
That truck driver you flipped off? Let me tell you his story. - there
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/126619568.html#.TjliGe_CsCo.reddit
======
dpcan
If a truck driver (or anyone on the road) gets flipped off, it is usually
because they are driving a huge vehicle too aggressively and dangerously.

If his sister died, or he's getting paid peanuts, he still has to drive
respectfully and safely to avoid causing any OTHER people on the road to die.

Also, I don't think the financial information is correct. I've spoken with
truckers in the past and many are making around $40k per year (hearsay), which
isn't that shabby for the lifestyle.

Lastly, welcome to life. Guess what. Work is hard, people are mean, and most
jobs become frustrating if you are in them long enough, and everyone has
personal problems.

I'm not saying that it's OK to flip someone off, but I understand the
helplessness of being in your vehicle with your family and almost getting run
off the road by some trucker who seems to be "numb" to the fact that they are
driving an enormous and deadly machine 70mph down the highway.

EDIT: Not sure why I'm getting down-voted, perhaps a few rebuttals in the
comments??

~~~
masterzora
My father's been a truck driver for nearly as long as I can remember and I can
tell you, a lot of what's in this article is generally correct and a lot of it
is only correct for some drivers, but none of it is total bullshit.

I've known a number of truck drivers and I've seen even more than that.
Generally speaking, as a group, they are better drivers and more aware of the
road than the average driver on the road. Not all of them are, and some of
them do make stupid mistakes or drive dangerously. Sadly, from what I've seen,
even the safest ones get flipped off and honked at just because the car
driving too closely behind them apparently thinks the truck should be driving
faster.

The financial information is pretty spot-on. Some truck drivers are making
$40K (or even more than that!). The shabbiness of this depends on where
they're based, of course, but it can be pretty comfortable. Some drivers make
significantly less than $40K. It's a function of mileage and experience, for
the most part. I'd say $500/wk is probably lower than average, but it's
certainly not unheard of. Especially right now (I hate the phrase "in the
current economic climate", but it's kind of relevant right now) loads are
getting harder and harder to come by and the further ones tend to be the first
that go. The miles just aren't there and this can kill the driver's family's
finances.

Really, when it comes down to it, if a driver runs you off the road, call the
number on the back of the truck (please, have a passenger do it if there's one
in the car). But if a truck is just slowing you down a little bit, I know you
in particular may know that there's no cause to flip anyone off, but this
knowledge seems to be lacking in some people on the road.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Most people don't drive defensively, courteously, or safely. When they drive
around big vehicles their bad habits just amplify the consequences. It's
pretty typical for people to drive in a truck's blind spots by either
following too close behind or driving where the mirror's don't have much
coverage. Also, many drivers don't seem to understand that trucks have
different limitations in driving than cars. Typically I try to avoid driving
just behind a truck (even in a neighboring lane) and I try to avoid being side
by side with a truck for long.

In my experience truck drivers are generally better drivers than the average
non truck driver, but they certainly aren't perfect as a group.

~~~
jrwoodruff
the one thing almost EVERYONE seems to forget is there's a lot of space in
between that truck and the car in front of him for a reason - he needs more
space to stop than that little car. Don't squeeze your vehicle in that space,
give him room, then get over so that when you have to slam on the brakes for
the exit you almost missed, he'll have room to not rear-end you.

~~~
5teev
I've always suspected there ought to be a physics portion on the driving exam.

------
jhamburger
Is there some kind of widespread anger at truck drivers? I've always found
them to be the safest drivers on the road personally. Obviously their
livelihood depends on their driving record so this is no real surprise.

~~~
dpcan
It only takes one moment where your entire family almost dies because of a
truck driver to jade your opinion of all of them - or at least to be nervous
every single time one comes within a 100 feet of you. I don't flip off truck
drivers, but I get an uneasy feeling every time I'm around them and I try to
avoid them.

~~~
munificent
> It only takes one moment where your entire family almost dies because of a
> truck driver to jade your opinion of all of them

How is that statement any different than "it only takes one moment where your
entire family almost dies because of a woman driver to jade your opinion of
all of them" or "because of a white driver" or "because of an old driver"?

~~~
nate_meurer
Maybe not much difference, but I would say that it's rational to be cautious
around very old drivers (as well as very young), since this demographic is
statistically far more dangerous behind the wheel than average.

------
scarmig
I'm sorry, but the ignorance expressed in this thread by some is absolutely
astounding. Per mile, truckers drive far more safely than the typical driver.
Just to put things in immediate perspective.

Beyond that, though, some people here are spending a whole lot more time
blaming the drivers for the inevitable lapses in safety that occur when you're
driving thousands of miles a week. Of course, it's definitely more comfortable
to do that than consider the systemic reasons that happens, and your own role
in it.

Goods have to be transported. The almighty market demands that. Which is to
say, you demand it. So various companies have sprung up for centuries to
transport those goods. These companies compete to lower costs as much as
possible. If they don't, they're driven out of business, because stores know
consumers prefer something to be a nickel cheaper even if it's bad for the
environment, the truckers, and other nearby drivers. If a price is higher,
companies choose to go with the trucking company that offers the cheaper
price, because consumers like their nickel.

The way we've set up the system incorporates the public safety dangers into
the price, via lawsuits etc., and the way we like it is to essentially demand
that companies force drivers to drive the hell out of their trucks and their
lives. We like our fucking nickels. At least more than any safety concerns.

