I had worked locally as an End-dump trailer truck driver and heavy equipment operator for four years while taking a break from OTR. Having a relapse of “Rambling Fever”, I started putting applications in with various companies, one them being Swi..wi..wi…. (deep breath) I put an application in with Swi..wi..wi… (sigh) I put an application in with the company, that runs big white trucks, with the letters S-W-I-F-T on the side of them.

They called me in for an interview. As I am sitting across the desk from the interviewer, she stops paging through my application and looks up. With a smile she says, “Everything looks good, we can put you to work but… seeing you haven’t had at least one year of over the road experience in the last four years, you will have to ride with one of our trainers.” Stunned, I ask, “For how long and when the “trainer” sees that I know what the hell I am doing, can I get out from under “training”?” She says, “No, you would have to complete the full six weeks of training.” I ask, “At what rate of pay?” She says, “Pay for trainees is $240 a week.”

Getting up from the chair, looking her directly in the eye, I tell her, “I will not work in a team operation for $240 a week. Take my application and roll it into a tight tube. Then bend over your desk and slowly push it up your @$$. Have a nice day.” Within three weeks, after my interview with Swi..wi..wi… (sigh) the company that runs big white trucks, with the letters S-W-I-F-T on the side of them, I was driving solo, coast to coast, for a company specializing in the transport of utility poles up to 105′ in length, for 36% of the load’s gross revenue.

The Plain Truth

The song goes:

“It takes a special breed to be a truck drivin’ [person]
AND a steady hand to pull that load behiiiind.”

What kind of person does it take to be a Truck Driver? Does it take a person with nerves of steel and a keen awareness of what their equipment is capable of? Yes but that is not what has to be special about the individual. With experience, anyone can gain the skill and temperament to handle forty plus tons at speed, in all situations and conditions. The trucking industry employs hundreds of thousands people but being a Truck Driver is more than just a job, it is a lifestyle. One that is completely foreign to the average work a day citizen. It is a nomadic lifestyle, fraught with uncertainty and constant change. What needs to be special about a person thinking about becoming a Truck Driver is their understanding of and contentment with themselves. A Truck Driver must be able to handle the hours, days and months of living in a space the size of a large closet, with only their own thoughts to keep them company.

The iconic term “Prisoner of The Highway” is quite appropriate, as a Truck Driver drives his or her cramped little “cell” down the road, constrained by pick up and delivery schedules, unable to go and do as they please. While there is off duty time, it is nothing like punching a clock and going home. When a Truck Driver is finished with the tasks of their day, no matter where they are, whether it be in the south side of Chicago or on the featureless plains of South Dakota, they ARE home. While the latest developments in communication have come a long way in helping Truck Drivers to keep in touch with friends and family, much like an inmate, locked down in a conventional prison, it is extremely difficult for a Truck Driver to develop or maintain a loving, intimate relationship with another human being.

If it takes a special breed, to be a Truck Driver, it takes an equally special person to commit to a relationship with a Truck Driver. Such a person must be able to be physically separated from the object of their affection for days, week, or possibly months at a time, with only a phone to keep them close. While riding along with their loved ones may provide closer contact, to much of a good thing, living within eight feet of each other 24/7 can be just as stressful, especially for someone acclimated to a stationary lifestyle of readily available restrooms and shower facilities.

It has been said, “Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it” If you dream of becoming a Truck Driver, this is especially true. The lifestyle is not for everybody, for either the person trying to do the job or the one waiting for them to return home. Be very careful, because like any highly addictive substance, curiosity may cause some to take a taste and realize that it is not for them but there are some who once they have tasted of the unique freedom such a lifestyle can provide, their life will NEVER be the same and the effects, that it may have on personal relationships, can be just as traumatic as that of any addictive drug.

