Trucking Industry Statistics

The trucking industry statistics are a topic, which can show you how important and remarkable this industry really is. It’s annual revenue is over $726 billion and is responsible for 6% of all jobs in America.

Truck driving is one of the most hazardous job but despite that fact over 8 million people are employed in the trucking industry and they moved over $66 billion of freight in June 2018.

That shows how vital is trucking industry, but behind all this there so much more involved. Let’s find out more about it whit the following data:

Over 80% of all cargo is transported by trucks and only 8% by air, 6% by pipeline, 4% by rail and 2% by water.

There are 1.3 million trucking companies, 90% of which operate fewer than 6 trucks. The truck drivers are nearly 3.5 million, 9% of which are owner operators. The average age of a truck driver is 49 and the average pay is over $40k annually. Truck drivers work 70 hours in an 8-daywork week before getting a day off which is twice as much as for an average American.

Truck drivers log 450 billion miles annually. They use over 54 billion gallons of fuel for this millage, which costs them $143 billion. Diesel fuel is often the second highest expense for motor carriers after labor and can be as much as 20% of total operating costs. On average, a long haul truck driver logs over 100K miles annually.

The most common goods driven by trucks are Machinery, Electronics and Motorized vehicles, which makes 27% of all goods shipped in America.

Commercial trucks are involved in 2.4% of all car accidents. An estimated 500000 truck accidents occur each year and nearly 5000 people are killed in these accidents. This means that one person is injured or killed in a truck accident every 16 minutes. Only 16% of all truck driving accidents are the truck driver’s fault. Highest rates of truck accidents occur in California, Texas, Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Most common truck problems are tires, which are 51.3% of all road calls. The estimated costs of all large truck accidents exceed $100 billion annually.

Over 33 million trucks are operating in the U.S. 3 million of which are tractor trailers. Florida is the state with most registered trucks of around 250000. Next one is Texas with approximately 200000 and California comes third with about 150000. Over 190000 trucks and 280000 trailers are sold each year in the U.S.

Over 10 billion tons of freight (primary shipments only) are transported by trucks annually, representing around 70% of total domestic tonnage shipped. 

Commercial trucks are paying about $41 billion in federal and state highway-user taxes per year. For every gallon of diesel fuel 24.4 cents federal fuel tax and 27.4 cents state fuel tax are paid on average.

The trucking industry is now short of over 50000 drivers and this number will rise over the next few years.