Some here have said "well if the job is hard, then quit it!" Wow. Do you think
people don't do this? Do you think that changes the market equilibrium at all?
It doesn't. Whoever replaces him or her will drive under the same demands and
incentives, and will on average respond the same way to those demands and
incentives. No benefit.

I've seen also some victim blaming in saying "well if the job is hard, ask for
a raise or get a union!" Interesting story there. Back in the mid-20th
century, trucking was one of the most heavily unionized industries, via the
IBT primarily. However, in the 80s and 90s, various Republican and Democratic
administrations collaborated with trucking companies to make war on the
unions. Originally truckers were employed directly by the companies, but
eventually those companies realized they could react to unionization by
outsourcing truckers, either into private shell companies that closed down as
soon as unionization hit or by hiring truckers as contractors. Various NLRB
boards aided and abetted this regulatory change.

The ruling elite (of which we are all part) largely cheered this on, because
those greedy truckers are stupid and uneducated and don't deserve to make as
much as us hardworking educated intelligent people, masters of the universe
that we are.

So, we got our way! And our nickel. Drivers ended up atomized and could not
collectively bargain against the buyers of their labor, decently-sized
companies who had monopsony power in the trucker marketplace. So everyone ends
up driven to the least common denominator.

If you want a better system, fight for it. Moreover, vote for it. Otherwise
when some trucker nearly drives you off the road because they have to feed
their family, you're just getting what you paid for.

~~~
Fargren
_I've seen also some victim blaming in saying "well if the job is hard, ask
for a raise or get a union!" Interesting story there. Back in the mid-20th
century, trucking was one of the most heavily unionized industries, via the
IBT primarily. However, in the 80s and 90s, various Republican and Democratic
administrations collaborated with trucking companies to make war on the
unions. Originally truckers were employed directly by the companies, but
eventually those companies realized they could react to unionization by
outsourcing truckers, either into private shell companies that closed down as
soon as unionization hit or by hiring truckers as contractors. Various NLRB
boards aided and abetted this regulatory change._

You are ignoring the other half of the argument here. In Argentina, were I
live, truckers are heavily unionised; this is true to the point were the
leader of the union (Hugo Moyano) is probably one of the biggest driving
forces of the policies in the country. See, since the railroad was torn to
pieces by the liberal policies of the nineties, trucks are the only way to
transport goods from most of the country. So the trucking union has the power
to literally stop the economy if they so wish. This happens almost every year,
and sometimes several times a year. It's impossible to legislate against the
union (for example, in order to create more trains) without having an
enourmous economic baclash.

Now, I understand that it sucks to be trucker without a union. But there is a
huge economical cost involved in monopolizing the control of any form of
transport and communication.

~~~
kamaal
I don't think anybody(or any union for that matter) will stop working just
like that. Especially considering the fact that time is equally crucial for
them.

Unions are needed to a extent, In my country(India), I would say unions are
the only savior people in those professions have. As, if they are wronged in
some way traditional way of approaching the courts takes years to get justice.

But coming to the larger point, in societies throughout the world hard work
isn't fashionable. The default assumption is that somehow only bright, smart
and intelligent people have the monopoly to be rich. Dumb, hardworking rich
people doesn't even go well below peoples throats. When you see some one poor,
meticulously working hard building a career,growing rich by savings/investment
over years and compare the same with some one who was originally rich and
intelligent but has now lost significant fortune, career and other stuff
because of the laxed attitude, over comfort and over spending(spend thrifts).
Often the first guy (originally poor but now rich by hard work) is considered
purely lucky or at most 'time is on his side' kind of arguments.

A rich cab driver or a truck driver isn't something that goes down well in
many societies.

Truck drivers other manual labor workers do a lot of work, take bigger
risks(in terms of all aspects). They have their own careers, retirement option
et al to consider. Therefore I believe what your parent poster wrote is very
correct.

~~~
ctdonath
"I don't think anybody(or any union for that matter) will stop working just
like that."

The trucker's unions in the USA did - hence the aforementioned tearing apart
of said unions by the companies and government.

~~~
scarmig
The last general strike that Teamsters were involved with was 1934.

That's a long time for the companies to react.

~~~
ctdonath
So what was the big strike - or viable threat thereof - in the 1980s? Was
young then, but do remember a big looming question of whether the trucks would
continue running.

Don't need an actual strike for an event to count, just a viable threat
thereof.

------
lysol
Would a more extensive rail infrastructure eliminate the need for so many
trucks? Does rail fail to scale at the distances and route complexities
involved in traversing the US to all the major population centers? I promised
I didn't intend to rhyme in the previous sentence.

~~~
16s
To get from the Chinese ships to the rail station... you must have trucks.

To get from the rail station to Walmart... you must have trucks.

No way around it.

~~~
shabble
I'd imagine (on the basis of common sense, rather than evidence, so I may well
be wrong), that there should be rail facilities fairly close to any major
port.

Trucking from the railhead is probably unavoidable, but the article talks
about a 1000mi trip, whereas according to wikipedia at least, greatest
distance across the 48 states is 2800mi. Surely the nearest freight depot
should be less than 1/3 of the country away?

~~~
Unseelie
The issue isn't so much the distance from the train, so much as once you take
it off the train, you split it up into much smaller loads....with different
owners and destinations, and those loads probably change hands, and are pretty
hard to put -back- onto trains.

~~~
nitrogen
It sounds like we need an RFC for automated packet-switched transport of
physical goods. Surely the existing algorithms used for physical logistics and
IP network routing could be used to create a highly-reliable automatic package
delivery system.

