ASSOCIATED PRESS A new Bureau of Labor Statistics report contradicts more than a decade of warnings from the American Trucking Associations that there is a shortage of drivers.

Lobbyists for the freight industry have complained for years that there is a shortage of truck drivers and that Congress should lower the legal age for commercial driving to help fill it.

But a journal article published by President Donald Trump’s Department of Labor said that, actually, there is no shortage.

In fact, not only are drivers not speeding away from the industry, but they also may be more loyal to their occupation than some other blue-collar workers are to theirs, according to a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“This finding suggests that the market for truck drivers works about as well as that for other blue-collar occupations,” wrote Stephen V. Burks and Kristen Monaco in an article for the Monthly Labor Review, a journal of research and analysis published by the BLS (published articles do not necessarily reflect the view of BLS leaders). The paper acknowledges, however, that the trucking labor market is tight, meaning recruitment is not necessarily easy.

But if trucking carriers want more workers, all they have to do is offer higher wages and “the potential for any long-term shortages will be ameliorated,” wrote Burks, a professor at the University of Minnesota at Morris, and Monaco, an associate commissioner at the BLS Office of Compensation and Working Conditions.

The BLS report contradicts more than a decade of warnings from the American Trucking Associations, the biggest trade group for the industry.

ATA President Chris Spear told a congressional committee in February that the industry “is facing a severe labor shortage that threatens to increase the cost of moving freight and reduce supply chain efficiencies.”

He urged Congress to make it easier for people to become truckers ― especially people under 21, who are currently not allowed to drive commercial vehicles across state lines. If federal lawmakers ever get around to passing an infrastructure bill, it could be a vehicle for lowering the age limit.

Most states allow 18-year-olds to get commercial driver’s licenses, but if they want to drive interstate, federal law has long required they be at least 21 ― a safety measure that Spear said is antiquated.

“Modern-day vehicle safety technologies have advanced by several orders of magnitude since the current minimum age requirement was promulgated decades ago,” he said.

While there may not be a severe shortage of commercial drivers, expanding the pool of workers would lower costs for businesses. More workers would have to compete against one another for the same jobs, so more would be willing to accept lower wages to win those jobs.

With younger drivers, safety could be a major tradeoff. The number of fatal crashes per mile for passenger vehicle drivers age 16 to 19 is nearly three times the number for drivers 20 or older, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. One simple reason is that teenagers are less experienced. Also, they are less able to perceive risks and make worse decisions.

Just because they’re worse at driving cars doesn’t mean they would be hell on 18 wheels (though it certainly doesn’t not mean that either). Trucks are half as likely as passenger vehicles to be involved in property-damaging crashes, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Truck drivers may drive more safely because getting a commercial license can involve a check of your driving record, a physical exam and passing a road test ― and violating the rules of the road can cost you your job.

“One of the reasons is that most commercial vehicle drivers are professional drivers. This is their livelihood,” said Chris Turner of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of public safety and transportation officials.

The ATA is pushing a bipartisan bill that would lower the age restriction to 18 but would require drivers under 21 to enroll in an apprenticeship program that would add months of training to the normal process for obtaining a commercial driver’s license. They would be allowed to drive only trucks with forward-facing video cameras and active-braking collision-prevention software, which not all trucks have.

Turner said his organization is open to lowering the age limit. He added that it would be ideal if policymakers had some data on whether it would be less safe for younger drivers to haul freight across state lines. Right now, there isn’t any.

“We’d like to gather some data to make sure we … make good decisions based on verifiable data that can be reproduced,” he said.