Stuff Truckers Know

The world depends on trucks (and truck drivers, of course) to deliver most of the products we use or consume daily. Join Scott and Ben as they attempt to explain why truckers do some of the things they do.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the Wheel, under the Hood and beyond with
car stuff from how Stuff Works dot Com. I had
welcome to the podcast that's been over there. Whoa, whoa, Scott.
You're Scott I am, and you're changing it up. I
changed it up. Yeah, it's the usual intro, you know,

(00:22):
it's kind of got a rhythm to it. But I
decided it was time for a little bit of a change. Yeah, yeah,
I am gonna roll with it, all right, we'll switch
it back next time. We'll switch it back there. Okay, cool,
because you know how I fear change. I do know
that yet. No, No, literally, like Quarters and Nichols, I
don't want to touch them. That's a that's a true story.
We're starting out weird today, folks, but uh, don't fret.

(00:46):
We're still joined, of course, by our super producer team
Tristan and Dylan. I'm gonna call him Convoy Fagan. Oh
I love that word. Convoy. Yeah, man, I was listening
to that song, uh, sort of prepping for today's episode,
like four or five times consecutively before we hopped in
the studio. I'm pretty sure I know all the lyrics,

(01:06):
and I don't know why I go through these phases
sometimes Scott, where I just have to watch the movie
and listen to the song over and over again for
like an afternoon. No. Absolutely, And that's just one of
those words that like, once it hits your you know,
your brain, uh you remember think of that movie or
you think of that song, or you know some type
of memory attached to it. You know, if you haven't

(01:26):
seen it, check it out because it's a it's a
good it's a decent movie. I mean, I guess not
not a great movie, but it's a good song. Yeah,
you know, thinking about this, that was like one of
that I'd always sing along with when I was a
kid in the car because it was on the radio
at the time. I mean, if you want to date
how long ago this was. But also the other one
was was it Ryan Stone Cowboy? That was another one
right around the same time. I think as a kid,

(01:49):
I love those songs. But um, but today we're gonna
be talking about the trucking industry, and you know, we
had kind of tossed around the idea of calling it
trucking Secrets or you know, ten things you don't know
about trucks or trucking. Um, so our trucker friends are
gonna say, well, this is all stuff I know, and
that's that's that's good because I mean, you know, they're
they're immersed in the world of this. But but this

(02:09):
podcast really is going to be for everybody else, all
the all the sedan drivers, all the motorcycle drivers, all
the people that don't have any seat time at the
behind the wheel in a big rig. Because it's a
very different world and it's strange how pervasive the trucking
industry is. This disclaimer is necessary. Our examination today explores

(02:33):
the world of trucking in the United States, so there
may be similarities to other parts of the world, but
they're going to be They're also going to be some
profound differences, Like Australia is a great example. Australia's trucking
industry has one of the most interesting aspects of trucking worldwide,

(02:54):
called trucking with a Twist. Yeah, road trains, man, and
we have an episode about those. Check it out if
if you haven't heard of this before. Road trains are
fascinating and the pictures, the photographs even better. Yeah, man,
I feel like you could survive, uh, you could survive
a mad Max situation if you had a road train.
It seems like it seems like your own little world.

(03:15):
It kind of kind of feels like something out of
a Mad Max movie. Really, it really does. Yeah, it's
probably probably partially due to the terrain, you know, just
to look like every time you see one of those,
it's it's that's why. And the fact that to us
these are amazing unique because we've you know, they're not
a daily part of our lives. Now. If we see
a double trailer, it's like, what is going on around here?
What sort of strange voodoo is this? But but regardless

(03:40):
of whether it's double trailer single trailer, it is almost
impossible to hop in a car here in the States
and and drive without seeing a semi. Yeah, and we
had we had talked off air about how, you know,
trucks appear at the strangest places too. It's not we're
not talking about just semis. These are all kinds of trucks.
But but some eyes, in particular in this case, when

(04:03):
you you're on a small back road and suddenly the
semi truck passes you and you think, what is that
person doing on this road? Why are they here? I
never see semies back here, but there's a reason. We'll
briefly touch on that later. But but yeah, if you're
on the interstate or freeway system here in the United States,
you're guaranteed to see you know, it seems like trucks

(04:23):
are everywhere, and there's a good reason behind that. I mean, um,
you know, we we've discussed other forms of transporting goods
and services as goods I guess, like air cargo and
uh cargo boats. Yeah, and rail of course it's another one.
But um, but but trucking falls into the sweet spot
of where you know, it's not quite as expensive as

(04:43):
air freight, it's not quite as slow as it's it's
faster than rail transport. Um. And you know, of course
boat I you know, traveling by cargo ship or something
like that that has its own you know, um special
set of circumstances. Yeah, it's it's it's all location, it's
its own world. Like if these various modes of transport
where the Justice League, I know, going through comic book