~~~
shabble
The closest I can think of is Personal Rapid Transport[1], which is a light-
rail/monorail network of individually powered (small; 3-person or so)
vehicles. Various schemes for routing have been proposed, many of which are
conceptually similar to packet-routing of the carriages.

[1]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Personal_rapi...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit)

------
raldi
Driving trucks is also one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. For
example, this list shows it to be more deadly than being a firefighter or
police officer:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-15-most-dangerous-jobs-
in...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-15-most-dangerous-jobs-in-
america-2010-3?op=1)

When a policeman or firefighter dies, it's all over the news for days. The
funeral is gigantic, with hundreds of peers drawn from all over the region.
The mayor almost always attends.

When a trucker dies, he gets a regular funeral attended by his loved ones.

~~~
FireBeyond
Without belittling any tragedy, and with the obvious bias of being a
firefighter, whilst trucking may be more deadly than being a firefighter, the
situation you describe is largely in response to the fact that that person
typically gave their life in order to try to save a stranger, or their home.
Despite the risks to themselves, they put their hand up and said "I will go
into that burning building if I know you are in there. I will risk life and
limb to get you out. And in the process, I acknowledge that there is a chance
that -I- may be the one that doesn't come out."

Their big funeral, with all of their peers? Is but an acknowledgement of that.
No-one made them make that decision, but they did. Their peers come because
they want to show support to the family and friends, knowing that if that
worst should happen to them, they'd want their own family and friends to have
that support.

~~~
raldi
How is your quoted example more noble than this one?

"I will go onto that dangerous interstate if I know you need the [food /
building supplies / fuel / etc] I'm hauling. I will risk life and limb to
maintain the lifestyle you enjoy. And in the process, I acknowledge that there
is a chance that -I- may not survive."

Both occupations put their lives on the line, every day, so that the rest of
us can live safe and comfortable lives. But while one occupation commands
great respect from the community (deservedly so), the other is mostly looked
down upon (unfairly).

~~~
encoderer
How is it more noble? In just about every possible way.

Driving on the "dangerous interstate" is something we all do, most of us every
day. And it's not dangerous in the sense of running _into_ a burning building
or _into_ the robbery-in-progress.

Doing things like that are heroic because they require you to overcome a very
basic and very strong sense of self preservation at all costs.

Truckers do a valuable job, but so do we all: That's why we get paid. We're
adding value. But they're not hero's in the sense you're suggesting.

~~~
raldi
How do you feel about high-rise construction workers? They meet your test,
having to overcome millennia of instinct every time they walk out on an I-beam
to perform a dangerous job for the benefit of the rest of society.

Are they worthy of fireman-policeman levels of respect, or do you find them
lacking as well?

~~~
encoderer
Bullsh^^t raldi, I don't find anybody "lacking" and that's not fair to say.
You asked a question, I answered it.

This is the last round of your game here I'm going to play, but fine, here
goes:

I didn't explicitely say in my previous example that there's people in that
burning building or victims being robbed, but I thought it was implied.

We value human life, not buildings and stuff.

If firemen routinely died running into burning buildings to _save the
building_ they wouldn't be very impressive. You'd imagine they'd be doing it
because _somebody_ is paying them well and if that's the case, that's the risk
they take.

Highrise construction workers are not up there risking their life in a way
where, on a moments notice, almost as reflex, they thrust themselves into
peril to save a life.

They're doing it because they want and love the thrill and because they're
well paid.

------
lukev
I found the economic part interesting. Definitely sounds like a tough job with
some poor incentives.

The other part, about the possibility that he is going through a personal
crisis, applies equally to all interactions with strangers everywhere, so it
seemed a little out of place.

~~~
starwed
Maybe you missed the last line? It wasn't a "possibility", but an account of
an actual event.

That said, I'm always saddened that folk _don't_ consider such a possibility
in interaction with strangers -- especially when it doesn't cost them
anything. Assuming the worst of someone to protect yourself is one thing, but
all too often I see such an assumption used as a reason to get angry at a
stranger. Quite why people search for reasons to be angry I'm not sure, but it
sadly seems to be a human trait. :(

~~~
kelnos
Re: the death of the sister: _Maybe you missed the last line? It wasn't a
"possibility", but an account of an actual event._

That's actually the biggest problem I had with this article. It's making an
appeal to our emotions by implicitly suggesting that _all_ truck drivers, at
_all_ times, _always_ have some emotionally-crippling tragedy occurring in
their lives. Even presupposing that's true, it would suggest that everyone
(not just truck drivers) are probably in the same boat, so truck drivers in
this sense are no different from the rest of us.

But of course, everyone doesn't have a personal tragedy happen to them every
week. The majority of the time, truck drivers have just as much (or as little)
personal tragedy as the rest of us. Yes, it's unfortunate that the job also
kinda sucks (sometimes? all the time?), but that's the case with many
different kinds of jobs.

Yes, I agree with the generic sentiment that, in interactions with strangers,
you should consider that you have no idea what's going on in their lives at
that particular moment. But in this case I'm more interested in the facts that
more likely than not affect all truck drivers: the mediocre pay, long hours
behind the wheel, scheduling difficulties, pressure to meet deadlines that
maybe aren't healthy or safe, etc.

