Truck driver
Truck drivers[2] provide an essential service to industrialized societies by transporting finished goods and raw materials over land, typically to and from manufacturing plants, retail, and distribution centers.
Receipts for fuel, tolls, etc., must be retained as MTO officers can request them to further verify the accuracy of information contained in drivers' logbooks during inspections.
Repeated and regular occurrences, however, might indicate to enforcement officers that employers were not in fact scheduling work to enable compliance with the applicable rules.
In the United States, the hours of service (HOS) of commercial drivers are regulated by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
A company driver who makes a number of "less than truckload" (LTL) deliveries via box truck or conventional tractor-trailer may be paid an hourly wage, a certain amount per mile, per stop (aka "drop" or "dock bump") or per piece delivered, unloaded, or tailgated (i.e., moved to the rear of the trailer).
Household goods drivers deal with the most complexity and thus are typically the highest paid, potentially making multiples of a scheduled freight-hauler.
An extreme (but not unheard of) example would be a load that picked up in Brownsville, Texas, and delivered in Miami, Florida, a journey requiring a driver to travel over 1,600 miles.
Rand McNally, in conjunction with the precursor of the National Moving & Storage Association[19] developed the first Guide published in 1936, at which point it contained only about 300 point-to-point mileages.
[29] Certain special industry driving jobs such as oilfield services like vacuum, dry bulk, and winch truck drivers can receive a $22.00 or higher hourly wage.
[30] A December 2020 survey found the average truck driver in the United States works 70–80 hours per week and earns between $.28 cents to $.40 per mile.
Truck weights are monitored for limit compliance by state authorities at weigh stations and by DOT officers with portable scales.
[58] As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote: "The cabs of 18-wheelers have become the sweatshops of the new millennium, with some truckers toiling up to 95 hours per week for what amounts to barely more than the minimum wage.
Sometimes these are in secluded areas or dangerous neighborhoods, which account for a number of deaths due to drivers being targeted by thieves for their valuable cargo, money, and property, or for the truck and trailer themselves.
Some drivers are responsible for unloading their cargo, which can lead to many back strains and sprains due to overexertion and improper lifting techniques.
A special location tracking device also known as a tracker or an AVL unit is installed on a truck and automatically determines its position in real-time and sends it to a remote computer database for visualizing and analysis.
If the AVL unit is connected to a Mobile data terminal or a computer it also allows the driver to input the information from a bill of lading (BOL) into a simple dot matrix display screen (commonly called a "Qualcomm" for that company's ubiquitous OmniTRACS system).
Instead of keeping track of working hours on a traditional pen and paper based logbook, the driver informs the company of his status using a macro.
[106] Truck driver fatigue is defined by the US Department of Transportation's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) as being caused by "physical and/or mental exertion, resulting in impaired performance".
[107] Factors that increase truck driver fatigue include lack of sleep (quantity and quality), long work hours, sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, and general stress.
A contributing factor to truck driver fatigue is the stress associated with managing compliance to FMCSA's hours of service (HOS) regulations.
Failure to produce a driver's log upon request by an enforcement official or non-compliance with HOA regulations, results in a driving penalty or fine.
The FMCSA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conducted an extensive study from April 2001 to December 2003 investigating the causes of large truck crashes.
[110] Another FMCSA study published in 2011 reported that large truck crashes were increasingly associated with driving times greater than 7 hours, which is when fatigue begins to affect performance.
In the 1980s the administration of President Ronald Reagan proposed to put an end to drug abuse in the trucking industry by means of the then-recently developed technique of urinalysis, with his signing of Executive Order 12564, requiring regular random drug testing of all truck drivers nationwide, as well as employees of other DOT-regulated industries specified in the order, though considerations had to be made concerning the effects of an excessively rapid implementation of the measure.
[141] After the 1929 stock-market crash, for example, the chain reaction of reduction in sales due to consumers' prioritizing and reducing purchases of luxury items, with companies responding by reducing production and increasing unemployment, exacerbating the cycle of reduction or elimination of production, sales, and employment, had the ultimate result of plunging the nation's economy into the Great Depression.
[143] The NTSB also issued a call to pro-trucking bodies to educate their members about the dangers associated with truckers' use of synthetic drugs, and to come up with a way to prevent their use while behind the wheel.
Most of the newer generation of drivers in the U.S. today speak to one another over their CB radios (or other similar communication devices) in more or less standard English (as understood in the various regions of the country), although a few of the slang words and phrases have remained, and many of these have passed into use in the colloquial language of the general public.
Most of the "ten codes" have fallen nearly or completely into disuse, except "10/4", meaning "message received", "affirmative", "okay", "understood", and occasionally "10/20", referring to the driver's location, (e.g., "What's your 20?")
In 1977, another film Smokey and the Bandit, was released, which revolves around the escapades of two CB-talking truck driver friends, one driving point as they transport a load of bootleg Coors beer across state lines.
Truck drivers have also been villainously portrayed in such films as Duel, Joy Ride, The Transporter, Breakdown, The Hitcher, Thelma & Louise, Superman II, Supergirl, and Man of Steel.
