• 81% of South Carolina communities are served exclusively by trucks, and hospitals, hotels and schools depend entirely on trucks for daily delivery of food and supplies.
• A mid-sized manufacturer needs three to five truck trips per day.
• Supermarkets need three to five deliveries per week to stock shelves.
• A shopping center requires 12-15 truck deliveries per week.

From the business angle, South Carolina is home to more than 8,870 small and large trucking businesses with interstate operations.

Trucks deliver freight for 5,750 manufacturing firms, supply goods to 25,100 retail stores and stock 8,970 wholesale trade companies. Trucks also transport building materials for thousands of construction firms and the products from more than 1,500 agricultural businesses.

Together, these truck-dependent industries employ 57% of South Carolina’s workers. That translates into 140,092 people in the state — one out of every 11 workers — employed in trucking occupations at private and for-hire motor carriers. The average annual wage paid to the state’s trucking industry workers is $32,532, and the total annual payroll stands at about $4.6 billion.

Trucks carry 90% of all manufactured freight transported in South Carolina. For those worried at what that is doing to the highways, the trucks still account for less than 3% of all vehicles in the state.

Comparing trucks to rail transport, rail comes up a bit short. Over the past 40 years, the railroad industry has abandoned more than 100,000 miles of track, greater than half of their existing track system, leaving thousands of customers with trucks as the only freight transportation choice.

Some examples of volume (tonnage) shipped by rail vs. truck include:
• Computers: 0.5% vs. 87%
• Iron and steel: 21% vs. 72%
• Lumber:  8% vs. 89%
• Plastics and rubber in primary form: 50% vs. 44%
• Fruit and nuts: 0.3% vs. 94%
• Fresh or chilled vegetables: 1.2% vs. 97%