~~~
jasongullickson
I think the point was that unlike some of us (most of us?) the nature of the
work makes it impossible for truckers to "leave early" or take a day off to
respond to personal emergencies.

~~~
kelnos
If you mean "us" in the sense of the HN community, you're probably right. But
those restrictions are likely no different than what the majority of workers
across all professions in the US (and the world?) are subject to. Truckers are
certainly not unique.

------
almightygod
To sum it all up, we need more empathy for others and their situations we are
not aware of. I highly recommend this short TED video
[http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_richards_a_radical_experiment_i...](http://www.ted.com/talks/sam_richards_a_radical_experiment_in_empathy.html)

~~~
InfinityX0
Reminds me of one of PG's best posts (IMO), See Randomness:
<http://www.paulgraham.com/randomness.html>

~~~
Apocryphon
Or from a comedic viewpoint, the Monkeysphere:
www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html

------
knieveltech
Most of the folks driving truck are true professionals. For example, anyone
else ever spot truckers herding traffic? I've seen this a few times locally,
it normally happens when there's a lane merge coming up due to construction.

On more than one occasion I've seen truckers entirely block the merging lane,
forcing folks behind them to merge cleanly. This gets everyone through the
construction zone faster since you don't have a stream of last-minute merges
jamming things up.

~~~
megamark16
I love when they do that, I hate all those last minute assholes who zoom by
the rest of us who are adhering to the construction signs indicating that a
lane is closed ahead. I always think that I should herd traffic myself, but
I'm just one guy in a little car, so I really appreciate when the big rigs do
it for me :-)

~~~
kelnos
Actually, the zoomers are usually doing the right thing (sorta). When traffic
is congested to the point where you can't do a natural "closing zipper" merge,
the best way to avoid jams is for everyone to use up all available lane space,
but -- and here's where the problem comes in -- leave enough room for
alternate-feed merging at the end. _That's_ what causes the stop-and-go jam:
people at the merge point not letting other cars in.

------
ryandvm
I like the post for the humanist viewpoint. I have to think that maybe
truckers aren't going to be as disappointed as I thought when the entire
industry workforce is displaced in 15 years with self-driving trucks.

I've put quite a bit of thought on it and my guess is that the truck driving
workforce is going to evaporate almost overnight once self driving trucks are
green-lighted. It's going to be hard for a human to compete unless he can
drive 24x7, never get tired, have split-second reflexes, and works for 65
cents worth of electricity a day...

~~~
r00fus
Not sure if your comment is satirical, but I doubt we'll see self-driving
vehicles on the road in any reasonable numbers anytime soon... we'll sooner
see mass-adoption of electric vehicles before then.

Driving (with irrational human actors) is non-deterministic.

~~~
Triumvark
> I doubt we'll see self-driving vehicles on the road in any reasonable
> numbers anytime soon

I don't know about the rate of deployment, but Google is already lobbying
Nevada to officially allow its driverless cars. They have successfully logged
hundreds of thousands of miles on U.S. roadways with only one incident: one of
the driverless cars was rear ended while waiting at a red light.

> Driving (with irrational human actors) is non-deterministic.

They don't have to "solve" driving. All they have to do is be less stupid than
human drivers.

We haven't set the bar that high.

Even so, the Google project seems to be working fine so far, irrational human
drivers notwithstanding.

~~~
Unseelie
They've gotten past lobbying Nevada. Nevada's building the regulations for it,
which counts as "google has gotten Nevada to allow driver less cars"

------
code_duck
Well, sounds like the perfect reason to enact sensible, non-petroleum lobby
fueled transportation reforms.

If you've traveled by interstate lately, you may have noticed the number of
trucks on the road has reached ridiculous, to the point where the interstates
now mainly exist for use by trucking companies. Unfortunately, transportation
by truck is one of the least efficient methods possible. Train and barge can
transport tens,if not hundreds, of times the cargo for a given amount of fuel.
80% of the thick black pollution they spray out, all that diesel fuel - the
fuel they spend idling - is being expended completely stupidly. Exxon and BP
like it, and they guided us here - it's time to do something else.

~~~
eropple
Are you aware that we already have a massive freight rail system?

Trucks get around the unfortunate and largely unavoidable problem that rail
can't carry everything or go everywhere.

~~~
code_duck
The proportion of cargo moved by truck has increased significantly in the past
40 years, for no good reason. Of course transport by truck is needed for the
last leg (into cities). It's not needed to move the majority of the interstate
cargo currently being moved this way.

------
jmspring
A great story with a human angle.

It is interesting, when the personal connection with the other party is not
present or is reduced, how personalities can change. Email / news groups /
etc. regularly erupt in flamewars, people making snide comments, etc.

The same thing happens often when people get in their vehicle. In their own
little world, drivers aren't always as aware of their actions and behaviors as
they should be (or how their actions impact other drivers, for instance).

I know I have been guilty of this from time to time.

