trucking image controversy

I knew a man a couple years ago who made the remark that truck driving is for "lazy people" He was living at a rescue mission and working for some painting contractor who would pick him up from the bum barn in the mornings in his pickup truck. I asked him what he thought about driving a truck and that $40-$80k a year was common these days.

How should we respond to people who say truckers are lazy?

While in Boise, Idaho in the summer of 2017 I saw a driver get out of a Swift truck while making a delivery to an Albertson's market there. He was clean-cut, clean-shaven, wore a nice clean white company uniform with a button-down shirt yet before he got back into his rig he spat a big wad of chew on the parking lot!

I thought to myself, "Are truck drivers really that ungentlemanly and unladylike as people?"

Back in 1993, I was in the army as a solider, SPC4, stationed at Fort Ord, CA. I had some experience driving a 4,000 pound Hyster forklift while working at a newspaper in the late '80s. A civilian carrier with a semi was picking up some pallets from my motor pool. I volunteered to drive the unit forklift, olive drab color. I was a bit rusty on my forklift skills and had a little trouble getting the pallets in the back of the trailer from ground level. The driver was a bit short, impatient and condescending toward me. It made me feel embarrassed in front of my fellow unit troops. I was a motor pool mechanic and the quartermaster personnel, supply, operated forklifts on a regular basis.

I thought to myself, "Truck drivers are really an arrogant and authoritative sort."


In 1992, I was driving over a grade on 101 northbound from Prunedale, California toward San Jose via Gilroy. it was late at night. I was driving my 1988 Firebird Formula 5.0 from Fort Ord in Monterrey where I was stationed then. There was a dry-van semi ahead of me and I had tried to pass him on the left. I flashed my brights as I was about to pass then he pulled suddenly into my lane with no signal. I had to brake hard to fall back. I think I got angry and laid on the horn. I had read a Stephen King novel about a chauffeur who habitually flashed to pass as a professional courtesy. I thought flashing my brights was for my safety so the truck driver would know I was present. I never thought to take down his number and make a police report. Did the trucker get offended? Reminds me of the road rage in the film "Duel".

I thought to myself, "Are truck drivers crazy homicidal maniacs?"

 

I've dealt with very rude lawyers before...and nurses...and doctors...and incompetent high-priced plumbers...taxi dispatchers and drivers are some of the worst. I've seen some ornery railroad train crewmen. I've heard some baby-sitters were guilty of criminal negligence in the deaths of children their care. My grandfather said it was common for carpenters to lose hands and fingers do to careless use of power saws. He was a union hard-hat and proudly showed me one of his metal hats dented by a free-swinging cable such hat that saved his own skull.

I don't smoke, drink, dip, chew, use illegal drugs including speed. I would always carry a Loo bucket for emergency pee/poo situations.

 

Truck drivers might have very big egos the size of the very motor vehicles they operate. I drive a humble little Toyota Corolla. These Ford King Ranch, Chevy Silverado drivers, Suburban drivers and Ram drivers like to always gun it passed me with a lead foot. These big one-ton pickups tend to think they are road kings. A guy's vehicle size makes up for a want of manhood size. Toyota truck drivers, Tacoma and Tundra, seem much more courteous to their little sisters as my Corolla.