What are the biggest difficulties and hurdles with trucking?

Clueless 4 wheelers who:

-cut back in front of the truck too soon when making a pass.

-travel 60.3 mph in the right lane of a 70mph zone, speed up when I try to pass doing 67mph, then settle back down to 60.3 mph when I get back in behind them.

-RV bungholes who take a space in a rest area or truckstop, and THEN deploy their slideouts, thereby taking up two or three spaces.

-the disappearance of the non-chain "Mom & Pop" truckstop, and the good sit-down restaurants they used to have. (Most "travel centers" are going to a "food court" model, fast food, all the usual suspects.

-construction zones, and the arszole truckers who speed in them.

Four wheelers in general.

City traffic. ANY city, some are worse than others.

I could go on but there's no point. I agree with a statement made on this forum years ago:

"Of all the things I'm qualified to do, trucking sucks the least."

I've driven a tanker most of my career, so I always got treated pretty good at customers. Except when I was driving gasoline trucks.

Maybe one of the reefer or dry van folks can throw more furniture on the bonfire. In fact, maybe I can page a couple for ya:

@Dave_in_AZ

@TripleSix

@Opus

And maybe THEY'LL invite some of THEIR friends.

You done opened the BIG can of beans, young man. I hope you're hungry!

 

Also, being sleepy is the easiest thing to deal with.

You pull over, take a nap, then call dispatch and tell them you're gonna be late.

And if they try to give you any crap, you tell them you were "too fatigued to SAFELY operate a commercial motor vehicle."

Then if they keep lipping off, hang up, call the Safety Director, and let them know that there's a dispatcher who needs a refresher in the FMCSA regs.

Okay, I'm REALLY gonna shut up now!

 

TripleSix does OS/OD, not box freight.

But he definitely has his finger on the pulse of this industry.

 

Finding parking at night for a 10 hr. break.
Pulling reefers is mostly night driving if you plan right. Drive at night and easy to find parking to sleep during the day.
Pull all the curtains and make it dark inside the truck for sleeping.

 

The constant battle with four-wheelers is real. They cut you off, camp in your blind spots, and don't understand how long it takes a truck to stop. It's like they forget we're hauling 80,000 lbs behind us. Stressful as hell sometimes.

 

Parking when you are on the road is the biggest hurdle, I can usually handle the 4 wheeler bs, I drive slow any way, and my truck is ungoverned and fairly fast so if I have to I can get by usually. I have had people do some really dumb crap in front of me though, but considering I do mostly deck work, I tend to keep as much following distance as I can to prevent anything coming through the back of the cab from having to lock them up. Truck stops are also bad, the disappearance of the mom and pop truck stop to fast food only truck stops makes life suck on the road

 

The lack of cruise control use by four wheelers, box trucks, and Amazon Prime semi trucks.

 

On a more serious note, just the inconsistencies of OTR trucking take a bit to get used to. Constant sleep schedule changes, traffic, breakdowns, weather, parking, etc., etc.. Takes a while to adapt to adjusting to everything on the fly when first starting.

 

Appointments are set but NOBODY at shipper or receiver does anything to meet those appointment times. If they ship it at 11:59 pm they feel they've satisfied their duty & driver should deliver at the original delivery time 600 miles away. That's to say the HOS regulations are a sword hanging over the driver & nobody on either end of the trip has the slightest pressure to meet those appointment times.

Also, there is not nearly enough parking spaces in most cities & new drivers have almost no ability to back a truck so they block everyone. They also drive with no more attention than 4-wheelers.