Author | Seasonal porcelain
Edited by | Che Jiao
An industry that puts its life on the steering wheel
March 2022 is particularly extraordinary, in the context of the spread of the epidemic in Shanghai, the entire Yangtze River Delta smells unusual.
But everyone's life, work, and even express delivery can't stop.
As a centralized distribution place for express logistics, truck drivers in the Yangtze River Delta are responsible for transporting goods to and from various places. But under the epidemic, the life of truck drivers is obviously not easy.
On the one hand, they have no skills and can only drive to pull goods, but under the epidemic, they are full of potential dangers, but if they do not go, it means that they have no income;
On the other hand, even getting out of the car is very difficult, the previous circulation of truck drivers on the Internet: 8 days through three provinces and eight places, continue to run on the road, eat and drink in the car, and even afraid of not enough time, half of the time is hastily sleeping in the car for a while.
The latter is not uncommon among truck drivers.
Under the rapid development of e-commerce, the time for goods to be transported from the hands of merchants to consumers is getting shorter and shorter, and some even "next-day delivery" or "same-day delivery", and to achieve such transportation efficiency, truck drivers are an indispensable part of it.
They often need to run for more than ten hours without rest, and in order to save money, they rest in the front seat of the 70 cm wide truck and eat instant noodles or cold meals. But Rao is so hard, their income is still mostly meager, and even in recent years there has been a trend of getting lower and lower.
This is an industry closely related to the development of e-commerce, when e-commerce was just emerging, truck drivers from the Yangtze River Delta to the Pearl River Delta to run a round trip, can earn 7500, but with the e-commerce and logistics express price strategy, truck drivers' income has gradually decreased, and now even less than half of previous years.
Once a freight driver can support a family by relying on a car; now, they are gradually squeezed in the industrial chain, and their living space is too narrow to allow for breathing.
01
Two days, run shaoxing, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou
From Shaoxing to Guangzhou, it is 1316 kilometers, from Guangzhou to Hangzhou, it is 1288 kilometers, and this long distance of nearly 3000 miles is a distance that Zhao Ye must run within 2 days.
At 7 p.m., the loading of logistics packages was over, and Zhao Ye squatted on the side of the road and smoked a cigarette fiercely to refresh his mind, and then sat in the driver's seat that was familiar with him day and night. Next, he will drive all the way south, from Shaoxing to Guangzhou, from one of China's economic hubs to another economic artery, and arrive around 1 or 2 noon the next day.
In order to arrive on time, the next 18 hours, Zhao Ye basically can not stop and rest, even at night, he must drive the night train, try his best to keep himself awake, really sleepy can't stand it, he will stop at the rest station for a while, come down and walk, smoke a cigarette, and then continue to start.
It wasn't until he delivered the goods in Guangzhou that he was able to take a short break, recline the driver's seat, and sleep in the 70-centimeter-wide front seat. He always has a quilt on his car, rolls it on his body, and he will not get cold.
The van driver sleeping in the car,
But even this rest is short-lived. At 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening of the same day, after the logistics parts in Guangzhou were loaded, he had to embark on the journey to the north again and send the logistics parts to Hangzhou. After a 16-hour drive or so, he could hardly rest.
This is the current situation of freight drivers sending logistics, nearly 3,000 kilometers away, they need to run within 2 days, and deliver the logistics parts at the specified time.
The courier will be slightly better and can take three days. But this is also because the courier company is loading at 6 o'clock the next morning and leaving at 7 o'clock, and Zhao Ye can sleep one more night. But once he was on the road, he also couldn't rest and needed to keep driving for more than a dozen hours to ensure that things arrived as quickly as possible within the statute of limitations.
At the same time, while ensuring the speed of the shipment, he also needs to ensure that all the pieces can be delivered to the destination.
Once, Zhao Ye ran from Guangzhou to Hangzhou, and was chased by someone on the way. Zhao Ye saw that there was no major accident at that time, so he did not pay attention to it, continued to go on the road, and delivered the goods on time. But after a few days, the other party came up to him and told him, "The goods are all wet, and we can't give you money." Instead, he was asked to compensate for the loss of goods - 20,000 yuan.
Zhao Ye was confused. During that time, Zhejiang did have a lot of rain, and he later thought that it may be that during the rear-end collision, the car door was knocked out and deformed, and some rainwater penetrated into it, so the goods were wet. But when receiving the goods, the other party did not say anything about this matter at all, and now it has been a few days, and suddenly he said this again, Zhao Ye always felt that something was wrong.
He asked carefully, and found that there was a problem with the outer packaging of the goods, usually the logistics are insured, and Zhao Ye consulted with them: Can they report insurance, and the rest of the money will be borne by him? But the other party also did not agree, dragging Zhao Ye's freight and refusing to give.
Zhao Ye thought of many ways, and it took more than a year to get the money back.
On Douyin, truck drivers made a short video complaint about the "difficulty in settling the payment"
This money is actually not much, 7,000 yuan, but the toll and oil money cost more than 5,000 yuan, and he really earned only 2,000 yuan.
