Wayne Weisser is a long haul trucker based out of Las Vegas. He travels all over the US, and blogs about his life on the road, in the truck stop and elsewhere over at Adventures in Trucking. For anyone who wants to learn about trucker’s issues today from expensive gas to deer on the highway…read Wayne. We are glad he will post here from time to time.

by Wayne Weisser, truck driver

There are millions of trucks and drivers on the road, the cowboy stereotype is probably the most common and like the cowboys of long ago, outsiders only see the good part of driving and few see the hard work that’s behind the scenes. When you see a truck on the road, that’s the best part of the job. It’s why the majority of us drive, the open road with no one looking over our shoulders. The open road has become less open with construction and traffic everywhere. The independence is different also. Even though we sit in the truck alone a lot of trucks have satellite tracking and cell phones constantly bug us about where we are and when we’re going to get there.

For me, the few positives still outweigh the many negatives. There are rules and regulations for trucks and drivers everywhere. The Federal government has rules about how much we drive, work and sleep. State and local governments tell us what roads to drive on and sometimes even what lane of the road to drive on.

In order to make money, drivers have to haul freight, in order to haul it we have to load it. Depending on the type of trailer that could involve a number of different configurations to carry freight. The driver is responsible for ensuring the freight doesn’t fall off his trailer and onto the highway in the case of flatbed trailers. In the van or box trailers, drivers are usually still responsible for ensuring freight is secure and doesn’t move and break while moving down the highway.

There are still shippers that require a driver to load and unload their freight, usually with a pallet jack or by hand. After driving all day that’s the last thing a driver wants to do. Most warehouses nowadays will load and unload trucks, but sometimes a driver is still responsible the number of boxes or items loaded matches the paperwork, which is still time consuming and takes away from driving time. And even if a driver doesn’t have to load their freight, some of the places that trucks have to back into so they can be loaded takes every ounce of skill and patience we have. There are a lot of poorly designed loading docks and even some docks, especially in large cities that were built long ago when trucks and trailers were a lot smaller.

Another misconception is that truck drivers are union. The fact is union drivers makeup a very small percentage of truck drivers in the country. Thanks to deregulation in the 70’s, only around five percent of drivers have any kind of union affiliation. Unions reps may still have recognition in the press, but they have very few actual numbers to back up any actions. The overwhelming majority of drivers get paid by the mile and are paid by how long a trip is by a computer program not from the odometer on the truck.

Being away from home sometimes 3, 4 or more weeks at a time is the toughest aspect of trucking to get used to. Local driving jobs are hard to come by and then only the more experienced drivers will be hired. Living in a space the size of a walk-in closet for weeks at a time isn’t easy. Truck stops have become more and more crowded and a driver has to plan their trip to stop early to find a parking place. Food at truck stops vary from one truck stop chain to another. The old saying that told of a good place to eat if there were trucks parked there doesn’t really work today. Truck drivers eat where they can park their rig.

A major part of trucking is waiting. We are always waiting to get loaded, waiting to get unloaded. Waiting in traffic and construction zones. I can’t drive an entire day without hitting at least one and usually more construction zones. Even when our day is done, we may have to wait to get a shower at a truck stop. There is no plumbing in trucks, most truck stops provide showers for a nominal fee and may be free if you purchased fuel. And at the end of the day, we wait. We may have to wait to drive. How much I worked last week affects how many hours I can work today. And the most important part, is we wait to go home. If there is freight going home, we take it. If not, we keep driving. There are very few dedicated routes. Driving from point A to B then back to A is very rare in the majority of trucking companies. Most of us drive from A to B to C and more before we eventually get a trip home. For a few days off before we start the routine all over again.