This is another call to really just bring an awareness to your actions and
who/what they may affect.

~~~
Caballera
Yeah it interesting. I work Tech Support, and often get angry customers, when
I deal with them I have to try and remember where they are coming from, how
they feel and think, otherwise I end up angry myself and it makes it a lot
harder to deal with them.

------
peterwwillis
So my friend is driving his big rig, probably been driving for about 5 days.
Tooling down the highway in his lane during the day. Suddenly a car cuts right
in front of him and he can tell the car is going to hit him. Split second
decision time:

A) Attempt to slam on the brakes and watch as 40 tons plows into the car. The
truck will sustain minor damage and the car will sustain heavy damage,
possibly killing all the people inside. Assuming the truck doesn't jackknife.

B) Swerve onto the shoulder and possibly off into a ditch, saving the car and
possibly killing himself, and possibly others if the truck jackknifes and
other cars hit it.

I know a lot of people have no sympathy for truckers, but take the time and
actually talk to one. They put up with untold amounts of bullshit just to make
a living. It's not a bad job for someone who might be too unskilled to get
another job, but it sure is grueling.

Another thing I find some people tell me is how every time they drive next to
a truck they almost get run off the road. Truckers actually try really hard
not to kill you. The easiest thing you can do for a trucker is _not drive next
to one_. Either pass him or sit behind him, but not next to him. And if you
see one with his blinker on, please, get the hell out of the way.

------
marcamillion
Wow...the comments on this thread are more callous than I had anticipated. The
story is a good story. Sure, these things happen in all professions - that
policewoman that put her life on the line chasing some young drug kingpin in
the back of an alley last week, just lost her baby 2 months ago - but that
doesn't make this story less true and require less empathy.

I never understood the road rage thing.

If you know that there is a big truck in front of you (or near you) on the
freeway, and you know they might drive aggressively, do what you need to get
away as quickly as you can. Either slow down, or overtake, in a responsible
way.

But no need to be a douchebag about it. Sure, you may have been bad-driven by
truck drivers in the past, but believe me...that's not bad driving.

Come to Jamaica where EVERYBODY bad drives EVERYBODY, it's a regular
occurrence. You can either get pissed and cuss everybody, or you can let it
roll off your shoulders and not let it bother you.

Just protect yourself, drive responsibly and don't get flustered.

------
ddw
I honestly can't think of any positives that come with being a truck driver.
You aren't even "traveling" in the sense that you get to see different places.
You're just burning away life with no time to do anything besides listen to
radio shows/music. We should all be so lucky that we're never in that
position.

My dad used to work for a company that sold communication services at truck
stops. He always told me that it's important to not change into the right now
too soon after passing them and to just remind that they've got a blindside
much larger than a car. Pretty simple stuff, but I bet most people don't think
about it. I've driven on I-80 a good amount at night when it's almost all
truck drivers and I've never had a problem. I would often get a annoyed when
two trucks would drive next to each other going around 68MPH, but now I know
better. A little empathy can go a long way.

~~~
3pt14159
Many of them are former construction workers with injuries. Trucking is far
from the worst job they could have had.

------
jgoewert
So, what the article is trying to say is that we should be using trains more
for long hauls to concentrated depots and trucks for short hops from the
trains?

That would alleviate highway traffic congestion, save a ton on the amount of
fuel used to ship goods around the US, and would keep Chuck the Truck Driver
in a location close to home.

Wonderful idea.

~~~
kelnos
Of course, if we were to do this, I'm sure the next article would be about how
trains are taking jobs away from truck drivers. You just can't win, really.

------
shrikant
If they're tracked electronically anyway and cannot fudge route-logs, it's
criminal to make the driver pay for their own truck-fuel. (It would be shitty
even without the electronic tracking, but now it's inexcusable.)

This is like a company making you pay for the electricity you consume while
working in their offices.

(This is right up there in with paying waiters ~$2 an hour because they can
make up the rest in tips.)

~~~
jhamburger
Not sure what the comparison is with waiters. A lot of waiters are in their
teens or early twenties and it's already one of the highest paying jobs for
that group without requiring any real qualifications. Restaurants, on the
other hand, are not the most profitable business around as it is, and you want
them to triple their payroll expenses to pay minimum wage?

~~~
shabble
It only works because its been around long enough that there is a culture of
tipping for service, to the point it's practically an invisible tax on each
meal (granted, with the option to avoid it if you _really_ want/have to, but
is considered negative socially)

Elsewhere in the world, there is much less of a tipping custom, and wages for
service staff tend to reflect that.

Isn't there some kind of US law that requires restaurants to pay the
difference between wage+tips & minimum wage if the tips share is low enough?

(OTOH, I recall reading somewhere about people _paying_ huge sums (order of
$10's of K) for high-profile service jobs like Maître d' at a prestigious
hotel, or head waiter in a high-class restaurant, due to the quantity earned
in tips)

~~~
masterzora
_Isn't there some kind of US law that requires restaurants to pay the
difference between wage+tips & minimum wage if the tips share is low enough?_

There is but that doesn't mean restaurants necessarily follow said law. A lot
of servers don't really have any means of actually properly enforcing it
without just straight up losing their job in the best case so, in practice,
you find people just staying silent as they get shafted.

------
Triumvark
I know someone who represented trucking companies in major road crashes. A
night of anecdotes with him destroyed my perspective on this completely.

I don't have anything personal against the average trucker, but I primarily
want driverless cars so we can put all of these guys out of work.

If we can get robots to lower accident rates and drive all night without
getting sleepy (or, in what I'm sure are rare cases, methed up), I'm sorry,
but I'm for it.

I always brake for truckers. I have enormous respect for the good haulers out
there. I still hope they disappear in my lifetime.

------
Nat0
Just yesterday, I had a friend get run off the road and total her car because
of a careless truck driver. The driver of the semi left the scene and came
back only after another truck driver stopped to help my friend and got on the
radio and told the driver who caused the wreck to come back or he would make
sure he lost his trucking license.

There are good and bad people regardless of the profession.

------
bg4
I've worked in the trucking industry for the past six years and I find this
article pretty accurate. However, all of the problems that this driver is
faced with can be largely impacted by better decision making and planning on
the company side. Then again, I'm heavily biased since this is exactly the
type of software I work on every day.