As you now stand on the outside looking into this lifestyle, you may think that you have some idea what you are getting yourself into but as someone, who has twenty-three years of experience driving trucks since 1981 and has been involved in the lifestyle for over forty years, I can tell you that until you have actually sat behind the wheel, pushing that truck down the road, faced with making a critical on time delivery, in a torrential downpour, surrounded with bumper to bumper idiot four-wheelers, you have no idea. Nor will the person who you might be interested in, know what to expect from a relationship with you.

It is always possible for two compatible people, to meet and overcome all seemingly insurmountable obstacles, fueled by love and commitment, to nurture a loving relationship but it is, by no means, easy. Especially if you can not commit to being in any one place, for any length of time. If you should find yourself in a relationship, a few questions that you need to ask yourself are, if you are looking forward to starting a family, are you prepared to subject your offspring, as well as yourself, to an occasional relationship? Are you willing to give them, what will be, for all intents and purposes, a single parent home?

Trucking can provide you and your possible family a good living but the quality of your lifestyle and relationships you become involved in, depends entirely upon the amount of effort you are willing to put into them…. having been forewarned. Blessed Be.

Traveling north on I-81 in Virginia, I saw a SUV barrel roll through the air over the top of a car and land on its roof in the middle of the south bound travel lanes. I pulled over, grabbed my first-aid kit and ran yelling for the people who were trying to pull a guy out of the SUV, “LEAVE HIM ALONE, DON’T MOVE HIM.” When I got to the vehicle, there was a young man laying in the roof of the SUV. He was in extreme pain from obvious internal and head injuries. As I checked the rest of the inside of the vehicle, I found a girl hanging upside down in her seat belt, I checked her for vital signs even though her head was turned around backwards, she was beyond help. I went back to the guy, checked him for bleeding and broken bones. I did what I could to protect him from shock and keep him calm, holding him still while laying between him and the girl, blocking her form his view. As I laid there holding his hand talking to him, he told me that he and his wife were on their honeymoon. There was nothing that could be done for her and I felt so bad lying to him, telling him that she was ok when he kept asking about her but I needed to keep him still and calm or he might hurt himself worse than he already was. He started to shake squeezing my arm, he stopped breathing and his heart stopped. I started CPR as the EMT’s arrived and kept it up until the Life Flight arrived. I later called the Highway Patrol, they told me that he never regained consciousness. I checked into a motel and drank myself into a stupor for three days.

You ARE The Only Driver Out There

I used to haul utility poles up to 105 feet in length. At times it was possible that I might have as much as 25 feet or more of the poles, hanging off of the back of my 48 foot flatbed. Usually the size of the orders were such that at least one other truck would also load with me and the other driver and I would run and deliver together. One of my running partners “Steve” was, let us say, less experienced than I, in trucking and hauling poles. We were both loaded with 65 foot poles and had at least 15 feet hanging off the back. which was legal to haul in Washington, unescorted. As I was following behind him, we were both in the left turn lane on a two-lane divided road, preparing to turn onto an interstate onramp. As “Steve” started his turn, the overhang of his poles entered the lane of travel to our right, which was unavoidable. At the same time, as I was watching in my mirror, a four-wheeler approached from behind, on our right. At that moment I turned my wheels and jumped out into the right lane blocking the four-wheeler, keeping him from running into the overhang of “Steve’s” poles. Of course I was number ONE in his book and when “Steve” completed his turn and I returned to my own lane, he showed me as he passed by.

Making sure there were no four-wheelers coming up beside me, watching both mirrors and in front of me, I made my turn. After we had both merged onto the interstate and were safely flowing with traffic, I told him to go to another channel on the radio. When he met me there, I asked him if he had seen the four-wheeler and he said that he had. I asked him if he had, why had he started his left turn, knowing that his overhang would enter the right lane. “Steve” said, “Oh, he would have seen it and figured it out for himself.” I said,”You don’t know that. These people out here, are not drivers, it is not their job. They are doctors going to the hospital, stock brokers thinking about making money, teenagers going on dates and Moms getting groceries, that is their job. The only reason they are out here is to get to their job. They are not thinking about what is going on around them, they are supposed to be but the fact is, they are NOT. Knowing this, makes YOU, the ONLY Driver out here. It IS part of your job to know that they are not paying attention and to do everything in your power to keep them safe from themselves.”

