If you have watched the truckers movies at the show or on television and read the countless entries that are put on truckers forums each day you probably think you know something about a truckers life. But you're wrong. No one but a trucker knows what a trucker's life is like. Only in "Diaries" such as these are stories so compelling that it's difficult to stop reading. There is real trouble, not the titillating weirdness we see from movies. These "Diaries" aren't just about the exquisite tension of the moments when things could have or may have been prevented but of actual accounting of everyday events that happen to real professional drivers on our roads today. You will find that events in this industry affect a truck driver's personal and financial life that not only affect the present but also may affect the rest of his/her lives. I always thought that if I would have a full time job working for someone it would provide a support for my family, repay past debts, help ease tension with an occasional fun thing to do once in a while and even - possibly - be able to save for the future after fixing our present house. Man did I have a lot to learn!
Trucker’s Diaries don't deal with just driving but with the sadness and tension fermented by bad luck or lousy judgment. After a while you can read, and feel, the stillness in the tractor and at times you might even be able to feel the emptiness that lies within his/her heart being away from loved ones that they are trying to support. You won't know what to expect on the next entry because you can't be sure what his/her fate will be in the days to come.
Now the movie "Smokey and the Bandit" is what started people thinking about all the fun we truckers have on a daily basis. Sorry, John Q. Public, but we don't have that much fun and the food is less desirable then you might think at some of these eateries. Today many truckers have refrigerators for sandwiches and cool drinks along with meal preparation items. Some of the truckers have small plug in warmers to make warm soup or coffee. To eat in restaurants on a daily basis is for the rich. To eat in restaurants every few days is for the single trucker or maybe the owner/operator (I said MAYBE). To be able to eat in a restaurant, once in the two or three weeks that you are out, is the normal life of a trucker, more so the company driver. So if your just reading this and you are not a trucker; go to the nearest truck stop and pay for a trucker's meal when your on your way out without him/her knowing about it! Have the waitress tell the trucker it’s from a four-wheeler that appreciates all his/her hard work. That should make someone's day!
"When I stop for supper, I've got nobody to have a conversation with. I do try to frequent truck stops where they know if not my name at least my face," one driver told me "But when I sit down to eat, I buy a newspaper. It's really hard not having anybody to talk to during those breaks. Even if you know another driver there, it's not like sitting at the table with your wife and family."
Unlike the movie where it's easy to pick up a beautiful woman we don't even get to SEE that many beautiful women (except for seat covers that is) let alone attempt to talk to them or pick them up for dinner and a movie. Most women that see us won't even give us the time of day... Unless your really gutsy like I am and go right up to them and actually ask them "What time is it?" just to prove to yourself that these women WOULD give you the time of day or because your so handsome. (Cough! Cough!) Sorry that's just one of my ego trips I tripped over. HOWEVER... I have found that many of the lady drivers out there today are really kinda kewl! Many of them have a protective shell surrounding them because of the few ignorant people on the CB radio that only have one thing in mind when they hear a female's voice. But in reality many of these ladies are really fun to talk to and I find that they are no different than their counterpart when it comes to professionalism.
Loneliness is something I don't think ever crosses the general public's thoughts when it comes to truck drivers. The atmosphere of desertion is permanent. There are many times I wish I had a warm body just to curl up to. NO! I don't mean for sex, not at all. Just the warmth of affection, the smell of a soft perfume, or the company of the opposite sex to carry on an intellectual conversation as to get a different point of view of whatever topic we are conversing about. Sometimes a series of unaccountable events happen, as if by some pre-arranged plan: a plan of which I have not the least knowledge or control. There are moments when the mind waits, as though for a revelation, while a complex tangle of calm is woven over thought; it is like a sleep, or a supernatural trance; and during this lull I am aware of a force of quiet reasoning and I am asking myself: "What the hell am I doing in a "Pickle Park" (road side rest area) when I could be at home with my family?" I guess I'm homesick or is it the loneliness that is taken over my thoughts? Somehow this isn't quite the same as I remembered before - some 30 years ago. Now, even though these cabs and berths are so much larger it seems like I am a prisoner confined to it for days or weeks on end. It is easy to loose track of days; Friday was no different from Saturday and so on because it is a constant feeling of chasing the white lines on the highway hour after hour meeting that deadline.
