by Jason Thompson
Peter Rothe, The Truckers World
| Summary of chapter |
| Questions and Answers about Intro |
| My reactions |
| Comparison Classmates vs. I |
| What I’d tell the next unlucky soul |
| Book FaQs |
Rothe, J. Peter; The truckers world, New Brunswick. 1991
| Summary of chapter |
Pages
89 to 108 in THE TRUCKERS WORLD by Peter Rothe.
THREE
BEERS FOR THE ROAD.
The setting is a small Mexican-like border town which resembled a truckers mecca. Vehicles everywhere. The truck driver Danny with whom Rothe had been traveling with was to exchange vehicles with BJ who was another driver for M transport. BJ was fifty five and considered himself through with driving. He was just hanging in there waiting for retirement. BJ was more suspicious over Rothe requesting a ride. BJ had had some bad experiences taking along passengers. But BJ trusted Danny before anyone else and took his word for it that Rothe was Ok. Rothe watched as BJ chugged first one beer then two and finally a third. BJ felt he deserved a few beers for his previous hard work of the day. BJ attempts to normalize his drinking. His rule of thumb was that ?he doesn?t drink on the job.? Except when the weather is humid, it is hot, and physical labor is being done, then the rule is broken. BJ states that three beers is his self-imposed limit. He considers it a safe amount. ?Enough to replace water loss through sweat.?
BJ
feels that after three beers he is more in harmony with his driving.
He feels that three beers should be in compliance with the law.
M Company has no disciplinary code that pertains to consumption of
liquor. But a driver would be
suspended if he received a drunk driving charge.
This leaves the power in the drivers hands to decide how much one can
drink and still drive. BJ sets the
standards for drinking and driving according to his view of the law and manifest
danger.
BJ did not have a CB. He did not appreciate the slander and foul language
and this made him remove it from the cab. BJ
seldom waved to other truckers. He
feels little allegiance to truckers, because of how truckers have become.
He feels that the old knight of the road has been replaced by the greedy
and vulgar individual who is not to be trusted. He feels that due to the CB the personal touch is gone in
trucking. He stated that there used
to be a time when everyone would stop to help if you were broken down on the
side of the road. Collegiality has
largely been replaced by anonymity and self-interest.
BJ used to be an owner operator. He
feels that trucking gives him still one thing.
That is the freedom and thrill of the open road.
He states that it is one of the few jobs where someone tells you what you
have to do and you do it how and when you want.
Its that freedom that he loves. He
switched over to being a company employee and is glad, because most owner
operators are just hanging in there.
He equates lease driving to stock car racing, where it just gets into
your blood. When you you?re an
owner operator you reserve the right you can tell them to kiss your but if they
don?t like how you run your business.
BJ argues that drug use is just as bad in trucking as other parts of
society. He states that truckers
are targeted and blamed. BJ states
that he used to take drugs and that he quit for his health.
He feels that it is wrong yet he supports greatly the idea of freedom for
truckers to not be subjected to mandatory testing.
He states that if the CHIPS or California Highway Patrol
don?t have mandatory testing then why should truckers.
The CHIPS fought mandatory testing and won.
In the mid seventies BJ said he was an avid drug user.
He would pop a drug called cross tops that were given out illegally at
truck stop counters. Sometimes they
were like little tokens for filling up at certain stops.
In those days dispachers provided truckers free pills for ? running on
time or running early?.
BJ
unapologetically stated that yes he cheats on his log book also, and that almost
every trucker does it. It is part of the job. Its
like how everyone cheats on their taxes.
Rothe?s next experience took him to a truck station in East Los Angeles
where his taxi cab driver was reluctant to go without a cash bribe.
He
was to meet up with a Husband and Wife team and travel with them for a while.
He met up with Ted and Lisa. The
dispacher Rothe met was pretty much an advocate for husband wife team drivers.
He states that they are safer, faster, cheaper, and they complain less.
Leaving Los Angeles early in the morning there were mostly trucks.
