Comments on: Are Drivers Too Expensive?

By: Dallas Third Party Logsitics

Dallas Third Party Logsitics — Mon, 24 May 2010 14:10:33 +0000

Great article, Angelique. I agree with you. It is enlightening to read about the issues in your country and continent. Companies love to hear truckers experiences, the good and the bad. Will look forward to reading more opinions on truckingtruth.com.

By: Rhonda Jensen

Rhonda Jensen — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:48:19 +0000

Hi Angelique!
Welcome to truckingtruth! Looking forward to your stories. Great way to learn more and keep up with the world of trucking in your country. The problems drivers face are the same and I wonder if they will ever go away.

By: Angelique from Holland

Angelique from Holland — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:28:04 +0000

For Europe it’s the same a lot of companies moves east or to the far east, as production costs were less. But they don’t think about the people now who have lost their jobs … are they going to be able to buy those products?

My guess is that the world will change a lot over the next 50 years.
The rich East … the poor West.

By: Angelique from Holland

Angelique from Holland — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:25:45 +0000

That’s true and some restaurants are now closed because there were not enough drivers left to eat-in. And it is also a problem because when you do want to eat something your parkingplace is being used by such an eastern european driver.

Things will really change in future.
Things have changed allready.

And not for the better for Western European drivers.

By: dave jones

dave jones — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:58:56 +0000

Have to agree with you. Most of the drivers i know have packed in international work because of this reason. I worked 20 years but now don’t bother as Eastern European drivers are doing it for far less money. It was a good job at one time but alas no more. The Eastern Europeans don’t even use restaurants or truck stops because they cant afford to. What took years to get is gone and the industry has gone back 20 years. – An ex-international driver

By: Brett Aquila

Brett Aquila — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 08:37:41 +0000

Welcome aboard Angelique!

You know, your story is really interesting because we’ve faced the same problem for a long time here in the U.S. with our manufacturing industry.

A lot of our manufacturing jobs are being lost to countries like China and Mexico where the standard of living is lower and their wages are much lower. The Mexican trucks have been able to cross into the U.S. for some time now but really haven’t had much of an impact on our trucking industry yet. But we’ve lost millions and millions of manufacturing jobs, and we continue to lose them every day. My dad’s factory closed in the early 80′s at the same time that most of the industry in my hometown was lost.

It’s good for the world’s economy to grow the economies of poor countries through trade, but it’s very difficult for the wealthier countries to adapt to the competition. How do you compete with poor countries without making your own country a little less wealthy? It’s a difficult problem to solve and it has cost a lot of our workers their careers, and a lot of families their homes.

Great article! I look forward to seeing a lot more from you!