Demand For Deliveries Increases As Online Shopping Breaks Records

The demand for delivery services is skyrocketing across the country. Online holiday shopping this season is pushing delivery companies like FedEx, UPS, Amazon, and the Postal Service to their breaking points as they try to manage the chaos and meet delivery deadlines. Companies like UPS are hiring hundreds of thousands of extra workers & delivery drivers just to meet seasonal demands.

Record-breaking Online Holiday Spending 

Each year Cyber Monday sales increase. By the end of December of 2023, online sales between November and December are set to reach $228 billion. Almost 5% more than last year, according to Adobe Analytics. 

In 2019, Holiday spending reached over $125 billion before winter ended; much of which can be attributed to online holiday shopping. In accordance with data collected by Adobe Analytics, Black Friday hit a record-breaking $7.4 billion in online sales and Cyber Monday broke its own records with $7.9 billion in online sales - making it the largest online shopping day in US history at the time.

The number of delivery trucks on our already congested roadways grows too. According to NPR, USPS and UPS alone are estimated to deliver over a billion packages between Thanksgiving and New Year - millions more than in previous holiday seasons. That’s over a billion packages being delivered without including Amazon, which controls 49% of the United States’ e-commerce market.

In the age of internet shopping, companies like Amazon and FedEx try to meet the holiday season’s delivery demands by sending billions of delivery trucks out on our roadways creating congestion that puts everyday drivers and pedestrians at risk.

Fast Shipping Comes at a Cost

The problem is that these delivery trucks, unlike many other commercial vehicles, are traveling through our neighborhoods and on our local roads where are our families cross the street and our kids ride their bikes. To make matters worse, delivery companies set strict delivery deadlines for their drivers as they traverse through our communities rushing from stop to stop.

Not to mention, delivery drivers are forced to read delivery labels, scan bar codes, assess mailing routes, and find tiny address numbers on houses, all while driving big delivery trucks through our neighborhoods. When you combine the millions of fleets of hurried and distracted delivery truck drivers with the already dangerous holiday hazards on our roadways, we get a recipe for disaster that can lead to accidents, injuries, and worse... deaths.

I think it is fair to say that we all enjoy having our things delivered. What is not fair is that companies like Amazon set up elaborate schemes to avoid any accountability for their contracted delivery drivers, using outdated laws that simply don’t work in the age of technology and of fast and free shipping in order to insulate themselves from accountability for their drivers’ recklessness. After all, they are responsible for their driver’s working conditions and unreasonable delivery expectations.

Unfortunately, delivery companies care more about their bottom line than they do about the safety of our communities. With the help of experienced Truck Accident Lawyers, delivery truck drivers and the delivery companies that employ them can be found liable for the damages caused by accidents.