On Physical Truck Capacity in the US Trucking Market with Professor Christopher Clarke

Voice Of GO(r)D is pleased to bring you a light conversation about a heavy topic centered on the question of why the country that is most dependent in the world on highway freight for its economy has such short and light trucks.

Professor Christopher Clarke is an economist at Washington State University, and is a presenter on a new social media channel called Business Explains The World. Their recent video on this question went viral, and as I have spent much of my trucking career outside of the USA pulling longer and heavier trucks than are usually to be found in America, I had to get him on the podcast.

I’ve always thought of the 53’ foot freight box as highly symbolic in that it is built explicitly to max out calories cubes where something like a Canadian Super B Train is built to max out on nutrition weight, and one of these things is healthier for the body economy than the other. Professor Clarke and I go back and forth on this question, amongst others, including the corporate welfare part of the equation where it concerns the production and flooding of the market with ‘drivers’, which is part of the problem here. Higher density trucks require a higher quality level of driver, and if anything this Substack should have taught you by now, it is that the trucking industry in North America in 2025 is very busy chasing the high quality operators out.

You can find Professor Clarke all over -
Twitter - https://x.com/EconChrisClarke
Professor Clarke’s own blog - https://econchrisclarke.wordpress.com/

TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@econchrisclarke
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/econchrisclarke/

As mentioned during the show, I hope to get Professor Clarke on for a longer and heavier discussion about this topic.

As always, questions, comments, suggestions, corrections, weight loss tips and Hate Mail are strongly encouraged and always welcome - [e-mail]

I’m almost done writing a book on the fate of the North American Trucker in 2025

https://autonomoustruckers.substack.com/p/book-project-announcement-and-a-major