September 12-16 is National Truck Driver’s Appreciation Week. Originally founded by Bill Webb, former president and CEO of the Texas Motor Transportation Association, this week honors the people who deliver the goods we need to keep the country running. Even if you’re in the industry, it’s hard to understand how big it is, and how it influences our daily lives. National Today and JIT Truck Parts gathered these facts to help give us some prospective:
– There are around 16 million trucks in the U.S. If you stacked all of those trucks on top of each other, they would reach the moon.
– There are 3.5 million truckers in this country. Each driver covers an average of 115,000 miles each year for a combined U.S. fleet average of 300 billion miles. That’s enough to go to the moon and back over 650,000 times.
– Trucking accounts for 72% of all freight transport in the U.S. In 2019, the industry moved 11.84 billion tons of goods.
– Continuous growth makes trucking one of the most stable industries to get into. Since 2017, the trucking industry has grown an average of 2.7% per year. It’s predicted that the industry will grow by another 21% over the next decade.
– Although more women are entering the field, just 6% of drivers on the road today are female.
– On average, cross-country truckers spend over 240 nights per year away from their families. While there are plenty of major carriers, 90% of the industry is made up of small companies. That means many drivers have to cover multiple jobs, not just hauling loads.
– The average truck uses 20,500 gallons of diesel each year. With prices hovering at around $5 per gallon nationwide, that’s over $100,000 per year spent on fuel. All that driving creates a lot of exhaust. Thanks to stricter regulations, emissions from heavy-duty trucks have fallen by 95% over the past two decades.