Holidays are tough on everybody, because people (non- truck drivers) try to make plans. You can never make plans with a driver until he/she’s home. People who are new to the trucking lifestyle should realize that a birthday, anniversary or holiday isn't necessarily the day on the calendar. It's the day that you can be together. Missing big days back home is just part of the job that you have to accept if you wish to stick it out. Having the cell phone today and being able to hear each other's voices at just about any time has made the danger and uncertainty of many truckers’ job more bearable on all the families. It can't do much though to ease the greatest hazard of a trucker's life: the still moments during a route, the downtime that an office job would allow an office worker to spend with his family.
Sleeping is another factor that the general public over looks. We sleep with the drone of the diesel engines and the reefers humming away while being tossed around during windy weather. Sometimes it is the equivalent to sleeping out in a damp, musty barn where the dampness goes right through you and effects your every joint when you finally get behind the wheel to start the next shift.
Some days a driver will love and other days he'll just hate with a passion and he'll be asking himself "Why is it that your out there in the pouring rain or freezing weather or why is it you were so nice to some idiot that just reamed you out for something you had no control over like weather or traffic or construction?" One day he/she will be so proud of his/her tractor because she handled avoiding a possible preventable accident like a true pro in the snow and the next week, in a different part of the country, he or she will be swearing at the truck because it broke down going up a mountain in the sweltering heat. But like the rest of us, the driver will look at that tractor of his/hers and say, "OK! Betsy let's go for another ride and visit someone else and maybe their neighborhood will be better."
There are many things that go on in my life on the road that is hard to put in any kind of logical or chronological order at times. Seeing all the beauty that Nature displays for us, which many people living in its presence take for granted day after day, is sometimes an awestruck adventure in itself. For example I might pass a house with its own corral and a few horses and close by there might be a beautiful stream meandering through the property. Maybe I'll pass by the land that the dinosaurs once roamed and are now being excavated by scientist for a museum. I might pass places where the Union or Confederate armies or real life settlers, cowboys and Indians or even the slaves in the South once lived with their families or fought for freedom and property or searched for silver and gold in "them thar hills". In some places you almost expect to see John Wayne or Roy Rogers and Dale Evans on horseback on a trail or sitting under the stars by a warm campfire with their homemade coffee or maybe even singing while they played their guitar. While looking in the hills and valleys you almost expect to see Indians with their families around their teepees sitting on the ground talking amongst themselves and working on some project while their children are having fun running around them. You think of how people crossed this great land with covered wagons, on horseback or simply walking, not on paved roads or sidewalks of today with restaurants and truck stops and flushing toilets but in the wilderness - on their own - twisting their ankles on gopher holes and rocks without a doctor to be found for weeks or months and the facilities might have been but a hole made in the ground or leaned up against a tree. I think of all the cool sites I have seen - whipping by at 61 miles per hour that is - like the White House and other monumental structures of the area in Washington D.C., the Arch in St. Louis, MO, the beautiful Twin Towers in New York City or the Sears Tower in Chicago or other beautiful architectural structures in various cities. Then there is man’s creation of Mount Rushmore or God's creations like Mount Shasta or the Colorado River. Although I don't have time to actually view these sites I enjoy the privilege that this great country of ours lets us experience while traveling through this land of prosperity.
I get to see how many people live today. Some people have mansions; some have sprawling ranches, simple homes, condos and apartments. I might pass by rundown homes that you might think were abandon but you might catch a glimpse of a cloths line drying out the wash or worse yet see the homeless that live under the overpasses.
