One more day for a truck driver. After he loads the freight that night, the horizon spreads under his truck tires. It seems like the first day of hard work in weeks. Soon the break will come. By morning, the food menu is set up: a greasy meal on the usual drivers stop. Then back on the road and the infinite horizon. At noon, fast food again and the horizon that does not want to end. Some rest at least: away from home, sleep on the truck.
The truck drivers have the possibility to drive across the whole country, to see the most beautiful landscapes, mountains, valleys, cities, prairies. This allows them to see many things, people at the same time as they earn good money. But the loneliness is the only partner of those experiences; the most faithful one indeed.
According to the Department of Labor, a long distance driver can work a maximum of 60 hours in a seven day period. Not so long ago, the driver was supposed to drive 10 hours per day, but now the range is 11 hours. This puts them in a very dangerous situation since they trade in less sleep for more hours on the road.
But the danger is not only found in a drowsy condition of the driver (high percentage of the truck crashes are caused by a sleepy driver). It is also present on the mind and the social relationships of the truck driver. Most of the truckers have family, but the contact with them is more and more superficial since they do not have more time to spend with them.
A truck driver could drive more than 2,500 hours per year, or 120,000 miles. Time is a very important matter. Every shipper wants to give on time services, every client wants its freight on the right place on the right date, and the earning of the trucker depends on the miles that he or she can make on a period of time.
Time is also a flexible material. The driver longing for a rest, for being with the family, frequently will find himself many miles away from home, without knowing when he or she will return home. He also gets used to arriving home at late hours, when all the beloved ones are sleeping. There comes loneliness again.
Many companies have tried to improve the condition for its drivers by providing more order on the shipping schedules, more comfortable cabs, call centers for road help, modern systems of communication and more. But the technology can not afford the most valued thing for the family: the presence. A call, an email cannot substitute a warm hug for example. Some companies have family programs when usually the wife joins the trucker on the travel (but few companies have it).
Truckers have high rates of divorce according with the Kansan College Daily. The absence is the logic cause of those ruptures. The driver finds his way toward more loneliness; on the road, the driver can find truck stop love opportunities, but this is not the best choice for the health of the driver's relationships. That is just one of the factors.
Driving a truck is more than a job; it is living as a trucker. Drivers know it and enjoy it even though there are troubles on the way. Quality of time seems the achievement for the truckers and their families.
For the drivers over the road, their companions could be the radio, the CB (Citizen Band radio) chats, the cellular phone, maybe a pet. But the fact is that truck drivers' minds and lives are changed by the advices, teachings and principles of the pal that get in the truck when the road never ends.