(05:06):
phase two, man, if if they were you know, all
superheroes in the Justice League, then cargo ships are very
much Aquaman well, and like they're useful and very in
a specific situation and plus I mean bad comic book
references aside. The truth of the matter is that right now,

(05:26):
trucking provides the most agile transportation solution. Well sure, and
look at those cargo ships. I can't let this pass
it out of saying it. The cargo ships are stacked
you know what seems like twenty levels high with what
is essentially the back end of the semi truck, you know,
those containers, those crates that they can stack on top
of one another. So really, the cargo ship industry relies
heavily on the trucking industry. And you know, the trucking

(05:49):
industry is kind of the go between, the link between
the other types of transports. So trucking is a vital,
vital part of life in the United States and really
all around the world. And again, this this podcast is
not necessarily going to open the eyebrows, you know, like
raised the eyebrows of any trucker. They're not gonna say like, oh,
I didn't know that. All the truckers know what we're
gonna talk about, and they know more about it than

(06:10):
we do because we're just you know, casual observers, I
guess in this case, but we're trying to get some
of this information out there for the people that have
to and I'll say deal with but deal with trucks
on the on the highway every day, because there's a
lot of situations where truckers may do something that seems
unusual to you and I, but there's a reason behind

(06:31):
what they do. They've got they have training that tells
them to do that, and that's why that happens. And
and I've got a list of there's about eight or
so different things that I want to get to at
some point today. But there's there's more to it to
the story than just you know, these unusual behaviors. We're
also going to talk about some things that you know,
just a lot of people like you know again people
in Sudan's, people in motorcycles, people and you know, just

(06:54):
the family minivan or whatever, like they don't understand or
don't don't know what's really went on inside that cab.
We want to thank the listeners who wrote into us
over the years. It's weird that I say it that way,
but it's accurate, especially William H who wrote in recently
asking us about how semi trucks work, and you know,

(07:15):
sort of the origin stories of those companies like Freightliner
and mac and and you and I have talked about
this particular email because there's been a few of them
over the years again that have come in to say like, hey,
I'd like to hear about ken Worth, you know, I'd
like to find out about that company. And and honestly,
what we'll do is we will we'll look into several
of these trucking companies because we've done just truck episodes,
you know, like just how trucks came about or pickup

(07:36):
trucks and other things like that and um. But to
find we want to find a story that's that's actually
you know, it's got some twists and turns in it,
kind of like the U haul story maybe, UM or
you know something like that where there's there's a point
where things turn a different way than you might expect.
So we want to find something like that, something that
grabs you. So we're gonna really dig into that and

(07:58):
uh and find a good example to to cover as
far as how semi trucks work. I mean that might
get into some complex things like you know, the the
the gearboxes and the engines and the sizes and the
manufacturers and histories and stuff like that. But um, right now,
this is not that in depth. This is gonna be
more like, um, I don't know, there's some surprising things

(08:18):
to sedan drivers. You remember those old p s. As
with the More you Know logo, It's gonna be like
the More you know about trucking secrets. But to establish this,
we want to open with some stats on the industry
as a whole, and these come from the American Trucking Association.

(08:39):
In two thousand and fourteen, there were thirty one point
four million trucks registered and used for business purposes, excluding
governments and farm work. Right, that's a lot of trucks.
That's a lot of trucks. But check this out, Scott.
In two thousand and fourteen alone, these trucks drove a
total of two hundred and seventy nine point one bill

(09:00):
miles billion with a B billion with a B. That
is also a lot of miles, a lot of trucks,
a lot of miles. And you know, I think we
should point out here right now that to be in
the trucking industry, you don't necessarily have to drive a
semi truck tractor trailer. So you know, this could be
somebody who drives a school bus, or the mailman, or
a FedEx delivery person, or UH, tow trucks or you know,

(09:21):
there's everybody who's driving a truck to haul goods in
some way is a trucker there in the trucking industry.
And that's a that's a huge group of people, way
bigger than I thought. There was a an article written
by UM, a person named and A Kleiner over at
Concentra of all places, that's a healthcare provider. They wrote
an article about trucking and UH, and they said that

(09:42):
about fifteen percent of American employees work in trucking. And
I thought that that can't be right. Fient of all
workers in the United States work somehow in the trucking industry. Now,
I guess that's you know, dispatch, or maybe it's in UM,
you know, truck maintenance, or it's they're not all truck drivers.
But fifty percent is a high percentage. So you know,

(10:02):
these are the people that you know are responsible for safe,
fast delivery of things that use every single day. And
then again that includes mailmen or male persons. I guess
maybe I should say, uh, anybody that's delivering something from Amazon,
unless it's you know, a car. I guess maybe that's
the one exception because I've seen that too. But um,
there are so many examples of truck drivers out there,

(10:24):
people that are delivering furniture, people that are that are
delivering uh food, you know it's from from you know,
like the farm right to the grocery store. Hey, you
know what one quick? Yeah. I tried farming for a
little while, really for a short time. I head set
up like a small farm, it's an organic farm, and
I tried it for a couple of years. But there
was this like the hardest part to me been And