While driving the truck driver thinks of his family, loved ones and pets back home along with his/her children or friends that he/she could be with after working a normal eight hour day but the driver knows that he/she is totally responsible for the safe operation of the tractor, the trailer and its cargo, along with everyone around him/her 24 hours a day - period - end of conversation. Mind you that we also have this responsibility while we are sleeping. As I said before we sleep with the drone of the diesel engines and reefers outside our small cubicle we call "home" with one ear still in full operation so that we might hear an indication of tampering of the cargo or someone attempting to sabotage the tractor or trailer and the thought of theft does not just stop with the vehicle or cargo but our tire chains, load locks, spare tire or worse yet our fuel. When things like theft happens the suspicion is immediately drawn to the driver for selling these items for extra cash for himself. Most drivers are not trusted as far as the office personnel can throw him/her when it comes to this but yet we are entrusted with thousands if not millions of dollars worth of cargo per load. We must constantly be wary of personal safety even if we just use the bathroom at a rest stop. We always think about our personal possessions within the cab while we pay for fuel, go to use the facilities, take showers, or are away from the truck for more than 20 seconds. Our thoughts are with this vehicle and its contents from the time that we accept the responsibility of the tractor at the terminal until the unit is returned to the terminal some weeks or even months later. Even when we are not driving and have our time off at home we are responsible for these things 24 hours a day. Don't think so? See what the outcome is if anything bad happens to either the tractor or the trailer or worse yet... the load while you are enjoying your time off at home! "Enjoy your time home!" they say.
There are times where frustration can get the better part of us while sitting for hours not moving and not getting paid for it or having to travel many hours, free of charge, just to pick up a load. For example: On this last two week stint I had no problem running my first 70 hours from Green Bay, Wisconsin down to Victoria, Texas but the return trip had hours of what I felt was wasted time. At one point I was stuck at a rest stop, out of hours, without a phone, and a smelly port-a-potty that should have been changed days ago instead of working bathrooms. I was stuck there for 18 long hours. I arrived in Mt. Pleasant, IA at Wal-Mart and made my delivery on time but had to wait for hours on end (without being paid) to receive the next load assignment.
Generally, I believe that most truck drivers are a bunch of individuals that are from all walks of life that, for one reason or another, decided to get into this industry. We are under constant stress from time constraints without any regard from the dispatcher, shipper or the consignee about traffic, construction, weather, or our own personal health. Although we don't have the physical being of "the boss" (And no I'm not talking about our wives, guys.) we are sometimes our own worse enemy because we allow the QualComm (satellite communications from management to the truck) to control and ruin our day or night with its infernal annoying "BEEP" at any given second. We are in constant fear for our own safety from theft and personal harm as I had stated before. Germs from facilities that only God knows who was there last, sabotage, food that either goes bad on us or is prepared without much effort by cooks who care less about the clients they feed, the animals that we might hit that don't see us or can't hear the air horn and the worst fear of all "The Professional Four Wheeler". These are the morons on the road who think that they are the only ones on the road. That's right "They OWN the road". Just ask any of them. These people are talking on their phones, or listening to music that is about 600 decibels too loud to hear an air horn or a siren from an ambulance or police car, or fist fighting with other passengers, or having sex either with themselves or their "toy" or with an accomplice or two - or more, or the flasher who is there to watch the reaction on a driver's face instead of the traffic accident that he/she is about to cause, or the four-wheeler who is totally oblivious to any other traffic around them and either cuts directly in front of the truck for absolutely no apparent reason or aims their vehicle from the hammer lane (far left lane) to the exit four lanes across and just 200 yards to the right of them in less then 3 seconds. Trust me this list can go on & on & on! I think that in MN & NJ they must actually teach their drivers to cut directly in front of another vehicle they are passing within no less then 2-car lengths of space. I have been the victim of this act many times myself in these states and heard many remarks over the CB about this very thing that happens to other truck drivers constantly. It's amazing that for one mile in front of this four-wheeler there are no vehicles and for one mile in back of them there are no vehicles and worse yet there are no vehicles within miles of anyone including the truck they are about to cut in front of but yet they find this yearning deep within them to do it! It should be taught to all four-wheelers that a truck driver can't just stop 40 tons of moving vehicle as fast as they can stop that vehicle that they are driving no matter what it is that their driving.
