From our previous articles and your experience on the road, you know that there are a ton of costs associated with being a trucker—tires, repairs, gasoline, insurance… the list goes on.
But did you know that aside from being a major headache, traffic, too, can take a significant toll on your finances?
The Traffic Tariff
Traffic is annoying. It can turn a five hour trip into a ten hour trip, it causes accidents and it tests everybody’s patience. But now, there is also reason to believe that it costs billions of dollars.
A new study by the research group TRIP found that motorists in Wisconsin waste over $6 billion per year waiting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. This is consistent with previous studies that discovered that the United States’ trucking industry loses nearly $50 billion each year as they are caught in traffic all across the nation. That equates to 728 million hours of delivery time spent sitting in traffic jams each year, or to 264,500 commercial truck drivers getting paid to do nothing for an entire week, according to Forbes.
What causes the traffic?
Both the studies on the Wisconsin traffic problem and the greater American traffic issues blame the crumbling transportation infrastructure. According to Forbes, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimates that the government needs to invest over $1.7 trillion into roads and bridges by 2020 in order to revamp the highway system. The U.S. has long ignored its deteriorating roads and freeways, and as a result, traffic cannot flow efficiently, causing major congestion and costing truckers a pretty penny.
You would be surprised at how much money you waste sitting in traffic as a professional truck driver. You would also be surprised at how much money you can save by using freight factoring—call us today, speak to our factoring experts and start combatting the costs of traffic congestion!
