Go Truck Yourself

So you think trucking is easy? Obviously you have never done it professionally. Many have tried, many have failed. It seems that a lot of 4 wheelers (cars) think that truckers are on some kind of permanent vacation. This couldn’t be further from the truth. If you truly believe that to be the case, Go Truck Yourself and then tell me it is a vacation.

A few things that car drivers apparently don’t understand about trucks:

You know that big gap many of us keep between our hood and the vehicle in front of us? It is not meant for you to cut us off; it is for us to have the ability to stop. Trucks take longer than cars to stop. We need that space. Don’t believe me, Go Truck Yourself.

Truckers get frustrated when you ride beside them in the left lane for long periods. Reason: We need to be able to maneuver if something is in our lane up ahead. An animal, a tire tread, a ladder, or that sofa that fell out of a pickup. When it is windy, trucks need room just to fight the wind without having cars sitting beside them to worry about. Trucking isn’t easy; try it. Go Truck Yourself.

Ever wonder why some trucks stop at railroad crossings while other trucks fly across them? Did you happen to notice the hazardous material placard on the truck and/or trailer? All placarded trucks are required by law to stop at all active railroad crossings. Did you notice that I said active? A railroad crossing with a sign marking it as exempt can be crossed with a placarded vehicle without stopping. On a side note, any passenger-carrying vehicle, like buses, is also required to stop for active railroad crossings. Now that you know why we stop for rail crossings, perhaps you could pay attention and plan to stop before screeching to a halt behind that trucker. Go Truck Yourself and see if it happens to you.

You know that truck that seemingly cut you off as you drove in the left lane? You know, the one who had his turn signal on for half a mile trying to get over? You know the one; it was the one you cursed when it came over anyway. Then as you veered right to take the lane it just vacated, you finally saw the flashing lights on the shoulder up ahead, so you tucked back in behind it. Yeah, that one. Well, truckers generally try to move over for flashing lights or broken-down or disabled vehicles on the shoulder. We just need a little space for a short amount of time to not kill someone on the shoulder of the road. It only takes a few seconds of your time to make room for a truck. Trucks take up most of the lane; we need to move over even more than smaller cars. Don’t believe it, Go Truck Yourself.

Trucks on the road are at work, with schedules and deadlines to meet. We just ask for a little grace and courtesy to be able to safely perform our duties. How would you like it if you really needed to complete a task at your desk, but every time you started to write or type, someone laid on your desk preventing you from doing your job? That’s equivalent to all the cars driving in the left lane, not passing and moving over like they should, and leaving no room for trucks to pass anything for miles. It creates a bottleneck in the traffic, and now the trucks have slowed, exacerbating the problem. Now even slower trucks have to work their way over and hold you up longer than if you let them over when they were at highway speed. Still think it is easy?
We aren’t looking for sympathy or claiming our jobs are harder than yours, but our job is out in the public, yet the motoring public tends to see trucks as a nuisance. Perhaps we are, but we are a necessary nuisance that is part of the supply chain. Trucks are just one of the cogs in the machine that is American commerce. Maybe now that you understand a small part of truck driving, you will have a little courtesy for those behemoths of the highway.

Go Truck Yourself.

If it were easy, everyone would do it.
-  Anonymous

See you down the road,
Greg