Both Sides Now

For 23 years, some part of my life has revolved around commercial trucks. Mostly as a driver, but sometimes as the one who stayed behind. So I have a view of this life from both sides.

My husband taught me to drive after we were married, and soon we were going back and forth across the country. Driving over the road is a very insular world where few people not in the profession venture. You get to know about their spouses, kids and numerous ex-spouses. The number one killer of relationships for truck drivers is stress. The mental stress involved in doing their jobs, plus the stress of not being home to help deal with the everyday things, plus missing many milestones in the lives of their children.

Yes, we chose this profession, and understood the risks and stresses that go along with that profession. But, if you do not have a strong support team on the home front, it’s hard to get motivated to push that truck down the road. I hope everyone remembers that if you have it…a truck delivered it, and give consideration to the people doing that job.

Back in the day…you only heard the drivers’ side of family and marital problems, but never the side of the ones at home. Then we entered the computer age of electronic bulletin boards, AOL chat rooms, and now MySpace and Facebook, and sometimes it’s like Jerry Springer without the fist fights. Everyone knows everyone’s dirty laundry.

We all know what the problems are, they haven’t changed since the first person figured out they could make money by transporting someone’s “stuff” across town or across country and get paid money for the process.

There was a time when couples would rather chew off an appendage than admit that they were having problems. They stayed together for the kids, religious reasons, or whatever they told themselves to get them through the day.

Life and relationships have changed drastically since then. Driving truck has been and will probably always be in the top ten most hazardous professions. It is not always the hardest work physically, but mentally the stress of being constantly on alert to your 80 feet of truck with 24 tons of freight and the conditions around your truck is horrendous. At the end of the day, the muscles in your body are stiff and sore from sitting in one place for hours at a time, and your mind is totally exhausted.