But Zhao Ye must get this money back, a large truck costs more than 600,000 yuan, he has to pay back the mortgage of 10,000 cars every month, if there is no such money earned back by a blood and sweat, he will soon be crushed by the debt of the car loan.
02
Run a trip, from earning 7500 to earning less than 3000
"When we buy a car, it used to take 2 years to pay off the loan, but now, it may not be paid off in three years."
2021 is a dismal year for Zhang Feng. In 2018, he partnered with a few friends, signed a cooperation with some express delivery companies, and ran fixed lines, at that time he felt that the future development of e-commerce could be expected, in order to run more goods, he chose to add cars and took all the money to buy a car.
But he soon found out: Why can't the money be collected?
Solid line is not like the usual order, generally unloaded 3 to 5 days after the checkout, the solid line will press a month's money, sometimes even the end of this month, the other party continues to press the next month. The payment cycle will become very long. When the money earned cannot be obtained immediately, and the funds on the books cannot become real cash flow, the burden of life begins to weigh on the head of the truck driver.
In this case, Zhang Feng can not stop the solid line and do not run, but once out of the car, they need to pay the oil money and tolls first, from the Yangtze River Delta to the Pearl River Delta, the oil money and tolls add up to more than 10,000, eating and living are small things, a bun, a bowl of box lunch, sleeping in the car can be done, but the continuous oil money and toll expenditure, or gradually crushed Zhang Feng, he soon began to find someone to borrow money.
At the fixed line checkout, the other party often will not pay all the money under pressure, but will only make up little by little, Zhang Feng wants to pay the car in advance, to repay the borrowed money, but also to repay the mortgage of the car, and soon the financial situation will be stretched. At its peak, he pressed in more than 600,000.
After the epidemic, he simply withdrew to go it alone again, not seeking stability, and wanted to earn more money.
But unexpectedly, the income is equally mediocre.
When he first entered the industry in 2014, the rise of e-commerce, the cost of pulling goods is very high, running a round trip from the Yangtze River Delta to the Pearl River Delta, the freight rate is 20,000, and he can earn 7500.
But then, the express delivery companies began to fight a price war, Zhejiang Yiwu is the hardest hit area, the express delivery price here was once as low as 8 cents a single, truck driver industry is undoubtedly also affected by this price war in one link. Moreover, the freight industry, mostly individuals are doing, the other party to 2000, if he does not run, others will run, mutual competition will also make the freight rate low.
When he returned to the period of single-run, he ran a round trip from the Yangtze River Delta to the Pearl River Delta, and the freight rate was usually only about 13,000, although the cost of policy adjustment was reduced to more than 10,000 at this time, but he could not earn 3,000 at full.
China Road Logistics Freight Rate Index
Moreover, because of the policy adjustment, the order received by truck drivers has also been greatly restricted.
Before the epidemic, the toll of trucks was charged by weight, and the weight of a few tons of goods was charged according to the weight of several tons, but the new policy, which began in January 2020, was charged according to the number of axles of the truck.
The number of axles of a truck is determined by the total weight and axle weight of the vehicle, in general, the more axles the truck, the greater the weight it can carry, and the smaller the restriction on pulling goods.
In the past, they used six-axle trucks, which could bear the weight of 49 tons of cargo (except for driving themselves), and could send both logistics and express deliveries. But after charging by axle, they have to consider the toll of the truck, taking The short distance of Chengdu and Chongqing as an example, the toll of the four-axle is less than 400, the five-axle is nearly 500, but the six-axle is more than 700. The difference between the four and six axes is almost doubled.
Four-axle and five-axle truck models and weight limit Source: China's freight system assessment report
In order to reduce costs, they will prefer to choose four-axle and five-axle trucks, but this means that they can only transport express parts, not logistics.
If there is no fixed-line business, just by getting a courier order from an individual, the single amount is actually far from enough to support them to survive well.
"The harder it is for truck drivers to get." Zhang Feng sighed like this. When he first entered the industry, he ran 4 or 5 long-distance round trips every month (more than 1,000km a way), earned about 30,000 yuan, and after removing the mortgage, he could also have a better life: he could buy a little less expensive little things, and he could accompany his wife and children.
But now, he has to run about 10 long distances a month to earn back the original number.
03
A truck driver running under the rapid logistics
"The current 10,000 orders are not as good as the 1,000 orders that used to be"
Running trucks is not an industry that wants to do more and can do more.
On the other hand, the time required to run more than 1,000 kilometers is difficult to reduce, and it usually takes 2 to 3 days to go round-trip, not to mention that they cannot stay awake all the time. Ten orders a month is basically the upper limit of their physical strength.
According to the "2021 Truck Driver Employment Survey Report" released by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, the monthly income of a large number of truck drivers is even only between 5,000 and 10,000 (related to the development of regional freight and the regional economy), and the income can really reach more than 20,000, but 4.9%.
Source of monthly income distribution of truck drivers: 2021 Survey Report on the Employment status of China's freight drivers
Truck drivers have always been a hard industry, and people who enter this industry generally do not have too high a high level of education and professional skills, nor do they have too many career choices, and can only "tie their lives to the steering wheel to make money".
