Tom Halley, human resources manager at KoSa, who used to interview and hire drivers, says some companies send representatives to truck stops to recruit drivers. And Penny Braxton, who used to dispatch for Freightliner, says Freightliner paid drivers a $500 bonus for any experienced new driver they brought in.

Dave Hackley, director of the Charlotte Diesel Driving School, says driving has become more demanding and, at the same time, pays less than it used to. Many drivers have decided the job isn’t worth disrupting their lives.

“They wanted to be closer to family, to get home every day,” he says. “A driver will be away from home at least five days a week, if not two weeks at a time. A lot of companies say we’ll get you home almost every weekend.But for a lot of drivers, that’s not enough time to spend at home.”

Truckers’ pay in the 1970s and 1980s was “pretty lucrative,” Hackley says, but now the work pays $25,000 to $30,000 in first year, while road expenses have climbed to $150 to $200 per week. “Meals, laundry, outside motels — it’s gotten pretty expensive to be out on the road,” Hackley says.

He knows because he used to drive. And he says good instruction is available for people who’d like to drive trucks because so many older truckers have become teachers and trainers.

Driving school, however, does not automatically turn one into what Hackley calls “a polished driver.” For instance, he says his school offers a complete training program that takes four weeks, start to finish. Other schools offer anything from three or four weeks to as much as six months instruction.

North Carolina requires 160 hours of training. “But 160 hours will not produce a polished, finished driver,”Hackley says. “That’s just the start of the procedure.”

After graduating from school, students usually work with driver-trainers employed by companies that run trucks. Freightliner is paying for 15 of its drivers to train with the school.

Getting licensed is a complicated procedure, too. It begins with a series of written tests at the Department of Motor Vehicles to get an instructional permit for practice driving.

When the student is ready, the next step is a state test (which may be administered by the driving school). Potential drivers must know how to make a pre-trip inspection of 107 items on a tractor trailer. This includes things like checking the water pump for leaks, the mounting of the alternator, the tightness of belts and wires for fraying.

“They have to know what the items look like, where are and what they look like when they’re defective, Hackley says.

Part two of the process concentrates on off-road skills such as backing up in a straight line for 100 feet and docking/backing/ at an angle into a dock./trying to avoid repeating dock/

Finally comes a road test of 10 to 15 miles where the driver must upshift, down shift and negotiate hills, railroad crossings, sharp left and right turns and interstate exits and entrances.

The student who passes all this earns a commercial driver’s license. “The student just has the minimum skills to operate that equipment,” Hackley says. “It takes six months to a year to become a really good driver.”

A defensive driving course is an important part of training, too, because “people do all kind of dumb things in front of a truck,”he says. Truck drivers are held to a higher standard than other drivers, and he believes if a truck is involved in an accident, it could have been prevented.

To put it more simply, Hackley is saying truck drivers are responsible for handling the situations created by other drivers who do dumb things.

The standard for drug and alcohol testing is higher, too. The Department of Transportation specifies that trucking companies participate in a drug program. Hackley says that means a pre-hire test, random testing and testing after accidents, no matter who is at fault, or when there is suspicion a driver is using drugs.

It’s all a lot different from the 1970s and ‘80s when drugs, especially uppers, were a routine part of driving for some truckers. Hackley says, “Back in the ‘70s, drivers did whatever they wanted to do. They were not nearly as closely monitored.”

So, if the demands have become more rigorous and the pay has dropped, what’s improved?

The trucks.

In the 1970s, trucks rode on springs — a rough ride that was hard on the back and kidneys. Truck drivers often had to give up the business because of kidney problems, and even now, with all the structural improvements in trucks, many drivers still have bad backs. But today’s trucks have air-ride suspension and air seats. Air conditioning in the cab and plush interiors add to the more comfortable ride.

Hackley says that helps attract some drivers, but the bottom line is that better-trained drivers meeting a higher standard are not getting that much more home time and are earning less.

Of the students who go to driving school, Hackley says about 90 percent make it all the way through, and of those, 98 percent are placed in jobs.

It’s almost impossible to place anyone younger than 21, he says, and even people younger than 25 may have a hard time.

Companies won’t hire drivers who’ve been arrested for driving while impaired or those with positive results in drug or alcohol screening. They want people who have eight years of experience without an accident, Hackley says.

“They need to hire the best people they can. Companies are looking for than more than a warm body.”