Should CDL Age Requirements Get Lowered to 18? The Debate

#38 | hosted by Troy and Lenay | posted Sep 18, 2019

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The debate rages on as Lenay, Troy, and fellow podcaster Todd McCann discuss the possibility of lowering the CDL age requirements to 18. Is lowering the age a good idea? Will it fix the driver shortage so many people are worried about? Find out today on Big Rig Banter!

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Big Rig Banter – Episode 38 Transcript – Should CDL Age Requirements Get Lowered to 18? The Debate

Music – Whether you’re hitting the road or kicking back in the cab, it’s time to take a load off with Big Rig Banter, powered by AllTruckJobs.com, your source for finding the trucking jobs drivers really want. Get ready to shift into gear and let the conversations roll.

Troy: Alright hello and welcome truckers. The date is September 18th and you’re listening to the 38th episode of Big Rig Banter. I’m your co-host Troy Diffenderfer.

Lenay: And I’m your favorite cohost Lenay Ruhl.

Troy: And Lenay, how are you today? I see you survived your birthday weekend.

Lenay: Yup, yup. I’m doing pretty good. Turned 31, so you know, it’s like all the exciting birthdays are over now.

Troy: Yeah, that’s true. But once again, congrats to Lenay on turning 31.

Lenay: How are you, Troy?

Troy: I’m doing good, I’m getting ready to embark on my honeymoon. So, I’m very excited. We’re going up to New England, so truckers again if you have suggestions feel free to drop us a line on Facebook or Twitter, let us know the best places in New England, we’re gonna hit places like Boston, Salem, probably Vermont, and then we’re gonna finish off in Maine, and then head back. So, I’m excited to get away from the office and it should be a good time.

Lenay: I am personally really excited to hear about Troy’s road trip adventures, just as someone who’s driven across the country twice, I know he’ll have some good stories for us when he gets back. And for those of you who don’t know, Troy did just get married a few weekends ago, so congratulations Troy.

Troy: Yes, thank you Lenay. Lenay was at the wedding and it was very beautiful and wonderful, and we had perfect weather so it all went smoothly luckily and I can just breathe a sigh of relief finally.

Lenay: It’s over!

Troy: Now that everything’s in the past and we can get moving forward, so I appreciate that Lenay thank you.

Lenay: Yeah, no thanks for inviting me, it was beautiful.

Troy: But truckers, before we get into today’s episode, we just wanna give another thanks those participating in the trivia contest, so once again thank you. But Lenay, what are we talking about today?

Lenay: We’ll today we are talking about a heated topic on whether or not the driving age for truck drivers should be lowered to 18.

Troy: Lenay, what were you like when you were 18? Are you allowed to say that on the air? Do I wanna know? Should we skip it?

Lenay: Yeah actually I feel like in some ways I was more responsible at 18 than I am now. I mean I had a full-time job, I was working 50 hours a week, I had a long-term boyfriend, I was saving money for a house, so I was pretty responsible at 18.

Troy: Nice!

Lenay: What about you, Troy?

Troy: I think I was too. I didn’t really get into any shenanigans until college, so I feel like then I was still young and innocent before I hit the real world and hit college and yeah we’ll just leave it at that.

Lenay: No, I mean I do think there’s something to be said about when you’re 18, you feel like this pressure to you know be an adult because you legally are one, but then you turn 21 and you go to college and then things don’t seem as serious as they did before and then I think you know I mean now that we’re, you know well you’re heading towards your 30’s, I’m there you kinda look back and now I think oh god how naive I was at 18.

Troy: That’s true and I think maturity is a big factor and when we talk to our guest today that’s something we’re going to talk about when we’re discussing the possibility of maybe lowering the CDL age to 18.

Lenay: Yeah, so Troy got to talk to someone, Todd McCann. He is a fellow podcaster like us but he is also a truck driver and he just has one interesting take on the subject as someone who’s been in the industry for a long time. So, let’s give that a listen.

Troy: Alright, I’m here with Todd McCann from the Trucker Dump podcast. You might have heard him on a previous episode before. Todd, how are you doing today?

Todd: Great, you?

Troy: I’m doing good, I’m excited to talk about this. It’s a pretty controversial and I think really interesting subject. You know, on our Facebook page and I’m sure you’ve talked to truckers that have come across these articles talking about maybe lowering the CDL driving age to 18 and it definitely has some, some people have some strong opinions about it, that’s for sure.

Todd: Yeah, no doubt about that. Imagine that, truckers with strong opinions.

Troy: I know. So, for you Todd, how old were you when you first got your CDL?

