Truckies: Life Behind The Wheel

Abstract

Trucks generate strong emotions. People generate an astonishing level of criticism, much of it negative and ill-informed, on the subject of trucks. I know as I've heard many a tirade on their failings in the course of writing this book. Experiences abound, often contradictory. The 'problems' with trucks are almost invariably explained through heart-felt personal anecdotes about how trucks impinge upon individual personal existence. The story is often a retelling of being in fear of the truck driver's activity on the road. The 'near death' incident; the 'nearly swiped off the road' narrative is often an expression of a growing fear of the size of trucks. The advent of the B-Double, where two trailers are linked together, has increased this anxiety enormously. They are denounced alike by car drivers and passengers, motorbike riders and cyclists, as a danger to others on the roads - whether this involves speeding or going too slow depends on the incident. Seeing a truck bearing down on a car in the rear vision mirror is intimidating for the slower driver. Seeing a truck proceeding slowly up or down a steep road is infuriating for the opposite reason if the driver finds their car stuck behind it. They are too noisy and too numerous, unnecessarily polluting the atmosphere. They are condemned for breaking up the road surfaces and the drivers themselves for their lack of responsibility - an accident is often automatically seen as being the fault of their negligence. They are accused of wantonly generating enormous Carbon Footprints that endanger the environment. The world, it would seem, would be far better off without trucks. Despite all these criticisms, the truck is a pivot of everyday life, filling a logistical function without which modern societies would collapse. We have gone too far for hunter gathering or self-sufficiency to be anything more than a utopian dream. Nothing in existence at present can replace the truck in keeping the supply lines that provision our every need open. If trucks were removed from the road food would disappear from shops; cars, lacking petrol, would be immobilised; the mail would not go through and everyday life as we know it would become impossible.