidents & Industry Pay Scale

The lifestyle of a trucker appears to be ideal. It involves constant traveling, no boss breathing down your neck: just you and the road. While these examples are definite pros, there are also cons that match the pros, including time away from home, complex pay issues, and the pressure to avoid accidents. The trucking industry’s standard is to pay “CPM” or Cents Per Mile, which incentivizes truck drivers to squeeze out more miles every day.

As one can imagine, there are plenty of potentially dangerous repercussions when truckers attempt to drive more miles in a limited amount of time. Drivers go farther, faster, and longer, despite laws that limit time behind the wheel, which increases the chance, that accident will occur. The driver’s incentive to run more miles while tired for the sake of earning more money is strong enough to make some drivers risk safety hazards to make a little more money.

While there are other pay systems for truckers, each one has similar drawbacks. For example, there are companies that pay per gallon of gas. That is also based off of the amount of time spent driving which results in the same problems as the CPM system. Another standard is hourly, but this is more common with short-haul drivers and is used when the driver will be doing a lot of work outside of the truck, such as unloading freight. It is not typically seen in long-haul companies. Finally, a small portion of drivers receive waged based off of the percentage of revenue, which is lower stress as it allows more time to work at one’s own pace.

With traffic and construction zones already thinning out a driver’s potential earnings, it is more and more common for truck drivers to take steps that increase the likelihood of an accident. Until the industry changes the pay scale, the challenges of decreasing the number of trucking accidents will remain. If you have been involved in a trucking accident, let the experts at High Law help you. Call now to discuss your case.