Todd: I was 27, I think. Something like that.

Troy: And how’d your training prepare you for hitting the road? I mean at that age obviously, you’re kinda getting into the swing of things and do you think that your age affected that? Do you think since you were a little older getting into it, how did that affect you?

Todd: Yeah I think yeah, because by that time I was married, newly married, and we had just decided to get into trucking, and you know, we thought it through you know, as a young married couple, we really thought it through. And I think because of that we were more prepared for it, we were more mature, and you know, just able to tackle the road better that way, you know then just coming you know maybe straight out of high school and going straight into it. That’s, you’ve heard the strong opinions, that’s a little scary.

Troy: For sure, and you know how do you feel personally about changing the CDL age to 18? Or maybe if you don’t want to give your opinion, what are some of the opinions you’ve definitely heard? I’m sure you’ve talked to people that have talked about it.

Todd: We’ll I’ll give you both, you know I’m a podcaster, so I don’t mind giving my opinion about things. No, but you know you always go back when things are like should the drinking age be 18 or whatever, you always go back to the fact that if they can fight for our country you know at 18, why can’t they do these other things? And you know, I don’t really know the answer to this, but I know what I feel myself is that 18-year-olds just aren’t quite prepared yet. I mean, there’s been study after study saying that the male brain does not form completely until they’re about 25 years old, so really we’ve already got drivers out here that are 21-year-old driving the intrastate, you know and then 23-year-olds driving over the roads and their brain isn’t really fully functional yet. So, it’s just a little scary, quite honestly. I mean, I know 18-year-olds, I know what I was like when I was 18, I don’t think I was probably prepared to drive a truck, but I’m sure there are other individuals who are more mature by nature. It’s sad we have to blanket you know, the whole group, we can’t just give them some kind of an assessment test and say this person is mature enough and this one isn’t, but you know that’s got discrimination written all over it. So, nobody wants to go there, it’s gonna be 18 or they’re gonna set it at 18 for everybody or not at all. I personally, I don’t want to see it happen. I just think it’s bringing on nothing but trouble, and honestly, I just don’t think it’s, I don’t think the real issue is getting drivers in at a younger age, I think we just need, you know there’s this constant battle of is there a driver shortage or there just a shortage of trucking companies who want to treat their drivers well enough to keep them? That’s a big argument, and I personally think it’s a little bit of both, but I think it’s mostly the fact that there are just a lot of drivers who are mistreated, not paid well enough, and I think there’s just other ways to address this “driver shortage” thing.

Troy: Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up because I think we’ve talked about it before, you know we’ve had podcast episodes on the driver shortage and trying to figure out whether it’s – separate fact from fiction and whether it is a myth and I think another thing is thinking about some of those other untapped demographics that might help, not just the young drivers but you know, obviously the veterans and the female drivers that they could be looking at too.

Todd: Yeah, both of those statements, and even older people. You know, people who are want to get out of some career, maybe they’re just tired of this job and they want to get out and see the country, their kids are gone out of the house so they don’t have tying them back, you know maybe them and their wife get back – take on a new career, become truckers. I think a lot of times, people think they won’t hire if you’re older. I know my father-in-law was like that, and he was in his early, late-fifties when he started. And you know he was just like man, I don’t think anyone’s going to hire me because I’m old and like dude you’re not old, well you know he is old you know. I was like they are gonna jump all over you and that’s exactly what happened, he went to school, he got out, and he had just job offers running out his ears, you know so it’s like you said it’s military, women, they’re only 7% of the industry, I think is the last percentage I heard, and that’s just crazy because women can do this job. I mean we got them out there, they’re doing it all the time, they’re doing flatbed work, you know if you’re a trucker and you’re female and you can do flatbed work, you can do any trucking job. You know, so that is a big limitation there. Just the limitation is the fact that we’re not getting the word out well enough you know to let these women know that they can do this job, you know.

Troy: I wanna go back to the point you made about the older generation. One of our former guests, Pax Rolfe, he emailed in some opinions to me which I thanked him for, and he made a good point, do you think going to the other end of the spectrum, do you think as truckers get older, they should be required to, whether retake their test or perform some kind of assessment test, because I know he made a good point that he’s seen drivers, regardless of age that are not good drivers or not safe on the road and it’s not just an issue of being young.

