Opinion: Exorcizing the Image of ‘Duel’
But it was on television a long time ago — in 1971 — and a lot of people still remember it.
“Duel” had a very simple plot. A man (Weaver) was driving somewhere and somehow he offended the driver of a big, black tractor-trailer.
After that, and for the entire movie, the truck chased Weaver and tried to kill him. I say “the truck,” because you never see the driver’s face — only a pair of cowboy boots descending from the cab at a truck stop.
The long-lasting resonance of that image is testimony to the image problem of the American trucking industry and to the power of media.
Almost 20 years later, a remarkably similar image — of a big, black truck (a triple-trailer rig) bearing down upon a mid-sized car driven by a frightened young matron with her children — was used in a 30-second TV advertising spot that was also aired — free — on all the national news shows and helped bring about a “freeze” in truck sizes and weights that persists to this day.
In tone, in mood, in its sense of impending danger, this commercial was clearly modeled on “Duel.”
The message people got and kept is that trucks – not just triples, but trucks — are frightening.
Not unsafe — scary. A charge that trucks are unsafe can be disproved. A charge that trucks are scary must be confronted at a visceral level.
For this reason, American Trucking Associations’ image campaign may be one of the most important projects the organization has ever undertaken.
Look around.
The Environmental Protection Agency — according to leading diesel engine manufacturers — reversed its field without warning and levied fines for practices it had previously condoned. (EPA denies this, but manufacturers are adamant, despite becoming a moot point because they have agreed to pay the penalties.)
In California, truckers are required to pay more for specially formulated, reduced-pollution diesel fuel while their railroad competitors are not.
The trucking industry carries the major portion of America’s commerce and is straining its capacity dealing with crowded highways, driver and technician shortages. Yet that industry can only deal with capacity demands by using more trucks. It is foreclosed from the kind of productivity improvements other industries might take for granted.
They can’t get bigger to carry more payload, even though this development would be of enormous benefit to a wide range of economic interests.
Read the testimony before the Surface Transportation Board in the CSX-Norfolk Southern purchase of Conrail. A major factor — one which the companies clearly thought would win them approval — was the repeated promise to “take trucks off the road.”
Now there’s an image problem.
If an industry can successfully claim — as railroaders do — that its self-interest in crushing a competitor coincides with the overriding public interest — well, then, it is pretty clear that the competitor has an image problem.
For trucking, an attempt to improve its image is an attempt to change public opinion — and that is never easy.
While it would take extensive, objective research — well beyond the subjective glimpses available from a focus group — to devise a workable strategy, some things seem obvious. Truckers must be presented as human beings to counteract the sense — depicted in “Duel” and the Association of American Railroads commercial, but experienced by real-life drivers — of being pursued by a faceless monster.
America’s Road Team is a nod in that direction, but the Road Team members are “supertruckers.” They are presented as exceptional — and they are. But that means they are exceptions — not the rule.
Better to present average truckers — perhaps a “mom and pop” driving team — who can be seen as people, not icons.
Not much can be done about the fact that trucks are very, very big. But the aerodynamic styling of many of today’s Class 8 trucks helps somewhat. Without that long, squared-off snout, they don’t look quite as threatening.
And there are ways to remove some of the menacing aspects of big trucks. The kind of research that told the AAR how to make trucks seem fearsome must have also revealed ways to make big trucks more acceptable.
It can be a long and expensive process to move the needle of public opinion. And the way will be dotted with setbacks – like tragic accidents involving big trucks.
It will require advertising and, like it or not, advertising means television as well as print. An attempt to move public opinion through public relations efforts only — the so-called “free media” — will surely fail. (Someone should someday measure the amount of time and money expended by high-priced employees to obtain that “free media” which, often as not, will contain as many negatives as positives.)
Trucking needs to remove itself from the list of industries that can be safely bashed. Any attempt to accomplish public policy goals — whether at the federal or state level — is bound to be much more difficult so long as politicians and bureaucrats believe that trucks are viewed negatively by the public.
There is a potential for the industry to have great political strength, because of the sheer number of trucking companies. But that strength cannot be successfully wielded when politicians don’t feel they can support a legitimate industry goal without some sort of “cover.”
There is one heartening thing about the image-burnishing task before the ATA. Trucking industry leaders — the very hard-headed, bottom-line-oriented personalities who usually scoff at “image” considerations — seem to understand and support this campaign.
If the support is solid, the goal can be accomplished.