I am an avid motorcyclist myself but to watch some of these "Evil Knievil" bikers that have no regard for their own safety just drives me up a wall. Unfortunately, I have seen where one of these "ultra kewl" bikers drove his crotch rocket straight through the back doors of a trailer in the Eastern states some time ago. They had to literally scrape his sorry butt off the doors. Now just think of the driver of this truck for a minute. First off some lawyer will find some discrepancy in his logbooks six months before the accident and say that he shouldn't have been there in the first place and that this accident was preventable because of this. Now this truck driver probably feels bad enough that he has this kid's bloody remains on the back of the trailer but now he has to worry about his career. No, I didn't just say his job - I said his career because this is an accident that he will have to live with forever; not only in his mind but on paper for the rest of his life that might prevent him from keeping or obtaining a decent job in this industry.
Yet as trucking moves the economy, truckers aren't reaping what they've helped sow. Truckers drive hard, putting in long hours day and night, often for not much more than minimum wage. Yes, you heard me – “not much more than minimum wage”. And truckers have to drive tired, pushing mile after mile on a few hours of sleep, sometimes just to break even with the expense of living on the road. But the bottom line isn't the law that tells truckers how long they can drive. It's an economic system that pushes them to drive past exhaustion, no matter what the law says. Truckers are spending weeks away from home and family, living out of duffel bags at crowded truck stops, showering in seedy stalls the size of closets and waking in the middle of the night with prostitutes banging on the door. The average trucker works more than 3,000 hours a year and makes between $30,000 and $45,000. Most blue-collar Americans work about 2,000 hours a year. Which means that truckers are working 50 percent more for not much more pay, if any more pay and doing this without the benefit of overtime pay. Many drivers drive 3,000 miles a week, working an average of 70 hours with take-home pay of about $500 a week -- or less than $8.50 an hour. When you add in time spent waiting to load or unload there's days out there a trucker don't even make minimum wage. Most truckers must drive long and hard to make money because they're paid by the mile -- not by the hour. Unlike almost all other industries, trucking is exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the law that established a 40-hour workweek. That means truckers don't have to be paid minimum wage of $5.15 an hour or overtime pay unless they're in a union. Drivers should not literally be driven to death just so they can make a living. It's a difficult, unpredictable job in a difficult, unpredictable business. Shipments get delayed. Ports get clogged. The highway stacks up with traffic because of construction and wrecks. Trucks break. Rules change.
The trucking industry does not care that drivers waste away their lives and their incomes on loading docks. If the load has to go, many parts of this system truly don't care if drivers run when exhausted -- as long as they're not caught and the load is on time. Shippers don't have any interest in streamlining their loading practices because there is no benefit in it for them to do so. Receivers don't care if a truck is unloaded in an hour or a day. Shippers now demand precise delivery times, sometimes penalizing drivers for being late -- which can happen if truckers run into delays from road construction, heavy traffic or bad weather or mechanical failure. Once the driver gets to the dock to load or unload, he/she often must wait. While they do, they don't make ANY money, and the hours count against their allowable driving time.
"We show up on time, and we sit and sit and sit. I've spent as much as eight hours in one place before I even got assigned to a dock door." Says James Thurman, sitting at the breakfast counter at a Virginia truck stop. He said that the week before he had gotten to the dock of a home improvement store at 4 a.m. after driving all night. He got out of there at nearly 3:00 the next afternoon. "It was a whole day wasted," he said. "With any other job, the law says you're to be paid for the work you do. But we don't get paid for that. And even if we wanted to rest while we're waiting, that's virtually impossible because we need to move our trucks up in line.”
