The nation's lifeline is carried on the millions of trucks traveling to every corner of this continent.  One of every six registered vehicles is a truck.  In fact, if you can eat it, wear it or sit on it, a truck brought it!   It was my intent to find all kinds of trucking stats and facts to stick on this page, but in my research, I found that no-one; not even the government, has current and up-to-date stats about anything.  Go figure!  Well anyway, I have found bits and pieces, (or odds & ends, as it were,) of all kinds of trucking trivia.   Happy reading...

Industry Stats
 

The trucking industry:

Employs 9.7 million Americans
Employs 3.12 million heavy truck drivers (1 in 14 Americans)

• 1/3 are owner-operators

• 5% are women

• 27% are minorities

Driver turn-over rate

• 80% for long-haul drivers

• 30% for short-haul drivers

• Average of 8 job changes in typical 30-year driving career

Has 500,000 interstate motor carriers

• Less than 1% operate 100 or more trucks

• 3% operate between 28 - 100 trucks

• 96% operate 28 or fewer trucks

• 80% operate 20 or fewer trucks

• 82% operate 6 or fewer trucks

15 million trucks in the United States

• 1.9 million are tractor-trailers

• Over 4% of all registered vehicles in the U.S.

• Over 8% of all vehicle miles traveled

• 152 billion miles traveled per year

• Approximate average of 192,000 trucks sold per year

• Approximate average of 280,000 trailers sold per year

Serves 70% of all U.S. communities
63% of total domestic tonnage hauled by all modes of transportation
Truck drivers in the U.S. travel an average of 64,200 miles per year
Average trip for trucks is about 420 miles one way

• The 64,200 miles a truck travels per year is like driving 2 1/2 times around the world

• Trucks in the U.S. travel more than 150 billion miles each year

• Professional drivers in the United States drove 200 billion miles in 2000

• 150 billion miles are equivalent to 1,000 round trips to the sun

• 200 billion miles are equivalent to 640 trips from the Earth to the Moon

50% of owner/operators and more than 50% of company drivers have at least some college
87% of owner/operators and 90% of company drivers have a high school diploma or better
*Of the general population age 20 +, 83% are high school graduates

Emergency Road Call Stats
 

• Tires - 51.3%

• Jump or Pull Starts - 7.6%

• Air Lines or Hoses - 4.7%

• Alternators - 4.1%

• Wiring Problems - 3.9%

• Fuel Filters R/R - 3.7%

• Fuel - 3.5%

• Brakes - 2.4%

• Other - Less than 1%
   

Financial Stats
 

• 12.8% of all fuel purchased in the United States
• Average price of fuel is estimated to be about $1.26 per gallon
• Federal government gets 24.3¢ cents in tax per gallon of highway diesel fuel
• State fuel taxes average an additional 20.9¢ per gallon for diesel fuel.

Highway User taxes

• $8.4 billion in Federal Highway Trust Fund taxes (1994)

• $21.4 billion in Federal Highway Trust Fund taxes (2000)

• $23.8 billion in Federal Highway Trust Fund taxes (2001)

• 37% of all highway-user taxes paid by all vehicles

U.S. Gross Domestic Product by major societal function

• Other 31.7%
• Housing - 24.2%
• Health Care - 14.6%
• Food - 11.9%
• Transportation - 10.6%
• Education - 7.0%

Responsible for over 80% of all U.S. freight tonnage
Responsible for almost 5% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (D.G.P.)
Transportation-related services contributed $980 billion of $9.26 trillion D.G.P.
Manufactured tonnage moved (millions)

• Truck - 908.7

• Rail - 140.2
• Water - 149.7
• Air - 0.8
   

Transportation System
 

Highways & Public Roads

• 46,564 miles of Interstate highway

• 113,995 miles of other National Highway System roads
• 3,771,456 miles of other roads
• The 4 million miles of the nation's roads will circle the globe more than 157 times

Air & Public-use airports

• 5,354 airports

Rail  & Miles of road operated

• 120,412 miles by Class 1 freight railroads

• 21,250 miles by regional freight railroads
• 28,422 miles by local freight railroads

Water

• 26,000 miles of navigable waterways