Do I need a brain to drive truck

You are correct, sir. But the key word you said is DRIVER. The regs dumb everything down. When I started, the average driver in my area, long haul truckers(there wasn't any OTR) ran 5000 miles a week and home on weekends. That was AVERAGE. It was a hard run. You brought home a grand a week net.

Someone is thinking, "Ummm, thats not that good for the miles."

You're right. A grand net and home every weekend is not that good. But whats the average now for otr? 600 to 800 a week and home oonce a month, and having to beg for hometime?

Time is more important. You know how you guys have to be perfect on trip planning and fight for a parking spot? We didn't do that. Run like hell during the week, get to the yard, park the truck and jump into the car and go home.

This was the AVERAGE driver. You had to be able to truck. This too was in the era of the performance enhancing drugs. I didn't need them, in fact i still have my teeth. Some did. Bunch of the guys had speeding tickets, but no at fault crashes.

Big R was the biggest outfit on the road. Their drivers ran 8.5 hours a day, then pulled over and a shuttle would bring another driver to finish t h e run. You have 14 hours to drive, and drivers would stop a mile short of their destination because their clock was up. Sound familiar? 30 years ago, that was obsurd. Now, its a regulation. Did it help Big R? Not one bit. Even combined with Yellow, YRC is only a good fraction of the size Roadway was.

Safer? Debatable. Profitable? Less time at home and less net pay? Definitely not profitable.

The worse thing about the regs is it creates a job for losers...people with no ambition or brain or a care in the world to qualify to drive a commercial vehicle. And the best thing of all, theyre so stupid that you can pay them less than minimum wage.

 

That's what smart phones are for.

 

Car drivers in trucks

 

Hey, now! I've got a BS degree from a 4-year state university...

That being said, I've met a good deal of college educated idiots over the years myself.

 

Of course. There's an app for that.

 

A brain to drive a truck? hell i thought that was obviously missing when we chose the career of driving a truck

 

Eat more beaver.