We have products to help companies choose which freight to run to maximize
profit (and which to get rid of), find optimal truck/order combinations to
minimize cost/time of haul, to determine where the truck should buy fuel (and
how much) for his current order to minimize fuel cost, and track the asset in
near real time to ensure management knows when it will be late or off route
(much easier to re-schedule the drop a day or two ahead, for example). We've
even put considerable effort to optimize a swap of trailers between trucks on
the road so that a driver can get home in an emergency.

I am unsure about the burden of fuel on the driver, as many of our carriers
have fuel cards for drivers to purchase fuel (sometimes constrained to our
locations/amounts to ensure compliance) and the company usually charges a fuel
surcharge back to the customer anyways. I work with both very large and very
small carriers but I obviously don’t know the specifics of this driver’s
situation.

As far as the government involvement, the driver's hours of service are logged
electronically because it was all too common for drivers to carry multiple log
books (and use the one which allowed them to keep driving to make a drop).
Electronic logging is a good thing. Personally, I think 11 hours behind the
wheel of a 45,000lb semi-truck is probably enough for one day. Incidentally,
they can drive 11 hours per day up to 70 hours total before they have to take
34 hours off in a row.

Hauling freight isn't easy and they deserve some respect. Our Nation would
crawl to a halt in a matter of days if they stopped doing their jobs. Try to
cut them a little more slack and room on the road.

------
anigbrowl
Why is this on HN? I don't flip off truckers, or anyone else unless they drive
dangerously enough to put me at risk. It has nothing to do with programming or
economics, and none of us are experts in transit policy. {Edit: or at least,
widely known to be.]

------
trotsky
It was suggested to me recently that the widespread push into trucking and
away from rail for freight had something to do with busting strong railroad
unions. I didn't think much of the idea at the time because of historically
how powerful the Teamsters were in trucking. However, reading this and
considering how many owner operators there are that have apparently been
subjected to declining wages and worsening working conditions, I wonder if
there might be some truth to that suggestion about rail vs. trucks. Obviously
there are other advantages to trucking, but does anyone think there is some
validity there?

~~~
Dysiode
Speed and flexibility perhaps? There are significantly more trucks than there
are trains, for one. I imagine there's an incentive to fill a train to
capacity whereas you can contract as many trucks as you need for a particular
load.

Further, a bunch of trucks can go from one distribution point to many
different unloading points a train may not be able to reach.

I imagine the explosion in consumer shipping and expectations of two-day
shipping from a number of companies has changed the dynamic. A hundred Ted's
ordering iphone cases isn't the same as one Bob ordering a hundred head of
sheep.

Just some thoughts; I don't have any knowledge about the industry, or the
state of the railways.

------
bfe
To try to add Hacker News relevance to this story and its discussion: doesn't
this show it's high time for truck-driving robots to free humans from this
dreary job? Robots who won't, in the midst of personal anguish, be stressed
about passing another truck to stay a few miles per hour faster? The displaced
jobs would make way for more fulfilling, higher paying jobs as truck robot
sysadmins and the truck robot YCombinator startup founders.

------
gregatragenet
Most of the anger I see at trucks (and truck-drivers) is just ignorance of the
physical limitations on trucks. They are big, so the rules of inertia mean
they take longer to speed up and slow down, and they have limited visibility
on the sides. Often the stories I hear about people nearly run off the road by
a truck begins with the car hovering in the truck's blind-spot. I've seen
drivers pull in front of a truck and then slam on the brakes to make a turn,
almost causing an accident with the slower-stopping truck. Or passing a truck
on the right as it is making a wide right turn. Good way to become a
subcompact-sandwich. My favorite is when a truck turns on it's signal to
change lanes prompting the cars around him to quickly fill that lane in an
effort to 'not be behind a truck'. Awesome to keep the truck from making his
turn/exit guys.

If you have trucker-angst I suggest you go rent a large vehicle - like make a
road-trip in an RV. It'll open your eyes on how poorly the cars around a large
vehicle will accommodate you. And how what you thought of as 'bad truck driver
behavior' may just be the physical limitations of the vehicle he's driving.

------
watchandwait
The truck driver and his company is also exploiting the highway "commons" and
passing most of the costs on you, the auto driver. Almost all damage and wear
on U.S. roads comes from heavy trucks, and the gas taxes paid by truckers come
nowhere near covering the cost they inflict on the highway system. So next
time you are stuck in traffic in a construction zone, you can thank the big
rigs.

~~~
noonespecial
Have you ever looked into what it takes just to hook a trailer with a bobcat
on it to your pickup and pull it as part of your business? Next time you get
close to a big truck, take a look at all of the regulatory stickers plastered
all over it. Every single one of those costs many thousands of dollars per
year. I assure you the trucks pay their fair share and then some.

Compared to trucks, you basically use the roads for free on their dime.

~~~
watchandwait
This isn't true. Auto drivers pay more than their fair share for the roads--
the gas tax actually also subsidizes some passenger rail and other forms of
transportation.

Again, just because heavy trucks pay extra taxes doesn't mean that they cover
their impact on the road system.

"Passenger vehicles account for 93 percent of all vehicle miles traveled on
public roads in the United States. While large trucks account for just 7
percent of the miles traveled, they account for the most damage to the
infrastructure."

<http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policy/otps/costallocation.htm>

~~~
noonespecial
It also says:

"In the 1997 HCAS combination trucks were found, on average, to pay 90 percent
of their Federal highway cost responsibility through user fees, but with
changes in the fuel tax they now pay only 80 percent of their cost
responsibility. The heaviest combinations, those over 80,000 pounds, pay only
half of their cost responsibility."

