I am a millennial, just throwing that out there now. I am still new to the transportation industry. My question is, where has the self-respecting truck driver gone? The one who you hear stories from the old timers while eating a meal at a restaurant. Where did our generation cross from talking and help each other, to forget you and pay me? Why did it have to change?
Where, who and why, I will never be able to tell you. One thing is for sure, we need to bring it back. Then if you ask a question, the response shouldn’t be, “go ask your trainer.” There are times, no matter if you are young or old, a question will be brought up. Directions, procedure, a second eye or brain. We all need help. Seems like that the older ones tend to lean on that type of answer because “they had to figure it out themselves.” I think they tend to forget after their 37 years of on the road experience, they once were rookies themselves and had concerns or questions of their own. They also seem to be the first one that jumped down your throat if you try to correct them, we all make mistakes and making mistakes is a learning experience. If it’s going to cost money to correct that mistake, why not accept it? We are all out here, not for our health, yet to do what every self-respecting American wants to do, make a living and provide for their family, which you cannot do if you are forking over couple thousand dollars in repairs. I’m sorry, but I do hope this does reach out to the seasoned veterans of the highways, this part has to be focused on you. You complain about this Electronic Logging Device mandate that took effect December of 2017 and keep blaming it on the newer drivers. If you take anything away from this small article, I hope it is this. How can you blame something on a younger generation, that an estimated 50-60% of the industry has possessed an ELD since 2005? I was still in high school during that time, and yet I am blamed for something that I had zero knowledge of until I started driving myself.
Everybody complains about the cleanliness of truck stops. The parking lot, fuel island, the store, bathrooms and showers are always the top complaints. The employees see hundreds of trucks coming and going throughout the day and night, with typically 3-5 employees on shift at a time. We do nothing but hurt their efficiency as a company. Leaving pee bottles on the grounds, when there is a trash can within 100 feet of you. Dumping out your drink underneath the truck to your left. Peeing in between your drive tires, on the asphalt leaving that stench for the next to endure. Not flushing a toilet, leaving the toilet paper strung out in the stall. Leaving your whiz on the toilet seat for the next guy to clean up as all the others are taken. Common argument I hear is “that’s why they have employees.” Employees can only do so much. We need to give the initiative to help them out by completing simple tasks. I’m not saying go grab that random plastic bag several trucks down. I’m talking about doing your own part, with your garbage, into the trash can that is only a few feet away. Easiest location to find one is something we frequent almost daily, the fuel island. Right next to the driver side pump, usually a nice big trash can that is readily available for our use, without charge. In the military, I was always told one thing. Leave a place in a better condition than what you found it. I try and live by that. My truck might be dirty, but that is my mess that I have to deal with on a personal level. Not have to deal with another person’s nonsense. To the best of my knowledge, you are required to be 21 years of age to cross state lines with a class A commercial license. We are not kids, we are grown men and women, who should have been taught by their mothers to clean up after ourselves. I’m not saying to go ahead and take a broom out of the cleaning closet and sweep up the store, nor am I implying that we should clean up the shower and do the towel laundry for them. What we can do is chip away at the parking lot. Do your small part to let them focus on their primary task, of running that store.
Technology is great, it’s grand, it is the best modern invention known to man. Doesn’t matter if you are 90 years old or 7 years old, almost everybody has some form of it. Whether it is glued to your hand or not, that is a whole different story. That cell phone that you have stuck to your windshield or to your dash like I do, it can only update you as the information center gets its update. I’ve noticed that a lot of my generation does not run a CB radio in their trucks. Personal or company choice, I will never have that answer. My question is why? Why not run one? Little story from the other day. I was putting along on the I-80 east in Illinois. Somebody yelled out on the radio to anybody who was listening. “Hey eastbound, you might want to take exit 45. There is an accident at the 48 and it’s bad” they said. So, I acknowledged them by responding with, “thank you, do you know the best route to get back on the 80?” Where they responded with, “take exit 45, turn right, go to the 4-way stop, turn left, it’ll run you straight back into the interstate.” I thanked them for their advice and heads up, and I took the exit that happened to be right there, watching the 7 trucks in front of me continue down the interstate. I pulled out my phone to open Google Maps as soon as I made that left. That road they told me to avoid was black, indicating stopped traffic, zero movement, which usually happens with a fatal accident. Few minutes up the road I checked again, a larger black area and the turn off where I exited was turning black. And one last check before I got off the backroads and back onto the big road. It had the “do not enter” symbol on the roadway. My radio legitimately saved me about 4 hours’ worth of sitting, able to make it to my customer on time and continue on my merry little way. There is this new idea that a CB is a piece of outdated equipment. I say screw that, it has saved my life on more than one occasion, this just happened to be my most recent. I will gladly continue to run my radio, probably up until the day that I retire. Unless they come up with a new form of a direct communication with fellow drivers for just these occurrences.
I’m pleading with you, we need to get back to the old school mentality, with this new school equipment. Need to bring back work cloths while dealing with shippers and receivers, not basketball shorts and flippy floppies. Bring back the clean shirt, jeans or cargo shorts, boots or tennis shoes and by showering more than once a month. Be presentable to the public, let us take our pride back. Instead of being under constant scrutiny of being dirty, smelly truck drivers. Bringing the respect back to each other and ourselves instead of this “f*** you, pay me” garbage that is being thrown around. Finally, relying on a piece of equipment that will help you directly in front of you, not on a piece of technology that can update once every thirty seconds or 30 minutes, there is no telling when, where or how it’s going to happen. It may just save your life or that innocent family of 4 with a 2-week-old child in that back seat.
Guest Writer: Joe Kallenbach
Joe Kallenbach grew up small town in Washington. Farming community, just your average blue collar. Been driving truck for only 3 years, roughly 400,000 safe miles. Require three states to have what many in their 60’s and 70’s don’t have. But you know, I wouldn’t change this lifestyle for anything. So, I just hope that I am able to put pen to paper on ways that our industry can help itself. My focus is the transportation and logistics industry of this great land, but there are times that I’ll get off track and venture off into different areas.
