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It's a tough life riding the highways By
Karen Funk It was 2 a.m. along Interstate 80 just west of Sacramento, Calif. The rain was pounding against the windshield of his 18-wheeler. Suddenly the taillights in front of him disappeared. He immediately skidded to a stop and saw the car upside-down in a ditch along the side of the road. He jumped out of his truck, hurried over to the vehicle, and carefully pulled the middle-aged couple through the shattered windshield. Luckily, both were wearing seat-belts and were uninjured. When the driver offered to pay him for his help, Rob Wilson, a former trucker for Logan's L.W. Miller Transportation, kindly refused. He said he's seen several accidents while on the road and helping out is just a natural instinct. "It may as well be included in the job description," said Wilson. There is a lot more to being a trucker than simply driving across the country in a straight line. "It's not an easy life," he said. A reporter for the Kansas City Star spent nine months driving an 18-wheeler to examine the pressures of truckers trying to make a living. The Star found zombie-like drivers putting in long hours for little pay. Drivers were living out of duffel bags at crowded truck stops and showering in stalls the size of broom closets. Some said they hadn't been home in several weeks. Some were even on their third and fourth marriages. One driver at a Texas truck stop told the Star that he had just gotten divorced for the fifth time. Another said his wife had just told him that if he didn't come home that weekend, she was leaving. "There's no way I'm going to make it," the Missouri driver told the Star. "They've got me headed in the opposite direction." A trucker sitting next to him said, "The only thing I've got left is four cats and a truck." These weary-eyed drivers put in ridiculous hours both day and night, often for not much more than minimum wage. They have to drive tired, pushing mile after mile on few hours of sleep, sometimes just to break even, said Judy Thomas in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "In the last two decades, trucking has become the lifeblood of the American economy, transporting 8 billion tons of freight annually," said Thomas. "Yet as trucking moves the economy, truckers aren't reaping what they've helped sow." According to Julie Anna Cirillo, the government's head truck safety officer, the average trucker works more than 3,000 hours a year--roughly 60 hours a week and makes between $30,000 and $45,000 a year. "Most blue-collar Americans work about 2,000 hours a year," Cirillo told the Sentinel. "So they're working 50 percent more for not much, if any more pay." Jerry Stricker, a trucker from Illinois, told the Kansas City Star he drives 3,000 miles a week, working about 60 hours. He makes $500 a week, which is less than $8.50 an hour. Truckers drive these insane hours because most are paid by the mile, not the hour. The trucking industry is exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which established a 40-hour workweek. This means truck drivers don't have to be paid minimum wage or overtime unless they are part of a union, to which only a fourth of truckers belong. As a result, truckers usually work more hours than the federal laws allows. According to Federal regulations by the U.S. Department of Transportation, a long- distance driver cannot work more than 60 hours in any seven day period. They are also required to rest eight hours for every 10 hours of driving. In 1997, the University of Michigan Trucking Industry Program conducted a survey in which 10 percent of the drivers said they had worked more than 95 hours in the past week. The average driver was regularly working 66 hours a week. "To drive that hard, truckers sometimes take extreme measures," said Thomas, "Even answering the call of nature without stopping." Because of this increasing problem, Oregon passed a law in 1999 making it illegal to toss containers of urine onto roadsides. Transportation officials in North Dakota want a similar law, Thomas said. Shields have been added to maintenance tractors because crews were getting splattered when they ran over urine-filled containers. "You can almost see the long hours wearing truckers down." says Thomas. When drivers do get a chance to rest, they usually park at a rest area or truck stop and sleep in their bunk. Many of the newer trucks are virtual mini-apartment on wheels, said Wilson. They are equipped with refrigerators, televisions and bunks. However, the hard life of a trucker doesn't end off the road. "Some truck stops and rest areas are dangerous," said Wilson, who once had a guy attempt to mug him at a truck stop in Stockton, Calif. "But the sickest thing about being a trucker is having girls knocking on your window in the middle of the night asking if you want company. It's happened about 50 times in my trucking career." Despite the fact that they are under constant pressure, rarely getting enough sleep to maintain sanity, these dedicated drivers still make time to help out strangers in need. Sebastiano Lisitano, a FedEx tractor-trailer driver from Winter Park, Fla. pulled over and managed to drag an injured man from an overturned and burning pick-up truck moments before it exploded on a busy Interstate. "I didn't really even think about anything but getting to him," Lisitano told the Washington Post. "I just saw the truck on fire and knew I had to do something." Brad Ongley, a driver for Nature Coast Environmental Services, was on his way to treat a house for termites when the cars in front of him came to a screeching halt. He slammed on his brakes and yanked his steering wheel, rolling his truck to avoid hitting an elderly couple in the Ford Taurus in front of him. Ongley walked away with minor injuries and humbly apologized to his boss for the damage to the truck. Montreal driver Gabriel Arseneau became a hero after rescuing a missing 15-year- old mentally handicapped girl. He had heard a radio news report about the missing girl. Later that afternoon, he spotted the girl standing alone on a remote street and drove her to a police station. Then, to his surprise, he was showered with gifts, including a $1,000 shopping spree. "I'm surprised," Arseneau told the Montreal Gazette. "I figured anyone in my shoes would do the same thing. If you can help people, why not? It's good for the soul." Wilson believes it is experiences like these that make a trucking career interesting.
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