Officials have cracked down on restrictions for trucks.
Major companies must limit the number of vehicles they have on the road
between the hours of six and nine a.m. and four and seven p.m..
Trucks don?t enjoy it much either they can loose up to five hours
driving time if caught in the middle of traffic
hour. The couple left extra early
at four a.m. just to miss the traffic.
Ted and Lisa have been driving for five years as a team and Ted has been
driving a total of twenty five. They actually have a home in Florida where they
return to about every three weeks.
Rothe also interviewed another husband and wife team, Jerry and Cindy who
stated that because they are a team the companies trust that they will get their
load there in time. Dispachers
don?t hassle them because they are money in the bank.
They are more reliable and can drive longer.
Ted and Lisa feel that instead of toiling in a job they simply just enjoy
experiences in which they get paid for it.
Ted said that he enjoys it much more now that he drives with his wife.
He used to drive and be preoccupied with thoughts about returning home to
his wife. He would push himself to
drive longer hours and drive faster and push himself to stay awake.
Now he drives calmer, has better personal habits and enjoys trucking much
more.
Rothe notes as they cruise through the desert that both husband and wife
are neatly dressed and groomed. The
cab of the truck is spotless, and Ted is one of the most polite truckers he has
met.
Neither spouse took drugs or smoked.
They are concerned for each others welfare.
While driving the person in the drivers seat is the boss.
It has to be that way. When
problems arise the person in the drivers seat has to react to it in their own
way.
As a pair they make a pretty good living together.
It would get tight if one of them stopped driving.
As a team they are preparing for retirement.
The company they are working for presently has a good benefits retirement
plan. Ted stopped working for the
union because he feels like they cheated him and that they care little about the
individual driver and more about their own pockets.
They were coming up to a weigh scale in Banning, California.
Teds take on scales and inspections is that there is no such thing as too
much of it. It is needed to keep
unsafe trucks off the road. He
doesn?t want to have to deal with an accident or a near accident due to the
other drivers truck being a piece of junk.
The next topic of conversation was over breakfast concerning what was
usually on the menu at truck stops. Lisa
commented about her weight and how it is a battle.
Unfortunately the large truck allows them to park in mainly near
restaurants that serve only greasy foods with an occasional boring salad bar.
She said you can only eat so much salad. They both commented on how unless you are naturally skinny
most drivers become obese due to sitting while driving all day and eating at
greasy diners. They also said that
it is very difficult for them to find time to exercise.
The are continually driving and have a tight schedule with time to eat
and then sleep. Many drivers
don?t eat for a day or two, then overeat when they get a chance and then
sleep. This can really catch up
with you they said.
Ted was very quick to praise Lisa his wife. He named many times when she had kept her cool in dangerous situations and maneuvered the truck through to safety. He feels that women have some important attributes that make them very good drivers. Calmness, common sense, and awareness of personal limitations make them great drivers.
Rothe asked Ted if husband and wife teams are safer. He immediately said yes. So did many officers in Canada, Arizona, and California based on experiences with them. Officers said that couples are less likely to use drugs, falsify their log books, and they keep their trucks in good condition inside and out.
Other truckers don?t have quite the same positive attitude about women. Many truckers have gripes about women who work at the inspection station. Women are said to be overly cautious about the rules and too stringent because they don?t know as much about what it really takes to keep a truck in perfect condition, because no truck is going to be in tip top shape.
There are some interesting regulations that Rothe learned about. In some tunnes in the U.S. you cannot drive through with hazardous materials. A load of paint, corrosives like car batteries, or fuel. The weird thing is that if you were hauling only ten pounds of car batteries you could not drive through. Yet you can fill your tank with three hundred gallons of fuel and drive wheat or something else through there.
Questions and Answers about Intro
Questions from the class!
JESSE TUDELA : In your opinion, do you think that a trucking company should have or should not have a disciplinary code that pertains to consumption of liquor?
