Which is a tougher job: OTR driver or heavy-equipment operator?

Which trade is more prone to serious injuries?

My grandfather was a union cat-skinner from 1958 through 1973, age 50-65. He was Operating Engineers Local 3, San Francisco, CA. He broke both arms during his career. He did highway construction and excavation. One time slipping and falling off a Caterpillar tractor. Another time some bonehead with a steam cleaning wand blasted him and knocked him off a tractor. He said he started his career oiling the machines. His wife got him this employment by whom she knew. I understand hard-hats may have to work outdoors a lot and in nasty weather. I wonder if modern CAT earth-movers have such comforts and a/c and heat in the cab even. I think the mega-carrier truckers still make more money than the yellow CAT operators.

Both fields involve the operation of diesel equipment. Both may also require a CDL. I think truck drivers would wish there were many more road construction workers in force. America's highway infrastructure is the royal pits. I know how rough I-25 is in Colorado. Southern Wyoming, Oklahoma and Texas panhandle roads are driven torture devices.

My grandfather had a hand in building I-280 along the San Francisco peninsula to San Jose. I think it opened in 1971. It was always as smooth as a baby's bottom. Nothing is such a driver's friend as a glass-smooth road.

 

OTR is easy work, so no comparison.

 

I been equipment operator and truck driver and equipment was a little tougher physically . Well mostly because i worked my way up with a shovel in my hand. Truck driving otr aint easy either but it fits me better cuz i like to work alone

 

I have yet to find anything really hard about OTR.
Sometimes the hours can suck, and sometimes a low trailer that is hard to crank up. But other than little things that don't happen very often, not so much.

Heck, being a banquet waiter was much more difficult than this job.

 

A lot of equipment has A/C now ..But I guess a lot don't have A/C

 

I would trade a family jewel a kidney and part of my liver to have an equipment operator job near my house that paid north of 45K

 

Most of the guys I know running equipment in the woods are making that much and more. They're not working twelve months out of the year either.

 

Didn't @scottied67 start out w/ equipment, and then go into trucking...eventually obtaining his own tractor?!?

 

I am a member in good standing with my union, Local 34 out of Oakland CA. I drove pilings and built bridges from 1990-2008 all over northern California. Worked with many operating engineers from Local 3.

Also worked on I-280 retrofit in the mid 90's. We built falsework and jacked up both upper and lower decks and knocked out the bridge columns and rebuilt them. I will have to dig out my old pictures and scan them.

@G13Tomcat no, operating equipment was out of my union's jurisdiction, but back in those days we did operate forklifts sometimes. Nowadays, I'm pretty sure Local 3 enforces their jurisdiction over that work very diligently.

 

I'm going to have to venture a guess and say OTR is relatively "cush" compared with heavy equipment and likely better paying to boot and perhaps less dangerous. There are no nasty bulldozer blades to bust your arm on when you slip and fall down on a tractor. My grandfather said some of those hard-hat foremen were jerks. My grandfather did not start with a shovel in hand but with an oil can and grease gun: he was union from the get-go. The unskilled laborers, many Mexicans and blacks then in the 1960's, got the shovels in hand and sometimes the jack hammers. Heavy-equipment men work closely with other people and their safety depends a lot by others around them. I think truck drivers are largely in control of their own level of safety or danger. Most driver deaths and serious injuries are the fault of the driver himself. I like the idea that in a truck you don't have boss in your face dogging you.