That’s what my wife says to me all the time. In truth, I don’t have a good answer, but I have some speculations on the subject. Here they are, in the unlikely event that you too get diesel fever. You’re welcome.
1. You are a noble benefactor of mankind. You just want to bring people their gas and groceries, or maybe take away their garbage. A gear-shifting philanthropist, that’s you.
2. You are a wannabe cowboy, like the Marlboro man, but the cows are all in feedlots now and the horses are all in riding stables. So you take the next best option, which, naturally, is a big steel horse, riding the open range and squinting at sunsets. The only difference is that instead of mosquitos there is traffic, and instead of bears you have radar cops. And cops at the scales. And enough regulations to choke a horse…
3. You are a dreamer. You listen to songs like “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, or maybe “Six Days on the Road” by Dave Dudley, or “18 Wheeler” by Alabama, or “White Freightliner” by Lyle Lovett. Or maybe even “Convoy” by C. W. McCall, but we shouldn’t say that word in Canada any more. Might get sued.
4. You don’t like staying at home. You could, of course, do any number of things that involve travel, such as an airline pilot, or a travelling salesman, but trucks just seem to beckon you. Maybe that’s because of reason number 5, which is:
5. You are lazy and just like to sit on your ass all day. Now listen: I would never even think such a thing, but I have heard it said by other people. With some frequency, actually. But my fifty years of experience tells a different tale. Driving trucks involves long, long hours. Sometimes you are wet and cold and dirty, or just exhausted from shoveling or lifting or otherwise exerting yourself. Maybe there are some kinds of trucking that just involve sitting, but most of them involve work. If laziness is your thing, there must be a better way than driving trucks…
6. You are socially dysfunctional and just want to be by yourself. There might be something to this.
7. You want to attract ladies. Maybe that’s true when you’re in your twenties, but for the next three or four decades, it is less true. That’s because you tend to get fat. You often haven’t showered for a while, and you have become emotionally stunted from being by yourself all the time. Ladies do not find this attractive.
8. You love freedom. This is the romantic version of trucking portrayed in songs and movies, and I’m sure it has attracted more than one applicant. Maybe there was some truth to it back in the day, but now, the exact opposite is true. Trucking is the most regulated occupation imaginable. Everything is on camera or computer or satellite; there is nothing you do that is not extensively monitored. And there is an army of enforcers: cops, bosses, dispatchers, customers. In fact, every person you meet can rat you out for whatever they want; speeding, changing lanes, talking on the phone, or whatever. It used to be (at least in the north), that you could go for weeks at a time and just mind your own business. Those days are long gone, but the myth persists.
9. You are a rebel. You listened to “Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys” when you were a teenager, and you’ve driven trucks ever since.
So what’s the answer? Well…I’ve been doing it, off and on, for fifty years now. I’ve got a headful of stories and a sore back to show for it, but do I know why people get into it, or why I got into it? Actually, on reflection, I think I might. Here it is, number 10, the reason that people drive trucks:
10. You like doing it and you get paid for it.
Isn’t that reason enough?
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