You can almost see the long hours wearing truckers down. At 1 a.m. in Waco, Texas, a truck crept into the Flying “J” Travel Plaza. The driver backed his rig into one of the few open parking spots, then crawled directly into his sleeper berth in the back of the cab, so exhausted that he forgot to shut off his left-turn signal. Inside the truck stop, several haggard drivers stood in line at the fuel desk, duffels in tow, waiting to get a coupon for a shower. In the trucker's lounge nearby, one driver stared blankly at the TV screen while another was sprawled across two seats, out like a light.
It's 11 p.m., and there is a trucker out there tonight fading fast. Every trucker knows the feeling. You've tried bouncing your left leg, blasting the air conditioner, or singing out loud. Yes, some of us even sing on the CB! Yegads! Some truckers even start an argument on the CB just to keep themselves awake. You're so tired you feel as shaky as when you have the flu. You overreact, like a drunken driver; jerking the rig to the right, then back, trying to keep it between the lines. But you've got to make a living, you got to try to at least make the mortgage this month even if the other bills are late. The customer needs the load tomorrow and God help it if I have to tell the dispatcher in the morning that I wasn't on time because I was tired.
Drivers are essentially forced into an artificial 14-hour daily cycle rather than a 24-hour cycle that the rest of society operates on. This causes them to be required to rest when they are not tired and to work when their body is telling them they should be sleeping. Government and various so-called safety groups would like to limit working time to eight hours a day and truckers, of course, would like to get the government out of the business of telling them when they must go to sleep and when they can and can’t drive. They would like the flexibility to be able to sleep when they are tired and work when they are rested which is how it should be.
Even the motoring public doesn't care until a tired trucker runs someone over. In their distress, the public lashes out at those “Monster Trucks” and “Mad Man Truck Drivers” and demands yet one more law be enacted to protect them and their families from this scourge of the highway. The media, of course, joins the circus by learning only enough about the problem to misrepresent it or only half report it. "Trucker Lied In The Logbook!!!" they say in print. They have their guilty party, after all, and the trucker is the perfect scapegoat.
Unfortunately, I must be honest in my observations, too many of the new drivers of today travel at speeds well over the posted limit, they weave in and out of traffic and follow less than a car length behind autos, using intimidation in hopes that the small vehicle will move. They cheat on their logbooks (as many of us do), drive when over tired and fill the CB airwaves with language that would cause a junk yard dog to blush.
It makes you wonder why anyone would want to be a trucker.
Some like the feeling of independence that comes with driving 80,000-pound rigs, being their own bosses and not having to punch time cards. Some enjoy the lone cowboy lifestyle and the chance to see the country while getting paid to do it. For others, it's a step up. Or it's all they've ever known. I heard one driver say, "I'm 55 years old. What else are you going to do when you're my age?"
It's a challenging profession. As the saying goes "Trucking, the hardest job you will ever love." Many people today think that truckers are a bunch of gypsy vagabonds but today's truck driver, whether he/she is an owner/operator or a company driver, is expected to run a business from his rig, away from home and only God knows for how long, and still maintain a positive personal relationship with his family, friends, community and church. He needs to be part lawyer, mechanic, accountant, dispatcher, dockworker, driver and whatever else the job might require him to be. After all that, he is then expected to deliver freight that gets loaded late and he/she better be on time. For many truckers, the job isn't worth it. Industry experts say annual driver turnover at many companies’ runs from 60% to 120%. That has created a shortage of 80,000 to 100,000 drivers, according to the American Trucking Associations. Some industry experts say the shortage is caused by inefficiency -- drivers are wasting their time waiting to load or unload. Others say there are plenty of drivers, just not enough good ones. The best drivers move on because they know that they can do better with fast-food wages.
