Opinion: Appreciating What We Take for Granted

By Bill Graves

President and CEO

American Trucking Associations

This Opinion piece appears in the Sept. 12 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

In the United States, we have a tendency to take quite a bit for granted. We often gripe about mundane things like our kids’ sports schedules or running through the “Honey-do” list at home.

Rarely do we pause and consider how miraculous it really is that the shelves at our grocery stores and shopping malls are full every day. These sorts of everyday luxuries often get overlooked as we hustle through our busy lives.

Yet, there are people who miss the games and recitals, the family dinners and even maybe the chores that we complain about from time to time, and some of them are the reason those shelves are stocked each day.

I’m talking, of course, about the 3.2 million professional truck divers nationwide who too often get taken for granted.

Each year, we take a week — this year Sept. 11-17 — to show these hardworking men and women how much we appreciate their efforts, but it still seems inadequate for what they do for our industry and our nation.

National Truck Driver Appreciation Week in many ways is like Mothers’ Day or Fathers’ Day — a time of the year we outwardly express what we know we should be doing all year long.

When you pause to think about it, what our truck drivers do is nothing short of amazing. They are hauling more goods, on more and more congested highways and doing it more safely than has ever been done before. Don’t believe me? Just look at the figures.

Trucks haul 67% of all the freight moved in the United States — a figure that will continue to grow to be 70% by 2022. In fact, 80% of the country is solely dependent on trucks to deliver food, fuel, medicine, clothing and life’s other essentials.

I say trucks, but I really mean truck drivers because without a trained, professional, conscientious driver behind the wheel, a truck cannot get very far.

As these drivers deliver our nation’s freight, they are contributing to one of the great untold stories in America: Trucking is as safe as it has ever been.

You wouldn’t know it by scanning the headlines or watching the 6 o’clock news, but we are seeing fewer and fewer truck-involved crashes, and that is a testament to the commitment of the nation’s truck drivers.

In 2009, the truck-involved crash rate — which measures how frequently trucks crash — fell to an all-time low of 1.04 fatal crashes per 100 million miles driven. That’s down 77% from when the U.S. Department of Transportation began keep track in 1975, and the bulk of that improvement has happened recently.

In the 20 years from 1989 to 2009, the truck involvement rate in fatal crashes fell 68%.

Those numbers provide the context, but not the color for what makes America’s truck drivers so worthy of our appreciation and respect, like the unnamed driver near Blackshear, Ga., whose good training and good sense prevented an accident described in Transport Topics just back in May (5-23, p. 9).

And like Stewart King, whose quick thinking helped save the life of a man who was badly injured in a motorcycle accident near Waxahachie, Texas, earlier this year.

Like Paul Phillips, a 35-year veteran of the industry who captured the title of Bendix Grand Champion at this year’s National Truck Driving Championships in Orlando, Fla. Phillips earned that recognition by besting 427 other incredibly safe and worthy competitors.

Like the proud men who make up our America’s Road Team and our Share the Road drivers, selflessly using their precious free time to teach students, parents, public officials and even other truck drivers about the importance of safety.

These are just a few of the examples of what makes us appreciate America’s truck drivers.

They give up the mundane miracles of baseball games and school plays to move our milk and medicine, our aspirin and asparagus, over long distances, often alone. They drive through blistering heat and bone-rattling cold, through rain and wind and snow, all to make sure we can continue to take for granted that when we go to the store, what we want will be there waiting for us.

So, for just one week, make sure you don’t take them for granted — thank them sincerely, directly. Appreciate them and the sacrifices they make for our industry and country. But also, carry that appreciation with you all year round, not just for one week, and resist that urge to take their efforts for granted.

Bill Graves is a former two-term governor of Kansas. ATA is a national trade federation for the trucking industry, with headquarters in Arlington, Va., and affiliated associations in every state. ATA owns Transport Topics Publishing Group.