When you have no senses, you can't come to them.
If you can't tell by some of my Facebook posts and conversations with my good friend, Tim, I am tired of trucking and all the crap that goes with it...
... tired of all the crap I get from my employer
... tired of my union talking a good game but not having the full resources to follow through
... tired of the long hours and little sleep (no, I don't run illegal, I'm too agitated to sleep sometimes.)
... tired of people telling me how to do my job
... tired of being a target of law enforcement
... tired of being the scapegoat for the motoring public
... tired of regulators who have never seen the inside of a truck "do what's best for us all"
... tired of other truck drivers talking about making a change in the industry and doing nothing
... tired of looking at other truckers, especially the unwashed, the unkempt, the unclean, the uneducated, and the know-it-alls
... tired of mediocre truck stop showers and meals
... tired of endless highway miles and thankless runs
... tired of the selfish motoring public texting, talking, or otherwise becoming distracted from doing anything that involves driving
... tired of being told I'm a professional and I should know better and to have those same people imply that others don't which I don't believe
That leads me to my point here. So many people talk about the safety of the trucking industry but have no clue what it takes to do our job. They can't even imagine. They have never been there. They never will be.
That, however, never seems to stop them from interjecting their opinion (usually presented as fact) in every talk about how we should do our jobs more safely.
Most of out here, though, make every attempt possible to make it happen safely in spite of the idiocy around us.
It only takes one bad trucker to make the news to sour everyone on trucking, even experienced truckers like myself. It's because most of us try hard and most of us want a better experience out here. When something bad happens it seems like everything we've worked for is then rolled back.
Regardless of how much we try no one outside the industry takes us seriously. Heck, people involved in the trucking industry don't take us seriously. The ATA, American Trucking Association, proponents of Electronic Logging Devices or ELDs, have boldly came out and said that paper logs are easier to cheat with. That clearly said to me that our own people don't trust us.
So what are we to do?
For me it's never been about the industry but what quality job I can bring. We can follow regulations and run legal. We can present ourselves better and keep it clean out here. We can cooperate with authorities and work on the channels for change. We can use our common sense to keep things from being disastrous.
If we want to be treated better as truckers, we need to act like we are better truckers.
Don't be your own worst enemy, driver!!!
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