By Javonda Hunt
Truck driving can be a hard life. Delivering products from city to city, traveling all hours of the night while the rest of the world sleeps. Truck drivers do so much to keep the economy moving by transporting the products we need everyday bought at our local chain store branch.
My father, James Hunt has been driving transport trucks since 1991. Being a truck driver was all he could think about as a kid.
Driving across the country, exploring sights most people only see in books all while making an honest living seems like a good life.
“It was fun for about the first five years,” said Hunt.
“Now there are so many different rules and regulations. It’s good to have those rules and regulations but driving trucks has changed so much.”
Transporting goods is not just about driving a truck. Many people would be surprised to know that truck drivers actually use a computer on a regular basis from inside their truck.
Though these computers are not built to access Facebook or Twitter, they are used to communicate and send messages from the driver to the dispatcher at the job terminal, which is kind of like a headquarters or base. The dispatcher is the person who tells the driver where to deliver his or her next load assignment.
“Being a truck driver, you miss out on a lot of things,” said Hunt. “You are always away from home, and you miss your family and kids growing up.”
Truck drivers are out almost year round, with occasional breaks to go home on weekends and major holidays such as Christmas but that only depends on the company policy. Some companies try to run their drivers too hard, even when the driver has not had a break in several hours of driving nonstop.
When drivers continue to drive with out sleeping or taking a break, it is called burnt hours. Driving on burnt hours is dangerous yet some companies still push their drivers to keep driving, just to get the load to its destination and make money from it.
“I wouldn’t suggest driving trucks to anybody because they’d be better off in school somewhere,” said Hunt. “That’s why I tell my kids it is better to get an education past high school, that way you can make your own money not somebody else’s.”