USU students drive trucks to pay for college's long haul

By Katie Ashton

May 16, 2005 | Truckers.

The stereotype is that of middle-aged, white males wearing flannel, with scraggly beards and sporting the now fashion trendy trucker hats.

Two Utah State University roommates are breaking this mold.

Rian Thacker, 25, and Jay Wood, 24, are driving trucks to pay for their college education.

"It's still good money, kinda old now," Thacker said, who has been trucking for eight years. "It's not as fun as it used to be."

Thacker is attending Utah State to obtain his commercial pilot's license. While he is two years into the program, he said he continues to truck part-time for the money.

"[It's] more money than you'll find in other jobs up here," he said, "for the most part."

Trucking part time yields about $1,000 a month, if Thacker runs two weekends, he said. He began trucking right out of high school for the pay and to see if he could do it. And although he only pulls weekenders while attending Utah State, Thacker said it gets difficult trying to juggle both his studies and trucking.

"If you take a weekender you usually run 30 hours or so," he said. For the most part, Thacker tries to finish his schoolwork during the week so he "can have the weekend to run." However, depending on bad weather conditions, driving on the weekends can leave him stranded away from his Monday classes.

His roommate, Wood, can relate to his juggling act. Wood is trucking full time, on the account of switching his major midway through spring semester. Using independent study for his new major, operations management and business administration, Wood is able to go for the "long haul." For example, Wood will take a load from Pepperidge Farm, based in Richmond, to southern California for distribution and be away from home for three or four days.

Only home for one or two days at a time, Wood said "it gets old." It's hard to juggle trucking full-time with his independent study. "It's hard. I haven't been doing a very good job," he said, laughing to himself.

Wood finds time to study, like Thacker, when on the road. Normally, while trucking "you have to wait for your drops and your picks," Wood said, which can mean a two-hour layover. This is when he pulls out the books.

Although this pair share many similar aspects of college life with their peers, most university students can't relate to their job experiences. Wood and Thacker are in agreement about the most aggravating aspect of driving. Oblivious drivers.

"Being a truck driver, people cuss us, but we save lives almost everyday," Wood said, with Thacker laughing in the background. "It's pretty amazing the number of people I could have ran over in just the last month in a half."

Most drivers are unaware of their driving surroundings, he said. Most people do not understand how long 18-wheelers actually are, Thacker said, who has his triples permit, allowing him to pull two and three trailers at a time. The length and weight of semis can cause a lot of damage, he said. "It [feels] like a 16-foot speed boat to a houseboat and trying to maneuver them," Thacker said, using this comparison to show the awkwardness of semis to that of smaller vehicles.

One thing Thacker worries about when he is trucking is whether smaller vehicles will creep up alongside of him while he is making a right hand turn, he said. Trucks have to swing wide to take right-hand turns, he said, and many people do not understand that.

"Passing on the right is possibly the most dangerous thing to do with a tractor-trailer," Joe Orie, a 16-year veteran FedEx tractor-trailer driver, told The York Dispatch.In fact, 35 percent of fatal accidents between semis and other vehicles involve vehicles invisible to truck drivers, Orie said.

Thacker and Wood have both witnessed the destructive power semis can have. Thacker was loading a piece of equipment onto the trailer in bad weather conditions. Although the brakes had been set, the truck was on ice and began to slide down the hill, he said.

"It took off down the hill, sliddin', and I was sitting on the trailer with the piece of equipment," he said.

Thacker's partner was able to run after the truck and hop in for the brakes before anything happened.

Wood's experience was more than Thacker's close call. While on the road, Wood hit an overpass. There wasn't enough clearance for his 13-foot 6-inch high truck and the collision "basically separated the one side about half way back," he said.

Despite the potential hazards of other drivers and road obstacles, both say they enjoy trucking at times. For Thacker it gives him a chance to leave Logan and see the country. And for Wood, trucks draw out the inner guy.

"It's fun to drive a truck. Most guys are mechanically inclined and like toys. It's basically a big toy for us," he said.

Through his experiences driving his semi, Wood said he has learned the importance of being a courteous driver around other truckers. Most people don't understand how heavy trucks really are, he said, "and that we can't stop and get started again" when other cars cut off semis, forcing them to lose speed.

"If you try to hurry around us when we're wanting to pass another truck, we have to back out it. Then we can't get rolling again," Wood said. "So we're stuck behind the other truck, so we'll lose probably 20 miles an hour going up that hill. Just because we have to wait for you to pass us."

While other vehicles speed pass Thacker and Wood, Thacker said he gets used to the slower speed. However, his transition into his private vehicle feels like a drastic change.

"You get out of truck and into a car, I always feel like I'm just flyin' down the road in a car," he said, "because you're sitting down so low as compared to in a truck."

Trucking reinforces Thacker's appreciation for flying.

"I want a change, so it motivates me to keep goin' to school," he said. However, Wood doesn't feel the slower speed as much as his roommate does. "You can go as fast as you dare take it," he said.

The fastest Wood has gone is about 85 to 90 miles an hour, but he has had the opportunity to pick up even more speed. Wood said he has been in a truck that will go more than 100 miles per hour. However, most trucks are now governed at 75, he said, which can cause problems when he needs to pick up speed to pass other trucks.

Driving for hours, sleeping in the sleepers of the cabin and listening to country on the open road is a small part of what goes into being a trucker. Most people don't realize what it takes to work in this industry, Wood said. Truckers are required to fill out paper work, continually show they are legal, maintain social skills to work with distributors and drive the allotted time, he said.

"It's actually a pretty difficult job compared to what people think," Wood said. "Most people think you just get in a truck and drive down the road. But that's really just one aspect about it."

However, the company Both Wood and Thacker are working for, Sharp Transportation, works well with their school schedules. Sharp does a good job of getting Thacker back in time for his classes, he said.

For students looking to make money for school, Wood said he would recommend truck driving part-time.

"It's a good job part time. Full time is pretty difficult, but part time you can make a lot of money," he said. "Depending on what company you work with, they can work with your schedule."

Thacker agreed with Wood and said the pay and the chance to leave Logan is what he enjoys about his job.

"It's really not bad for part time, because you get to see a little bit of country and you get a break from being here," he said.

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