When did lack of courtesy become normal

Yep, I was going to say that.

Started driving in 1978 and the the truck stops were full of richards then.

 

Probably when the industry grew too fast and instead of being taught by your dad, grandpa, uncle, brother, ect.
they started throwing any warm body in a truck, being trained by another driver with very little experience, and no knowledge or respect for time honored traditions and methods that had evolved through trial and error over years and years of the growth of the industry. Back when I was growing up hanging the shop with my dad, going on runs, learning, trucking was a brotherhood, now for most, its just a job, for many a job that they got into as a last resort as the corporate world downsized. Add in cell phones, satellite radio and the non use of cb radios, not mention the shear numbers of trucks and more and more drivers are isolated and have very little contact with each other. literally complete strangers who may nod at each other in the fuel line, truck stop, ect. A lot of our new force of drivers hate their job and it shows. just my two cents.

 

This might not be popular to some but...

answer: As more foreign drivers come to America to drive trucks. Cleanliness, respect, and courtesy goes more and more out the window. But hey, how can we blame the ones that are like this. If you come from a ####hole country, old habits die hard. *This doesn’t apply to all foreigners.*!!

Sorry, it’s just my observation over the last decades.

 

At early post deregulating.

More specifically the generation that came of age mid 90's with the importation of workers from other Nations. Things changed drastically from then.

In the 70's you could spot a trucker a mile away and carried respect for same more or less. But into the 90's the entire industry pretty much threw that away.

If I was 21 and entering the industry, I would not remember or know any other normal. However looking back from the mid 50's at all the changes in life among people in USA... there has been several changes for sure and long before I existed as well.

 

I saw a driver drive behind someone who was setting up to back into a spot recently, but the driver who was setting up made no indication of what he was doing. So it was lack of notification and lack of patience butting heads.

 

When the berlin wall came down and the whole world climbed into the lifeboat to capsize it.

 

About the same time our borders were flung wide open and immigration laws stopped being enforced meaningfully.

 

Good analogy. I like it!