How many of the other "median pay" careers require the extended periods away from home. OTR drivers are in effect on duty 168 hrs. a week. Which means $50,000 annual is equal to less than $6.00 hourly. If you reject my 168 hr. argument and only apply 70 hrs. without overtime. It still pales when compared to compensation for equal hrs. in other trades / careers.

It's not that drivers pay met or exceeded the U.S. median household income of $53,000. It's how many hours a driver has to drive to get the wages. Most drivers work their 60-70 hours of service. Which means if someone getting paid $16.00 an hour and was paid overtime he would make more then $53,000. How many people would work that many hours every week of your life?

The median is that most people work a 40 hour week. We work minimum 70. We work 14 hour days.

You never spend any quality time with your family, even if you're a daycab driver. Pay is disgraceful!

I'm not making ends meet and I'm on the higher end!

I'm paid well in comparison to a lot and especially for the average median household income in my state. That said, I don't make six figures and hauling hazmat should pay over 100k and that's what I haul. Disagree? I haul gasoline and diesel fuel. Who's going to work next week if my peers and I stop working tomorrow? Noone. Our job is crucial to the economy and the jobs worked within it. As for the 34 hour restart, it  needs to stay suspended. It's ridiculous to place time periods within it when we don't all have the same sleep schedule. I work nights and am off Sunday and Monday nights, if I don't (I never do) get off work before 1am Sunday mornings under the new law that was in place then I can't come out Monday night from time to time to get my company out of a bind. That's insane!! Plus that holds me back from making extra money. I would like to also say that the 30 minute rest break is useless. That's 30 minutes that I'm doing nothing productive and 30 minutes later before I wrap up and get rest. Therefore I'm 30 minutes more fatigued than I would've been everyday while still on the road. Safe? Nope. Just my thoughts. 

While driver pay may be on par with the median for households, it still isn't sufficient. There was a time when as a trucker you could ask your wife to stay home with the children, and live comfortably. I'm an LTL driver and as far as I can tell you have two options. 

 During my 10+ years in operations I saw firsthand that most drivers preferred to drive during off-peak hours -- maximizing the amount of miles they were able to cover during their 11hr drive time.  Requiring drivers to include two consecutive breaks between 1am-5am not only puts more drivers on the roads during peak traffic hours, but can also cause their 34hr reset to take up to 51 hours depending on when their break starts.  I personally would not consider 2+ days at a truck stop to be a relaxing break.  Remember, not all drivers make it home for their reset.

I think its great someone finally listens to the people that were affected by the bad policy of the 34 Hour restart. It put a burden on every driver out there. The 168 hour was the one of the craziest things I've seen along with two 1 to 5's - what world did they live in? Now we can go back to work the way we need to. To get the nations goods moved. Who ever thought we could move it all with the sun shining was not in the trucking business. Thanks OOIDA for fighting for us.

I believe OTR Drivers pay should be in the high 70k or low to mid 80k. Local driver's pay delivering food makes 75k to 100k too easy and home every day!

Years ago I used to get overtime for working over 40 hrs in a week. My pay went from 21% to 31 1/2% until the owner decided to just give me 23% total so she could make more profit. If she could pay overtime in 1987, why they pay it no? We work for a living just like everyone else and we should be paid overtime just like everyone else. Also, if all truckdrivers were paid by the hour with overtime they would slow down and quit running people off the road trying to make a living and would be under a lot less stress. Now let's see if the government gets going on this study, or it won't ever happen.

We were told to break the law and do has many deliveries (over 20 stops a day). We've got people driving trucks with air brakes they don't have the air brake endorsement. We are working over 14 hours a day. As the only driver, we have to keep driving until we are at the store beginning at 6am and at times not getting back to the store until 10:30pm, sometimes 11:00pm. Something needs be done about this. They threaten to replace us and make it hard for us to get another job because new employers must contact your last employer they will tell them that we're not a good candidate for the job because they can't find replacement drivers.