Appreciating Truck Drivers

Once a year — and it should be far more often — we pause in our busy lives to take notice of and show our appreciation for the everyday heroes who move our freight: the 3.4 million professional truck drivers who deliver the goods.

We all know how important trucks are to our daily lives and to our nation’s economy. If you wear it or drive it, live in it, sit on it, or look at it on your wall; if you drink it or eat it or feed it to your dog; if it mows your grass, entertains your children, tells you stories or mops your floor — a truck brought it.

And each of those trucks, making deliveries large and small to factory, home or mall, has a driver. A driver piloted that big truck across mountains and plains, nursed it along in mysterious freeway backups and wrestled it through city congestion that turns lesser people into babbling fools.

Those drivers have to deal with toll booths, driving rain, rest areas that have no room to park another truck, fuel prices that make a grown man cry, shippers and consignees who think nothing of making a driver wait for hours to load or unload, and freight that doesn’t load itself.

Last week, American Trucking Associations recognized the vital role drivers play in our industry and our economy. Bill Graves, ATA president and chief executive officer, wrote in Transport Topics that nearly 70% of all U.S. freight tonnage moves in trucks and that more than 80% of our nation’s communities are served exclusively by trucks. He pointed out that “virtually every consumer good that we enjoy — from food to clothing, to much-needed medicine — is delivered by a professional truck driver.”

And these professionals are doing a tough, dangerous job safely. A few weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation released statistics that show trucking is the safest it’s been since DOT started keeping records in 1975, with a 20% drop in fatalities involving a large truck.

With these drivers working on highways that are more and more crowded, more and more outdated and inadequate in so many ways, the downward trend in fatal accidents “is a testament to the skills and commitment to safety demonstrated by our nation’s professional truck drivers.”

So, even though last week was officially National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, let’s be sure to appreciate drivers unofficially 365 days a year.