Differences between driving in the seventies and today

1976.
Cab over Pete, 46’refer. Florida to LA. Frozen orange juice out, produce back.
Had a AC but it only seemed to work at over 50 mph. But when your 20 years old your a little tougher.
Mainly used telephones at the truckstop tables to do check calls.
Remember the “Million dollar Kelly’s 76 truckstop” in Shreveport La.
And would either stop to check on a truck sitting on the side of the road or get on the CB to see if he needed help. That is unheard of today.

 

I didn't graduate high school until 78, but I've come to the conclusion that almost everything was better back then in one way or another. Yes, technology has made things easier, but in my opinion it hasn't made much of anything better.

 

I rode with a neighbor trucker summer of 1979, International Transtar cabover.
He only slept for about three hours in three days. He Popped bennies to stay awake.
We got a few flats, he had to fix them himself on the roadside.

 

Thanks for the walk down memory lane. There were lots of differences back then from what we have now. Like you say the creature comforts now and the traffic back then were so different. But remember, back then how many drivers were saying "thank goodness we have paper logs" or "I'm sure glad our regulations are so lenient".

 

Didn’t start driving till in the 80’s. But you are correct, a map, a CB, and common sense is what got us to our destinations. My first truck was 73 Cabover KW, no PS or a/c, and had 10:00-20’s on Dayton wheels. Trucks today have most feeling like their on vacation......

 

I started off running trucks that were built in the 50's and 60's commonly. Ran rather well, if you ignored half the defects. No back window etc.

The regulations was a total lip service. The minute you got the company truck keys you were expected to break all of them. And run some more. If they caught you they caught you. OOS one time in NYS, 200 dollar fine. Paid no problem But OOS says don't leave for 14 hours. We were gone in 1. Never heard anything more about that one.

If you tried to run legal you were either fired or given enough rope to hang yourself and eliminated with a no win question you are asked to either quit or be fired which is not a question at all. Id say about 20 companies burned out and went out of existance. So I don't need to explain those to the next employer. Hop hop hop. Two or three actually locked their doors in the night. Out of business before my shift. That was interesting. Poof. No more company.

Interesting times.

No computers, no net, no phones nothing. Today's society when viewed a certain way is a big parasite. We were paying 65 dollars a month for smart phone, text and some data (Internet etc) eventually we learned to get a life line and pay nothing for better service. If you had one of the new cell phones in seattle and it calls into a canada tower while you sit on hold for a hour thats a thousand dollars roaming bill waiting for you to get back home and discover it. Then beg to the cell company to remove it explaining the situation. If they did not, its a thousand dollars baby. ###### are cheaper and more fun. =)

Anyhow two different worlds. And now this ELD. National Musical Parking every day and night. Violate everything else. My solution would be to drive 8 hours. Then park. If they fire me for failing to put in 11 hours oh well. But I would have three hours to find parking. The load will get there when it gets there.

Thats the one constant.

That load got there when you got it there in the 80's and earlier. Today that load should get there when it gets there. Wait 3 months to get it off the Chinee boat, you can wait three #### days to get it to your dock. =)

 

I was up in Bangor, ME almost 2 years ago. They still have the full-service fueling at Dysarts, IIRC. They had everything like the old days except for the rollaway stairs for cleaning your cabover windshield.

 

More likely, people back then didn't expect as much comfort and ease as we do now, and often as the bad parts fade into the past you just remember the good parts. I was out of trucking for a while. I had quit trucking because of being so disgusted with certain things inherent to trucking. Every time had had a stressful situation in my office job all I could remember was driving across I-40 in the spring or friendly customers in the country up in Wisconsin or Minnesota during summers with my dog, a full cooler, and "all the time in the world" to get somewhere.