When you're not trucking, you're either talking about it or thinking about it. You could talk for a full day and never break the surface of the stories (all true, of course) about the experiences you've had. Whenever someone else comes up with a story, you can immediately think of at least two that will top theirs. People that don't know trucking seem boring and are hard to relate to. They seem to have led very sheltered, uneventful lives but you have to understand that trucking isn't a job; it's a way of life. Non-truckers think of days and weeks on the road as tedious monotony. Real truckers think of this as their natural world with something new and interesting over the next hill and at the end of every trip. When they are on the road, they can't wait to get back home and when they are home, they can't wait to get back on the road.
Why we like it and keep coming back for more is either that we are glutton for punishment, cynical to our own endangerment or just plain nutz! But we do and we keep our country's economy running daily. Everything that is in your home or business including the materials to build the building that you are in was delivered by some kind of truck and a professional truck driver is whom you have to thank for it! I don't mean to sound pragmatic about it but to get to be somebody who gets to love what they do for a living, that's so rare, and so there must be some kind of price you have to pay.
For many truck drivers of today it's become such a nightmare and yet it's become something that all of us just have to deal with to be part of this industry. The biggest problem in the lives of a trucker is trying to be the kind of man that we want to be, the father that we want to be, the husband that we should be, and how to process the failure of financial satiability if this career doesn't work out.
A list of things “Four-Wheelers” usually do
that truckers see everyday!
Please learn what road courtesy is at a young age so that you may live longer
and maybe, just maybe, you can teach someone in your family too!
· DON'T pass trucks on the shoulder of the highway.
· DON'T try to sneak past a truck on the right as the truck is trying to make a right turn.
· DON'T pass trucks going uphill, then slow down in front of them while going down the other side.
(HINT: A loaded truck needs to gather speed going downhill to help make it up the next one.)
· DON'T pull out from a stop sign directly in front of a truck because you don't want to get stuck behind it.
· DON'T fail to dim headlights, figuring the truckers are so high up that it won't matter.
· DON'T tailgate or pull into the passing lane next to a truck and then stay there, not realizing what could happen if a tire blew out. (HINT: If you’re a motorcyclist get away from a truck at your earliest opportunity.)
· DON'T drive in the trucker's blind spots on the passenger side of the cab and to the rear of the vehicle.
(HINT: If you want to pass, do it and then get out of the way.)
· DON'T merge slowly from an exit ramp onto the interstate right in front of a truck in heavy traffic.
· DON'T refuse to let a truck into your lane. He may have an emergency or may need to get out of some other driver's way or he may even need to exit.
(HINT: It's hard to change lanes with a 65-foot rig, especially in heavy traffic. If a truck has its turn signal on, let it merge. He/she is TELLING you what he is about to do. He is NOT asking you for your permission.
However, flashing your lights (ON & OFF - Not with the bright lights.) quickly will let the trucker know he/she is at a safe distance to pull in front of you.)
· DON'T cut in front of trucks! Period! Especially in small gaps in heavy traffic or construction zones.
(HINT: Most trucks carry a full capacity to make their delivery economical. Their tractor, trailer and the weight of the delivered item is usually in the range of 80,000 pounds. That is 40 TONS!
It takes the average truck, with good brakes, 3 football fields of length to stop at 55 MPH. That truck WILL completely run over you if you cut in front of him and then suddenly you need to stop. When a truck is driving down a road and he has space in front of him it is because he is desperately trying to keep a safety space for himself and the person in front of him.)
There is nothing that anyone has in his/her possession that hasn’t been delivered by a trucker -
with the exception of a baby,
that’s left up to God and women,
the rest is left up to us truckers!
MAY GOD BE YOUR FOG LIGHTS
ON THE HIGHWAY OF LIFE
The Snowhawk
(Dennis J. Aitken)
said it!
Seven thirds to you drivers & eighty eights to the lady drivers out there!
Catch ya on the flip flop!
Keep the shiny side up & the rubber side down!
We're gone!
