ATA’s Spear Highlights Younger Trucker Program at Home Listening to
ATA’s Chris Spear on the Home Committee on Schooling and the Workforce on March 28. (Home Committee on Schooling and the Workforce/youtube)
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WASHINGTON — Enhancing recruitment and retention efforts throughout the trucking trade will profit the connectivity of the nation’s provide chain, American Trucking Associations President Chris Spear instructed a U.S. Home panel March 28.
Emphasizing an industrywide scarcity of drivers, Spear highlighted insurance policies accredited in 2021’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure regulation particular to trucking.
The Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act, or IIJA, paved the way in which for an apprenticeship meant to coach truckers beneath 21 years previous to function industrial automobiles throughout state traces.
The Secure Driver Apprenticeship Pilot Program is designed for people 18-20 as a technique to amplify the trade’s publicity to a youthful demographic. Whereas Spear described the rollout of the Biden administration’s pilot program’s as “frustratingly sluggish,” he additionally famous its upside.
“By way of this pilot program, the federal authorities will have the ability to accumulate information that proves what the states, the District of Columbia, and the US army already know — these people could be educated to function safely in interstate commerce, simply as they do in intrastate commerce and battle zones,” Spear instructed the members of the Schooling and the Workforce Committee.
Including for emphasis, he continued: “We’re enthusiastic concerning the [Safe Driver Apprenticeship Pilot] and wish it to achieve success.”
Per information from ATA, the trade is at the moment brief roughly 78,000 drivers, a slight lower from final 12 months’s estimate.
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