So most trucks you see on the road pay 80-90% of their way already from a
purely federal fuel-tax dollar standpoint. The gas tax is just the beginning
for trucks. Now consider state licensing fees, permits, mandatory inspections,
tolls that increase exponentially per axle, and what must be the ridiculous
cost of compliance. Between the DMV and the DOT the papers that need filing
fill a 3-ring every year, and there's a fee every other page. (I suppose the
question of whether or not that money makes it back into road maintenance is
bound to come up but that seems like a whole different issue.)

Seriously, put a sheep in the back of a pickup in Fresno and try to drive him
to Seattle without doing anything illegal.

------
latj
Our dependence on truck drivers is artificial though, right? We should be
depending more on rail. And yes, someone will drive the cargo from the train
station to the walmart, but it wont be a long haul driver. It will be someone
with a predictable job who gets to go to funerals and goes home every night.

------
jrockway
_Everything you buy at the store and everything you order online moves by
truck. Planes and trains can't get it to your house or grocery store._

Not by long-distance trucks that this article describes, though. Those trucks
drive from the airport to the city center, and then from the city center to
individual homes.

Say you buy something from Amazon. Their fulfillment center is co-located with
UPS' hub at Louisville Airport. Your box leaves Amazon and goes on a plane to
your city. Then, a short-distance truck picks up the package, it's taken to
the UPS distribution center, and another truck takes it to your house. No 10
hour days. No driving 500 miles to see your sister in the hospital. No nights
away from your family.

Anyway, it's very possible to own stuff that was not delivered to you by a
long-distance trucker, despite what the article says.

~~~
zacharycohn
That's one example - if you get air shipping. If you get ground shipping, not
so much.

Also, I think his bigger point was the "everything you buy _at the store_"
comes from a truck part.

------
seldo
Why isn't the moral of this story "trucks are terrible, we should transport
more freight by rail"?

~~~
_delirium
I agree that that's probably a good way to mitigate the problem, but the U.S.
already does transport a surprisingly large amount of freight by rail, with
relatively little fanfare. It's a _lot_ more than Europe, for example, which
has much more high-profile passenger trains, but much lower use of freight
rail. The last time I looked up statistics, it was about 35% of American
freight going by rail, versus about 10% of EU-nation freight. Obviously 35%
could go up, but it's not _too_ bad. It just feels like we have fewer trains
than we do, because as a human wanting to get places you can't easily take
them.

A bigger problem might be the geographic distribution of truck vs. rail
traffic. Rail traffic dominates in the transcontinental trips, because it's a
lot cheaper to ship bulk cargo or shipping containers by rail from LA to
Chicago, than by truck. But open-road inter-city trucking from LA to Chicago
is relatively safe. Where trucks are most dangerous is within-urban-area
transit, in congested metropolitan areas, but those are also the hardest to
replace. For example, Safeway alone sends thousands of trucks out daily to
supply its grocery stores; much of the produce is moved from ships to a local
staging area by rail, but the last 10 miles to the actual store goes by truck.
It'll be very difficult to replace that, unless we return to the days of a
dense rail network where businesses had their own local rail sidings for
deliveries.

------
Dysiode
I find it interesting that hackers of all people are so polarized about this
article. I wonder if working in an industry with such a high customer turn-
over rate where you either make it big or try something else has desensitized
us to the fact the masses of people paying us $0.99 for our apps are still
people.

Especially those of us in jobs with absolutely no customer service aspect
whatsoever. I wonder if it would help to require everyone in a company to
respond to a couple emails a week would help them feel more attached to the
people actually using the product (In a way, Opera does this with their
Desktop Team blog by having different people write a blurb before the change
log).

------
speleding
Trucking something 1000 miles is silly. One large canal boat can transport
about 70 truckloads (4x3x6 containers). Average speed over 1000 miles is the
same since they don't stop for breaks. Works great in Northern Europe. You
still need trucks for the fine grained distribution of course, but over time
all large companies make sure they are located on a canal.

Digging canals is very expensive of course but they don't hurt the environment
nearly as much as (rail)roads and it's a text book way to get the economy
going. Many of the canals in Europe were actually dug during the depression of
the last century when there was lots of unemployment.

------
bh42222
Let me tell you his future. He/She will be replaced by a self driving truck.

------
pavel_lishin
> You can't tell by looking at him, but two hours ago he took a call informing
> him that his only sister was involved in a car accident, and though
> everything possible was done to save her, she died. They had flown her to a
> trauma hospital in Detroit, but it was too late.

Oh, come on. This is where I closed the tab; the story was sad enough without
making it into a Christmas special.

edit: Wasn't aware that this was an actual incident. Still, picking the
sappiest possible story isn't very representative.

~~~
jbk
Unfortunately, if you had read until the end, you would have seen that this is
a true story...

------
sliverstorm
I pretty much stopped getting mad at truckers when two things happened:

1) I learned that many trucks have 24 gears. Could you imagine having to
downshift and upshift 10 or 12 times every time somebody cuts you off?

2) I started riding motorcycles. As a motorcyclist, whether or not you are in
the right, if you tangle with a truck you're dead. So, instant respect for
trucks. I want them to see me, and I want them to like me.

------
grimoire
Moral of the story: Don't be a dick.

I can't remember the last time I flipped someone off. Certainly not some truck
driver passing another truck slower than I would like. I reserve the middle
finger for the epically stupid, where someone has done something exceedingly
dangerous.

------
switch007
What irks me is they they expect us to understand they're limited to a certain
speed, but when there's a down hill and drivers need to brake to stop going
over the speed limit, we get gestures made at us. Double standards.