They often have to run night trains, in order to save the recruitment cost, they often run long distances alone, and there is almost no rest on the road for more than ten hours.
In fact, many companies stipulate that more than 400 kilometers should be equipped with double driving, but for these truck drivers, another driver needs 6,000 yuan, which is the money they have to run 2 to 3 long-distance round trips to earn, and hiring a driver means that in a month, there are 2 to 3 trips in vain. Therefore, most people do not want to ask for a driver, but run alone, tired and tired, just walk down from the rest station for a while, smoke a cigarette.
Night running is a common occurrence in this industry
Almost all of them have occupational diseases, stomach, lumbar and spine problems, and some even suffer physical injuries due to car accidents.
Zhao Ye once had a car accident, a dog suddenly came out from the side of the road, straight to the front of him, Zhao Ye was busy playing the steering wheel, but because of the water on the ground slid a bit of the road, hit the railing next to the road, his head side hit the edge of the carriage, his head had a momentary daze, and the side of his eyes hurt fiercely.
But at that moment he did not go to his heart, and after a while, he found that the vision of his left eye had decreased, and if he covered his right eye, the left eye would not be clear. But when the eyes look at the same time, they can see clearly. So "that's it, it doesn't affect the sports car." He didn't even go to the hospital.
Truck drivers' reluctance to go to the hospital has a lot to do with the social security they enjoy. According to the survey, nearly half of the drivers participated in the new rural cooperative (related to the large rural labor force of the driver group), but only 7.7% were insured with medical insurance, and 20% of truck drivers did not even apply or pay insurance premiums.
Individual or company insurance situation of truck drivers Source: 2021 China Truck Driver Employment Survey Report
Moreover, even if you receive an order and deliver a goods, you may not have cash flow.
When Zhang Feng first entered the industry, there was no source of goods and contacts, and he could only go to the market to write a brand to receive orders, at that time he did not refuse to accept orders, and later found that some companies were not standardized, or the liquidity was not enough, and they would not be paid. The other party will always refuse to settle the payment on the pretext of "financial non-work", "audit has not yet passed", "system failure" and other reasons, often delayed for several months.
Zhang Feng wanted to go back to the freight, but he was stupid, he couldn't do a strong thing, even if he went to the door, others didn't pay attention to him, and he couldn't keep it at the other company - before pulling goods, he had already paid for the toll and oil money himself, and he always didn't go to pull the goods, and even the money behind could only be adrift, it was better to run a few more orders and earn a little money from his own pocket before.
Later, Zhang Feng generally only accepted the list introduced by acquaintances or acquaintances.
The profession of freight driver is bitter, and the income and health are not guaranteed, but for most drivers, they can only endure the hardships of the industry itself, accept the constant changes in the industry, and the fact that it is increasingly difficult to earn money.
With the development of China's logistics speed, the speed of express transportation is getting faster and faster, the time is getting shorter and shorter, but the opposite is that the income of freight drivers who support this transportation is being pressed down lower and lower, and the efficiency is getting higher and higher.
Express average price trend source: "Logistics Industry Analysis Framework: How Demand Drives Industry Development"
The price reduction of e-commerce and the price of express delivery make "the current ten thousand orders are not as good as the one thousand orders that were once"; and the timeliness of their running orders also has higher requirements: they need to punch in a certain section of the road node to ensure that they reach the corresponding road node within the specified time.
Taking 300 kilometers as an example (not necessarily all national highways), the average time they run normally is 4.5 hours, some more conscientious express delivery companies will stipulate that they run in 5.5 hours, and some companies will require them to run within 5 hours. The latter often means that the road is best to always be smooth, free of traffic, accidents, and that they are always in a state of mind.
04
The difficulties and future of truck drivers
Truck driver is a tough job.
Their health is not guaranteed, they lack good rest due to perennial sports cars, their incomes have been declining, and their cash flow is often in a state of stress.
Most of them are saddled with heavy car loans and often have to compromise to lower and lower freight rates, but even so, they may return to the city to run empty cars, not receive orders, and wait for orders even longer than sports cars.
After the Internet cut into this industry, they hope to improve the irregularities of this industry, so that the volume of truck drivers should not be empty, and use platform data aggregation to increase their chances of choosing. However, the low-price competition among freight drivers caused by false freight information and transparent freight rates has become a new problem.
This industry has been sick for a long time, and if you want to change, it is not an overnight achievement.
But paying attention to this group and understanding the many difficulties they face is the beginning of the good.
On November 3, 2021, the Ministry of Transport and other 16 national ministries and commissions jointly issued the "Opinions on Strengthening the Protection of the Rights and Interests of Truck Drivers", followed by the early January 2022, the China Transport Association issued the "Internet Freight Platform Safety Operation Specification" (hereinafter referred to as the "Code"), which further stipulates a series of problems in the current freight industry, improves the rules, forms service standards and norms, and protects the rights and interests of truck drivers.
This Code will be formally implemented on 1 March 2022.
Although the road is long, there is a bright light ahead, and I hope that these long-neglected freight drivers will eventually get some protection for their health and income.
*All characters in this article are pseudonyms
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