Todd: Yeah, boy that’s a sticky question, you know. I remember when my dad was aging, you know it was that same question too, he probably shouldn’t be driving, but do you take that guy’s freedom away? And the same with the trucker who’s been doing it for you know, 30-40 years, how do you tell him, you’re not good enough to drive this truck anymore? But it is a matter of public safety, right? So, I think you almost have to require it. I mean, I know a lot of guys at the company I’m working for right now, I’ve heard of a lot of guys who are in their upper 70’s, you know and they’re just still trucking along, they’re still safe drivers, they still got all these accident-free miles. I think probably like you said they ought to go through another driving test or something like that, you know not just the written but an actual skills-involved test to see if they still have it, if they do, let them go. And if they don’t, shut them down. And that way, you know it’s not the family shutting them down or the company shutting them down, it’s the government and who doesn’t like to blame the government for things, right?

Troy: And Todd, just to wrap things up you know I’m going to put you on the spot here, but give me three traits you would look for in a young trucker, whether it be 18 or 21 or whenever they are able to obtain their CDL. What are maybe three things that you really can say, oh right they have these three traits then maybe I think they’re cut out for this?

Todd: Well, I know the first one that came to mind is probably not maybe what you’re thinking but I’m thinking antisocial. If you’re just the type of person who doesn’t like to be around people all the time, you’re not you know partying with your friends all the time and you just like to hang and chill, trucking would be right up there I mean right up in line with what they wanna do because you are alone for long periods of time. I mean you can talk to other people if you’d like, but you don’t have to, that’s the beauty of it, you know. I think that another one is just general maturity in general, you know if you got somebody that is you know, still getting in trouble with the law or with their parents, they can’t even obey their parents for pete’s sake, how are they going to out on the road and get you know a CDL and hit the road and you know I don’t know that doesn’t sound like a plan for me if you’re immature, please don’t come out here, please please.

Troy: Yeah.

Todd: Yeah, and I think a third thing is maybe just someone who is a hard worker. You can’t lollygag when you’re out here as a trucker, I know a lot of people think that oh you’re just sitting behind a wheel, and that’s true but you have to get up and self-motivate every single day. Companies hate drivers who they have to constantly be on top of, so if you’re a hard worker and you’re willing to you know, give up your social life and get out here and learn, I think you might be suited for trucking.

Troy: Awesome, well I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us, Todd. Again, it’s Todd McCann, you can catch him on the Trucker Dump podcast, it’s a great podcast to listen to, we’re big fans over here, of course. And once again, I appreciate you coming on the show.

Todd: You bet.

Lenay: Alright, and thanks to Troy and Todd for that interesting conversation and their take on the driving age being lowered to 18.

Troy: Thanks, Lenay, and once again truckers I did talk to another person, Pax Rolfe, over at Melton Trucks. We’ve had him on the podcast before and he was able to email me some answers to some of the questions we had asked Todd and he made another good point again about the driver shortage and maybe that age kinda doesn’t really matter and that this shortage isn’t really a shortage problem but more of a driver retention problem. He said getting drivers in the door, he said “getting drivers in the door seems to be less challenging than keeping them, that being said I think that 18-year-olds on average are in a place of their lives when they might be more inclined to be away from home, that might be the key to keeping them”. So I think Pax made a good point there, again truckers we’d like to hear what you have to say, feel free to use the #BigRigBanter, use it on social media and we definitely want to hear your opinion on this issue and we know especially, Todd mentioned it, we know you truckers have you opinions on this issue for sure.

Lenay: Yeah no and I think it’s definitely an interesting thing to talk about and just considering the fact that everybody is a little bit different in their path. You know Troy and I talked about in the beginning we kind of maybe went from being responsible to taking things a little less seriously later and then you know rounding out now to where we’re just you know, all on top of it. So, you know maybe age doesn’t have anything to do with it but it’s more of an individual preference and where they’re at in their walk.

Troy: I agree, for sure. But truckers, before we wrap things up again, we’ll ask you to leave us a review on where you’re listening to this podcast, iTunes, anywhere else, we really appreciate it.

Lenay: Yes, and be sure to go check out AllTruckJobs.com, AllTruckJobs.com is our partner brand and that is a job board website for truck drivers, so you can go on there and find trucking jobs all over the country.

Troy: Alright, and once again, thank you for listening to Big Rig Banter. Once again, I’m your cohost Troy Diffenderfer.

Lenay: And I’m your favorite cohost Lenay Ruhl.

Troy: And this has been Big Rig Banter.

Music – Thanks for tuning into another edition of Big Rig Banter. For your next job check out AllTruckJobs.com, the premier online source for finding the best driver jobs in the country. Browse hundreds of positions by freight or driver type to get back on the road with confidence. Click subscribe to keep the conversations coming until next time on Big Rig Banter.