~~~
gravitronic
If you brake going downhill on a long-distance highway you shouldn't be
driving.

~~~
switch007
The UK government loves putting cameras on down hill sections of roads.

Anyway, my point was they get angry you are not speeding, not the method you
use to prevent speeding.

------
StuffMaster
A truck passing another truck isn't necessarily objectionable, but when
they're on a hill and spend multiple minutes doing it (and sometimes even give
up), I get very annoyed.

------
regehr
During college I was on a road trip with friends and we stopped at a rest stop
on the interstate. After a while a trucker came over carrying a tire iron and
looking ready to use it. He was so strung out on uppers he had decided we were
all laughing at him. Scary...

------
atomicdog
This article seems to only apply to American truck drivers.

------
ptomato
How is this in any way HN material?

~~~
tlrobinson
It doesn't matter, if HN users legitimately voted it onto the front page, it's
by definition HN material.

~~~
davidw
So if I get a bunch of people interested in professional bicycle racing to
sign up for HN, we can upvote all our favorite articles and it will be HN
material because a lot of us voted for it? The problem with that definition is
that there's no "entry exam" or anything like that.

~~~
tlrobinson
I wouldn't consider that "legitimately voted onto the front page". Moderators
would step in and remove it.

------
kyusu
Is this place reddit now?

------
damoncali
so...don't flip off truck drivers? Seems easy enough.

------
whom
Every truck drivers sister has just died moments ago? That's sad.

------
Cushman
Am I the only one here thinking up a way to code hands-free and taking a year
off as a trucker? Let's face it, it's pretty much what we do all day anyway.
Plus traffic.

~~~
semiquaver
Coding takes concentration, and so does driving. The problem is that on a
highway, split-second reflexes are called upon infrequently. This makes it
even more important to give the road your full attention.

Also see:
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2012393/Distracting-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2012393/Distracting-
hands-free-devices-dangerous-mobile.html)

~~~
Cushman
Solution: Do it with a buddy and pair program. You're just having a
conversation about the code, I do that while driving all the time. You can
work and drive in shifts. Roaming the wireless streets. That would be great!

------
Tharkun
So. Your job sucks. Your sister is dead. You get paid jack shit. And you're
the one in control of delivering goods to everyone. And somehow you're thick
enough to think that driving like a douche is the answer to your problems?
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.

I remember when I was a kid, french truck drivers (hundreds of them) blocked
the roads because they were pissed off. They did this for days. Guess what?
They got (mostly) what they wanted in the end.

If, as this article implies, there is something wrong with the trucking
industry, then you should take proper and responsible action. Protest. Park a
truck in front of the white house. Whatever.

But driving like a dickwad, breaking laws that are meant to keep others save &
endangering lives is not acceptable. Especially not for a shitty wage.

------
wccrawford
You know what? If your job is crap, quit, or demand more pay. I never bought
this "I have a hard job, so you should be nice to me" crap. You get
compensated for your job. If you don't get compensated well enough, that's
your problem.

And as for all the schedule crap? Also not my fault. I didn't make you late. I
didn't regulate the speed on your rig. (And yes, that DOES make it safer,
especially when you're running non-stop and tired.)

However, you -did- get in my way. For a long time. 3mph? Cripes, do you know
how long it takes to move a rig around another rig at 3mph more while being
safe?

Suck it up, buddy. You take crap from your boss, your co-workers, and anyone
else at your workplace or your client's workplace, and you have the nerve to
get upset at someone who isn't getting paid to deal with your crap?

~~~
lisper
> You know what? If your job is crap, quit, or demand more pay. I never bought
> this "I have a hard job, so you should be nice to me" crap. You get
> compensated for your job. If you don't get compensated well enough, that's
> your problem.

That's easy to say if you're skills are in high demand. If they aren't, any
you have a family to feed, it can be a much harder position to take. For many
people their options may be limited to putting up with a crappy job or living
on the street. And often it's through no fault of their own. Not everyone has
what it takes to be a rock star software engineer.

~~~
bdunbar
_Not everyone has what it takes to be a rock star software engineer._

Everyone is in a position to improve themselves. Take a class, get a degree,
network, learn a skill.

It is not easy. But this is not the same thing as impossible.

~~~
mrcharles
That depends. Sometimes economics _can_ make it impossible. Beyond that, if
you read the article, it's not uncommon for truck drivers to only have one
free day per week. How quickly can you learn a completely new skill set if you
only have one day a week (a day, I might add, which is also your only rest
day)?

~~~
bdunbar
_Sometimes economics can make it impossible._

Sometimes, sure. More often people who _say_ they are stuck are not stuck so
much as lacking imagination, or will.

 _How quickly can you learn a completely new skill set if you only have one
day a week_

I know that is a hypothetical but I'll take a crack at it.

\- Cut expenses. There is always slack in a budget.

\- Cut hours. The 6-day work week is for over the road - Get a teamster job
working local.

\- I've now got nights and weekends free, leaving me oodles of time to get
cracking on mastering that new skill.

