Friday, May 14, 2010

Just A Thought About: Trucking Industry

My husband is a truck driver. He spends 12 days out of 14 delivering freight all around the United States. When each of us go to any store for clothes, food, automotive supplies, or anything else that we deem necessary in our lives, we don't think about how it gets there. It is because of drivers like my husband that work away from home.
Now that you're thinking about it you also need to think about where they "live" when they are away from home. The drivers sleep in their trucks and many of them prepare meals in their trucks to economize (there's that word again...lol). We take so many things for granted. Air conditioning, heat, running water, facilities (you know what I mean) are just a few of the amenities that we don't think about having to do without.
How would each of you react if someone told you that you can't run your AC or heat? What if you were told that you only had five minutes to prepare your meals? Truck drivers are having to deal with issues like this everyday because environmentalists and politicians don't want them running their trucks when they are parked. So what do these drivers do to stay cool or warm? How do they prepare their meals?
These are issues that no one is considering. I know that I can't sleep if I am too hot or too cold. I know I can't sleep if I am hungry. Now another problem is created. The drivers have to get up every few hours to crank their truck to prevent freezing in cold weather and to prevent dead batteries so they don't get fully rested. They have interrupted rest. These same drivers are expected to deliver freight on time with limited rest. These drivers are on the roadways where we travel with our families with 40 tons behind them.
We need to remember that we need them. We need the freight they are hauling. Shouldn't we be taking care of them? Shouldn't we be making sure that they rest comfortably? My answer is yes. I traveled with my husband and all any of us would need to be knocking on the legislators doors would be to climb out of a truck in freezing cold frigid temperatures with the wind beating in our faces just to run inside a truckstop to us the facilities.
What would each of you do if you were told that you can't run AC when you go to bed? What would we do if heat was to be turned off when you go to bed? How would we react if we had to prepare meals in 5 min. because nothing can be run for more than 5 minutes? We would rebel. The time to rebel against these rules for the truckers is NOW.

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