Editorial: Pittsburgh, Here They Come

Over the course of this week, 426 of the nation’s top truckers will converge on Pittsburgh for the National Truck Driving Championships.

It seems fitting that the city whose Steelers have won more Super Bowls than any other National Football League franchise would host the contest affectionately known as the “Super Bowl of Safety.”

For one truck driver, the years of safe driving and hours of special training leading up to the event will result in the ultimate prize — being named the 2014 Grand Champion.

Then again, from reading our preview story this week, it is obvious the NTDC is about something far grander than winning a trophy.

“The big emphasis is on safety, and [competing] makes you think a lot more about safety,” said Scott Wickstrom, a FedEx Express driver from Bangor, Maine, and a step van contestant.

Andy Rynearson of Con-way Freight shared a similar sentiment with Transport Topics, saying how the desire to compete at NTDC is a constant reminder to always focus on safety.

For Rynearson, driving and safety appears to be in his DNA. His father is a retired trucker, and his mother has driven a truck for 33 years.

This year’s NTDC also features a record 11 female competitors. It is just another example of the many interesting story lines that make the annual event special.

Of course, it is interesting only to those who aren’t viewing the industry in a jaded way.

In what is becoming a regular occurrence, the trucking industry has been smeared by lopsided and sensational reporting rather than being truly informative.

This time it was CNBC, whose “Collision Course” program portrayed trucking as “egregiously unsafe” and “depicting the worst practices of some in the industry,” ATA President Bill Graves said in response to the show.

In his letter to Jennifer Schlesinger, an associate producer at NBC Universal, Graves personally invited her to the National Truck Driving Championships to “see how serious our industry’s commitment to safety is.”

This comes on the heels of the infamous advertisement in Maxim magazine, labeling truckers as “serial killers.”

We applauded Maxim and the law firm responsible for that ad for their quick apologies and efforts since then to reflect the more positive — and accurate — image of the trucking industry.

We hope that CNBC and other media outlets will rethink their preconceived notions of trucking.

If not, we’re sure there are 426 competitors and countless friends, family members, co-workers and volunteers in Pittsburgh this week who would be happy to tell you otherwise.