To answer this question I have to say yes I do feel that a company that employs people to drive should have a policy that there is to be no consumption of alcohol while employees are on duty. I believe that many companies that do not engage their employees in the act of driving require that there be no consumption of alcohol while on duty.
TIM SKILLMAN: Could the self interest trend in trucking society have as much to do with the rising popularity of recreational pharmaceticals or with the advent of technology like the C.B..
I think that the increasing self interest or rather the decrease in comradery is due to the fact that there are so many more truckers on the road lately. They used to be a minority on the road and held a sort of bond, that is also familiar in the motorcycle society. So many drivers are going in and out of the career, that there are so many less regulars and veterans.
SHAWN SHIGEMATSU: How does Danny communicate with others, especially to contact the dispacher for the next load and location to drive to?
Danny would call in to the dispatcher every time he stopped, because he didn't like the C.B.
SHAWN SHIGEMATSU: Could you work in a husband and wife team?
I definitely think I would prefer it. It would be a lot more interesting to share a cab with someone. The important thing is that the two of you can handle being with each other. You end up spending a lot of time with each other. It would be fun for a year or maybe two, but as an existence I would not enjoy it.
GEORGE PEDERSON: Why do the husband and wife teams not receive more money if they do the job in less time?
The fact is that they can receive money by being able to drive pretty much twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Their truck can continuously be driven. Single drivers have to stop every ten hours to rest for eight hours legally. Even if single drivers fudge on their books a lot there is no physical way or legal way for them to drive twenty four hours straight for seven days in a row. Obviously team drivers don't drive twenty four seven, but they drive probably twenty hours a day most of the time.
GEORGE PEDERSON: Do husband and wife teams have to maintain separate log books?
This is a good question and I am not quite sure. I assume that they share one that they both use.
COREY EGAMI : What do you think is the impact on a family by having a husband and wife team?
This is a very good question. I'm sure it would impact the family in many ways. It would be improbable to have children below the age of say seventeen or eighteen. You would not be able to raise children if you were on the road. Another good question is whether a significant number of couples get divorced after they started driving together.
DR. JAMES : Would you personally be a truck driver? Why or why not?
I would like to be a truck driver while I am young. It sounds like a job that would be good when you are young, have no attachments and plenty of time to do whatever you want. It is a tiresome lifestyle and I could not see myself doing it for more than a few years. The pros of truck driving, is the fact that you get to travel, explore, get lost, and enjoy much of the scenery. I definitely would consider it.
| My reactions |
Everyday, I think about what I will do after school, I imagine, myself in grad school, in the work force, travelling the world, and many other variations. The chapter concerning husband and wife teams was very interesting to me. Imagine the possibilities. You could travel the United States, Canada, and maybe even a little of Mexico, with your life partner. Without children I would be able to have a endless vacation from one place to another. The driving part would actually be work. Husband and wife teams are capable of making even more money than a single driver. I know I won't drink, do drugs or drive when tired if I have my girlfriend or wife with me. These are very real problems that drivers are confronted with everyday. My reaction to the chapter is that I think more husband and wives should work on the road together, it just makes sense, because they share the money anyway, why not share the time together, the work is easy when shared and a lot more money can be made when they drive together. These are all arguments for husband and wife teams.
Comparison Classmates vs. I
I have not seen any of the other students pages yet. I can say that for the oral presentation part in class most others seemed to prepare themselves by writing out notes on paper, or by typing out a summary of the chapters. The chapters were pretty straight forward and that is how most of the students presented them. Questions asked toward myself and other students were pretty indept and none were very vague. Everyone in class seemed to get the points of the chapters from myself and the other presenters.
What I’d tell the next unlucky soul
One of the best ideas I had was to type out the summary of the chapters I read as I read them. This was very timesaving. I could later just cut and paste my summary into my report from another file. The first year I did an oral report I wrote notes in the book alongside the themes in the margin. I thought this would be helpful. In class and later on during the writing of the report I found that it was a mistake because not only did I have to rewrite my notes, but my handwriting was hard to read, especially during the presentation when it counted.
Report#1: Tailgating behavior.