Shannon Newton
President, ATA
People ask for your opinion all the time. Sometimes we like to give it unsolicited. Public opinion is used these day’s to critique everything from movies to presidents. As another campaign cycle begins, many of you will likely be asked your opinion on a number of issues or candidates. This kind of survey dates back to George Gallup, the “Babe Ruth of the polling profession,” whose passion for measuring the world and confidence in numerical data inspired him to develop the Gallup Poll.
Gallup was profiled in TIME’s May 1948 cover story. As an editor of his college newspaper, he wanted to know who was reading and what they liked. The old method for determining readership was omitting the crossword puzzle and counting the complaints. Instead, he began surveying readers about their thoughts.
The demographics of his readers was great information for advertisers, and they were willing to pay for the data. During Pres. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s re-election campaign in 1936, Gallup decided to ask readers a new question: Who were they voting for? And just like that, public-opinion polls asserted their dominance in discussions on the American democratic process for the last 80 years.
Though elections and polling have become far more sophisticated since Gallup’s first poll, asking people what they think, what they care about, and what they worry about is more valuable than ever.
For 15 years, the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) has been asking industry stakeholders to answer these questions by ranking the top industry concerns and problems as well as strategies to solve them.
Surveys are only as good as the sample though.
There are 7.8 million people employed within or supporting the trucking industry. Just in Arkansas, 86,860 people work in trucking. Our state ranks #1 in per capita employment, and the industry is revered both at home and from afar. The opinions of truckers in Arkansas matters. But pollsters won’t be calling for ATRI. Instead, you have to care enough to tell us who you are and what concerns you.
This poll isn’t a crystal ball to predict who will be elected to office. We use the results to decide where to invest our time, energy and resources into making your jobs and the environment in which you do them better. The more responses collected from our state, the better we will be able to address the issues keeping you up at night.
ATRI’s Top Industry Concerns 2019 survey is only open through Sept. 20.
Weigh in, and then stay tuned for the results and analysis to find out how your concerns compare to those of your industry peers. It sure beats taking out the crossword puzzle and awaiting complaints.