Winter Driving Course

It was the worst winter the North West had seen in over a decade. Portland was frozen to a standstill and, within a week, Spokane had nearly 8 feet of snow dumped on it. I had to bobtail from Spokane Petro to my favorite Mom and Pop stop in Smeltersville, Id. Where I needed to pick up a trailer of “hot freight” from another company driver, who’s truck had broken down. No biggy, having operated in the Great North West since ‘03, I am well versed in the fine art of “slinging iron”. As I jangled into the parking lot, after 70 miles of 6 inch winter wonderland, I found the owner of the truck stop, a good friend of mine in his F-250, futilely trying to yank a CRST “team” truck out of a snow bank. After our heart felt greetings, “Well, if it ain’t the bull dyke bitch that thinks she dan drive!” “Hey, at least I don’t look like an obese Weeble playing with his Tonka Toy.” He hitched me up to CRST and I pull them out of the snow bank.

As we were unhitching, one of the drivers, both of them younger that 25 years old, asked if I drove that “Big Truck” all by myself. I said yes. One asked me, who had chained my truck up for me and both of them were amazed when I said, “I did” They asked if I would show them how to do it. I asked them if that wasn’t part of CRST’s training and I was flabbergasted when they BOTH told me that CRST would not ALLOW them to go through their “winter driving course” until they had AT LEAST 6 months of driving experience. So, let me get this straight… Not only had CRST unleashed a “team of drivers” with less than 9 months of driving experience between the two of them, onto the motoring public but during the worst winter driving conditions in 10 years, they sent these two “babes in the woods” into Washington State, REFUSING to provide them with a bear minimum of winter driving training. Unbe-frickin-lievable. I showed them how to chain up and they offered me a very nice pair of gloves as payment for the lesson, which I refused but they insisted. I wished them the best of luck and offered up a small prayer for their safety.

Reluctant Good Samaritan

The lower elevations between Fourth of July pass and the summit of Look Out Mountain, a distance of about 25 miles, the road conditions are clear and dry. Headed east bound you start the pull at the bottom of the 8 mile 6% accent on the west side of Look Out Mountain. As you round a curve the rpm shoots up, you let up out of it, so that the tires that broke traction stop spinning so you can throw in the power divider, you drop two gears, feather back into it and the rubber finds a bite on dry pavement to be able to keep it in a straight line. As you round the next curve you see that there is 2 inches of snow on the ground and there are two 105,000 lb. gross Swift trucks sliding out.

You go into the bottom box and drop two more gears but you keep chugging along because if you don’t you’re a sitting duck for those coming up behind you. As you come up on them you break traction again and drop two more gears and feather back into the throttle and the drives catch another bite but you only have another two gears left so as soon as you are able to get past the Swift trucks and are able to get over and safely off the road, to get to the top, you’ve got to chain up, because it only promises to get worse toward the top and down the other side.

As you pass the Swift trucks you can hear the the engines howling, the trucks are sliding, the tires are spinning out and you can almost feel the heat coming off the power dividers but you are able to get pass them and find a wide spot far enough off the side to safely “sling iron” As your are dragging out your chains, you can hear someone calling to you but you can’t understand them because they are not speaking english. After you finish chaining up, one who you assume is one of the Swift drivers, through hand gestures, you understand that he does not know how to chain up and would like for you to show him and his buddies how.

You really don’t want to because you severely resent the fact that their company is fielding drivers who are completely unprepared for what can and will happen out here. Your also not looking forward to spending the time and effort to “show” someone, who can’t understand you, how to “sling iron” on two trucks. You do it anyway because of the safety threat, to themselves and others, that their incompetence would pose if left to to their on devices.