Steel Products
Commerce Depends on Nation’s Trucks
Written by Tim Triplett
August 15, 2017
Trucking industry revenues hit $676.2 billion in 2016, nearly 80 percent of the nation’s total freight bill, reports the American Trucking Associations in the trade group’s just released “ATA American Trucking Trends 2017” report.
Among the findings in this year’s edition:
· Trucks moved 10.42 billion tons of freight last year, 70.6 percent of all domestic freight tonnage.
· The nation’s commercial trucks paid $41.3 billion in state and federal highway user fees and taxes. The average five-axle tractor trailer pays more than $5,600 in taxes annually.
· There were 33.8 million trucks registered for business purposes, including 3.68 million Class 8 trucks. Those trucks burned 38.8 billion gallons of diesel fuel and 15.5 billion gallons of gasoline and traveled 450.4 billion miles.
· About 7.4 million Americans are employed in trucking-related jobs, including 3.5 million as truck drivers. About 6 percent of those drivers are women and 38.7 percent are minorities.
· Trucking is an industry made up of small businesses: 91 percent of motor carriers operate six or fewer trucks and 97.3 percent operate less than 20.
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Tim Triplett
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