Dear driver, I have been hearing there is a shortage of you. Is it because all the owner-operators are succumbing to that CSA 2010 bug and electronic logs? Or are all those newfangled hybrid trucks themselves cross-breeding with a new monster species of broker to drive them out of business?

Or, just maybe, since whether by virtue of force or choice home time appears to be up for most people, it’s on account of the honey-do lists going from one entry a week to one a day and nobody can get away from cleaning up the yard and catching the opossum living in the hole in the yard back by the garden. Have all the owner-operators looking for deals on used-truck lots gotten so indecisive — what with so many in-cab gadgets to constantly distract them and all — they’ve just run away from the trucking business screaming bloody-murder at the sight of so many choices?

I suspect, as with so much in America, it may have something to do with money.

Is it because freight rates haven’t changed much in a long time, and the companies can’t pay enough to keep you happy? Or did companies lay off too many recruiters during the Great Recession and now they’ve got a double shortage to deal with as things pick back up? Or is truck driving just too dang hard, and the employers would rather hire a new guy who didn’t know it than keep the one they have after he’s had up to you know where with the difficulties?

I don’t know, truly, and wish I did.

You tell me.

If it so happens you’re hauling down I-24 near Smyrna, Tenn., Friday, I’ll be out at the Nashville Rush Truck Center then for the first annual Rush Chrome & Class Truck Show in the early p.m. (Keys Trucker Jan McCarter is performing at 3:30, we hear, with Doug Jones and others with the Truckers Tracks series, and there’s a truck beauty competition, refreshments and more…).

Look for me if you happen to stop. I’ll be the guy in the dunce cap standing next to Bobbie Boofay.

Yours truly …