Rolling over challenges for Wisconsin semi-truck drivers

APPLETON, Wis. (WBAY) – When the pandemic hit in 2020, and plenty of industries had been pressured to cease, truck drivers didn’t.

The president of the Wisconsin Motor Carriers Affiliation, Neal Kedzie, says semi-truck drivers have been via lots in the course of the pandemic, as important staff, now dealing with provide chain points, excessive gasoline costs and driver shortages.

“Trucking delivers over 72% of all items in the complete nation. We even have a scarcity of drivers. Pre-pandemic, nationwide, we had been about 60,000 brief. In the present day we’re about 80,000 throughout the nation. Wisconsin has about 3,000 plus openings for drivers,” says Kedzie.

Whereas truck drivers put their abilities to the check on daily basis all through the US, 66 of them from Wisconsin put their security abilities to the check on the annual Truck Driving Championship at Fox Valley Technical Faculty.

“These are people which have pushed tens of millions of miles most often, accident-free, with careers that span a long time,” says Kedzie.

Occasion organizers say there’s been a push to get extra girls within the trucking trade to accommodate for the scarcity of drivers.

“We’re attempt to get them extra concerned as a result of there’s nonetheless solely 10% of girls out on this trade. So it’s nonetheless a male-dominated trade. Us girls, we’re coming alongside,” says Carmen Anderson, skilled driver, America’s Service Line LLC.

The champions from Saturday’s occasion will then go onto the Nationwide Truck Driving Championship in Indianapolis in August.

However till then, it’s again on the highway fueling America’s economic system.

“We attempt to have the perfect drivers on the highway, as a result of we share the highway,” says Kedzie.

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