Problems Faced by Truck Drivers in India
Summary
Truck drivers in India face numerous challenges including sleepless nights, poor healthcare, accidents, robbery activities, extreme weather conditions, and bad road infrastructure. They also suffer from salary deductions due to various reasons. These challenges not only affect their health and well-being but also their productivity and safety on the roads.
The transportation industry needs to address these issues and take steps to improve the working conditions and safety of truck drivers.
The transport system and transport strategy play a vital role in India’s economic growth. Road transport becomes a critical infrastructure for economic growth __ why? 60% of goods transportation and 85% of passenger traffic occurs on the road, so road transportation has a significant economic growth impact.
Where there are demands, there are challenges. We know Fleet owners, Fleet managers, consignors, and consignees face many difficulties in the transportation Industry. They are often worried about goods, assets, brand, customer satisfaction, fuel efficiency, and productivity. Are they concerned about drivers?
Fleet managers and truck owners respect truck drivers’ works; does that mean every truck drivers are happy?
No! Truck drivers face a lot of challenges on the road.
Truck drivers are betting their life on work; what do I mean? Truckers and transport drivers’ jobs are considered one of the highest digits in fatalities and work injury jobs. Over 50% of truck drivers in India are facing health issues. What are the problems faced by Truck drivers in India?
Sleepless Nights
Drivers do some best records; they continuously work for 6 hours or 12 hours or even for 3 days or more than that. Why do they need to do sleepless best records?
Many truck drivers still don’t know how to calculate the operating cost of a trip; they follow their old method and still work long hours for incentives and bonuses.
You can always see truck drivers are under pressure to meet their destination within the targeted time. To deliver freight on time, truck drivers have to travel continuously for hours.
What are the impacts of working long hours?
Working long hours impacts truck driver’s resting and eating hours; significantly, they spend less time with their families due to long hour travels and work pressure.
Worst Health Care
Due to non-stop travel, truck drivers are poor at health care. 50% of truck drivers face driving-related health issues. Even sitting for long hours creates the worst health issues. Having improper food and skipping food most of the time negatively affects truck drivers’ health. Many researchers confirmed more than 70% of drivers having improper food and health issues.
Accidents
There are a lot of reasons for truck drivers to get into accidents. 20% of truck accidents occur because of the worst health care, dangerous roads, overloading a vehicle, no framed working hours, alcohol consumption, even truck races between drivers can turn into accidents, and many more reasons.
Every time truck drivers are blamed for accidents with trucks and other vehicles; even the opposite party is responsible. The majority of people don’t respect truckers. In some cases, they are abused and beaten even to death. Around 71% of these road crashes end as fatal accidents. India’s road safety needs serious attention.
Robbery Activities
The words theft and robbery have differences, isn’t it? Theft and robbery are both known to be crimes, but robbery is considered a severe offense. Truck driver suffers this serious crime more often. The highway is highly known for burglaries and crime activities, How do they do?
Robbers hijack the truck and hurt truck drivers to steal the goods which he carries. Not only the goods robbers even seize the lorries from the drivers; Even dhaba’s and rest places are dangerous to the drivers; yes! Looting, robberies happen in dhaba’s. What happens to the drivers? If he is lucky, he will return alive. Still, there are many cases where lorry drivers are killed or not found to date.
How to prevent trucks, truck drivers, and freight from this robbery activity? Transporters need to be aware of routes & roads and need to choose the routes by studying thoroughly. Organizations should educate and conduct self-defense programs for drivers. Here are 5 Safety tips to the drivers using vehicle tracking system.
Extreme Weather Conditions
India has a variety of weather conditions, which becomes a nightmare for truckers. There are regions with snow, rain, hills, deserts, dense fog, dry, extremely hot, freezing weather where only skilled drivers can travel.
It can be adventurous for us, not for them to keep their life in danger anytime.
Nasty Roads
India is tough with highways and roads, but Infrastructure? Road infrastructure and roadside service providers a significant challenge for truckers. Worst road infrastructure, weak and narrow bridges, frequent access from small roads to main roads, overcrowded city sections also leads to accidents.
Even now, many mountain highways do not have a proper road infrastructure, and they are considered to be dangerous highways. The problem gets compounded due to police patrol’s absence and inadequate attention to roads and traffic management maintenance. Here are some haunted highways, which you should never travel at night in India.
Trip Salary Deduction
Today an average salary of a truck driver starts from INR 6,500 per month/trip. Truck driver’s salary is prived either by month wise or travel trip wise. We know truckers’ job is a difficult one with a lower pay scale.
Do truck drivers get their full salary on their hands? No! __Why? Truck drivers face many challenges on the road; the same happens when it comes to paying. Transporters detect some amount of money in every challenging trip of a driver.
If goods or vehicles are damaged by any accidents, drivers are charged; Any police challan for overspeeding or lane changing on highways, truck drivers are charged; Frequent tire puncture, drivers are charged; Any fuel deduction or fuel theft, and late goods delivery truck drivers are charged.
Transporters charge and deduct a minimum of INR 1000 in a trip from truck drivers’ salary. 71% of truck drivers say that they haven’t received any incentives or bonuses.
Truck drivers job is a low wage job with loads of pressure and no guarantee to their life. If you are a transporter, there is no need to be concerned for your drivers, but respect your drivers’ job. VAMOSYS respect drivers and their career by providing Driver Relay System (Vamosys DRS application) exclusively for drivers to rectify their daily life challenges and develop this profession’s perception.
