Wondering What You Guys Think of 18 Wheelers on the Road. (Page 2 of 2)

I think "civil disobedience" through an organized trucker strike is a great idea, if it is purposed to draw awareness to an issue that needs to be addressed!!  Like say, ohh, massive clandestine operations by shadow-governments...

Seatrout...my ex was a truck driver for a time. My understanding of the log books was to make sure that the drivers didnt drive over a certain amount of hours a day in order to keep them from driving while they were overtired, thus cutting down on accidents. Im sure it is a lonely job, and you probably do feel underappreciated. Believe me though, your job is not the only underappreciated one.  Most service-oriented jobs are like that.  Ask anybody in retail, or waitresses what kind of responses they get thoughout the day.  They may not drive thousands of miles, but they still take a lot of crap from people.   Heck, ask my husband. He works for Clear Channel, which owns just about every radio station across the nation now.  He's a producer and a voice-over and makes them lots of money, but none of it gets thrown his way. He's watched his workplace basically go down to a skeleton crew, and they pile more work on him, not more pay, and expect him to be creative and keep the level of quality the same.  I can safely say, unless you're self employed or just plain lucky, most people feel totally underappreciated at their workplace.  Not to take away from what you are feeling, but your not alone in this matter.   

Oh yeah, I know. My ex also drove buses for  charters. Most of them were to Atlantic City, NJ from NYC. They didnt care how fast he had to drive, he was penalized (and the customers would get pissed) if the bus was late getting there and back. He used to to get speeding tickets all the time, which of course, counted against OUR insurance policy.

Well, there's also the seedy underbelly of the whole trucking culture.  The drugs. The child prostitutes working the truck stops.  And so on.  Recently read an article in People magazine regarding young teen girls who'd gotten involved in prostitution, and how they got out of it.  The story that really stood out for me was the 12 (I think?) year old working the truck stops.  The way she described going from truck to truck...yuck. 

Two weeks ago I heard from my coworker who works at a rape crisis center about a female whose car had broken down on I-64 who was forcibly taken by some truckers who pulled over to "help."  They had her for several days, doing very bad things to her to put it delicately, until she managed to escape.  It sounded like something right out of a (horror) movie.  From what I understand, this story was not reported in the local media. 

(oh yeah...and just remembered the movie "Suspect Zero," about a serial killer using a big rig truck to continually criss cross the country, kidnapping - hundreds and hundreds - of people.  While it was "only a movie" it did leave me wondering just how much "shady happenings" go on under the guise of cross country trucking, stuff that the average person will never get a glimpse of if they're not connected to it in some way.   And conversely, the things truckers must see in their travels...the stories they probably have....)

Anyway, I hear stories like all of these, and admittedly it does leave one feeling...negative towards the idea of truckers and the whole trucking industry.    So unless you hear the stories or are involved in trucking in some way, and connected to it, then it remains an invisible entity in this country.  We the average person don't give them a second thought - for good or bad - until we hear stories, either regarding the seedy underbelly activity or the positive ways in which trucks keep this country going, 24/7.