Portrait of a Dray Truck Driver

From DC VELOCITY

Portrait of a drayage driver

The drivers who shuttle ocean containers to and from ports work hard for their money, as a March 2007 report on truckers serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach attests. The report, prepared by CGR Management Consultants for the Gateway Cities Council of Government, includes these statistics:

• The vast majority of port drayage drivers are independent owner-operators (IOOs). Some IOOs work as contractors for local trucking companies.
• The average tractor operated by IOOs is a 1994 model purchased for $21,500.
• The average IOO survey respondent grosses $73,900 per year. Fuel costs eat up more than one-third of that revenue—more than $25,000 on average. (Note: These figures were based on a cost of $2.87 per gallon, the price of diesel at the time the report was prepared. Diesel currently exceeds $4 per gallon.)
• The average net income reported by IOOs is $29,600, a figure the researchers believe may be overstated.
• IOOs worked 50.7 hours per week on average.
• Port drayage drivers who are full-time employees of local trucking companies earn an average hourly rate of $16.13 and receive limited benefits.
• Nearly 90 percent of the interviews with IOOs who contract with trucking firms were conducted either partially or entirely in Spanish.

To read the report, Survey of Drayage Drivers Serving the San Pedro Bay Ports, go to www.gatewaycog.org.

Another report on drayage drivers is Big Rig, Short Haul: A Study of Port Truckers in Seattle, which was based on a 2007 study conducted by the nonprofit organization Port Jobs. The report is written in a very accessible, nonacademic style. Especially interesting are the personal profiles of individual drivers and the challenges they face. The full report can be found at www.portjobs.org/bigrig_shorthaul.pdf.