(10:44):
this is why I eventually gave it up, is because
I just had a difficult time getting up every single morning.
I had to milk all those almonds and it was
really really rough on me. What what oh man? Uh
you know, yeah, I did want to say this, but
you kind of have the look of of a frustrated
almond farmer. Tiny little you have me going for a second,

(11:12):
I would be surprised. Your man of mystery. Well, I
wouldn't put it past you to have a murky past
in the farm industry of driven out of Michigan for
for almond uh, almond fraud. Maybe is that a crime?
I don't know. I don't know, but maybe it should be.
So let's look at this way. It's a fift percent

(11:33):
of American employees. Another way to look at this is
one in seven US jobs are I prefer the term
associated with trucking so you can work in the trucking
industry and not actually be driving the rig. You might,
for instance, um be someone who works with logistics or

(11:53):
supply chains, both which are crucial. You might broker transportation deals,
you know what I mean? And I would you even
if you're loading trucks with stuff from a cargo ship.
That counts is working and trucking I think it kind
of does. Yeah, I mean, so associated with is probably
a better way to look at this whole thing. And
so Ben, here's another situation, I guess another number where

(12:16):
you're gonna have to really uh don't I don't know.
Maybe you take into account where you're hearing statistics for
you know, who who they're coming from. Because that we
said this before, that the trucking industry will say that
they're responsible for shipment of most goods in the United
States and the rail industry will say they're responsible for
the for the lion's share of the goods across the nation.

(12:36):
And these numbers can be kind of skewed a little
bit either way, not a lot, but a little bit.
It really depends on how each organization defines the parameters
of their situation. Exactly right. I mean, there's gonna be
qualifiers with every single one of these. But but in
this article, again from the Consentra article, which again, well
we'll get off the Concentra article in just a moment,
but one of the numbers that they state here is

(12:58):
that or more than eighty percent of American communities depend
on trucking for delivery, trucks for delivery. And I believe
that number because, uhh, that's again that's clothing, that's groceries,
that's you know, books, that's troducts like you know, cooking products, um, furniture,
whatever it happens to be. Uh So, you know, we
had said also been that you know, you can't really

(13:20):
like drive down to the train depot and pick stuff
up right off the train and your own car home.
You can't go to the airport and grab something, you know,
box off the plane and loaded into your minivan and
drive it home. It requires trucking in between. So trucking
does play a huge role in in some of even
some of the other types of transport. But everything that
you order has to be packaged, shipped, and delivered, you know,

(13:41):
from the distributor to your doorsteps. So you know, you
probably do rely on trucks more than you think when
you really consider every aspect of this. You know that,
I mean, eight percent of American communities depend on trucks
for delivery. I believe that number. Yeah, I believe that too,
especially since we're defining trucking is including anything is asociated,
so more than just long haul semi trailers, you know, yeah, yeah,

(14:05):
And in some cases it's a short distance. Other times,
you know, like rural communities, things are being trucked a
much greater distance to get to them. Like let's say
they fly into the main hub, you know, here in Atlanta,
and they have to fly out to you know, somewhere
you know distant. Let's say it's not too distant, but
let's say it's um, I don't know, Helen, Georgia. It's
up in the mountains, but it takes them three hours

(14:27):
to get there or whatever. That's a that's a truck
ride to get there, so you know that's x number
of miles. That's that it's driven by truck and that
that community would rely on trucking. So it's again it's
kind of a gray area. Yeah, they can. I would
like to, um, I would like to explore this great
article we found which was from a comedy website, I know,

(14:51):
the one you're going for. Yeah, but this wash you've
found this into um this was a list of quote
terrifying things only truckers know about the highway. This is
not a safer work article. I guess to pay out
where you work. Not so much family friendly. Maybe if

(15:12):
you want to put it that way, this is this
is maybe it's PG thirteen, I would say, but a
strong PG. Yeah. Yeah, but don't worry. We'll we'll make
sure we'll keep it classic. Yeah, we'll clean it up
a little bit. So we'll just walk through this real quick,
because if you are, you know, driving a sedan and
daily basis, uh, you might not know about these things

(15:35):
that truckers routinely encounter. So the first one they come
right out of the gate with this one, Scott. The
first one is that multiple truckers, and I can confirm
this because one of my uncles runs a trucking company.
Multiple truckers see people behaving in sexually inappropriate ways while

(15:56):
they're driving, various stages of undress. Sure the thing and
uh and at all times a day, all times to night,
all kinds of people, all kinds of people, some alone,
some with other people, all kinds of things. So that's
that's the thing that first off, I feel like it's
risky to check your phone at a stoplight. I don't
know how these people are pulling this thing off, you know,

(16:19):
I don't know, Ben, there's you know, there's a lot
i'd like to say right here, but I probably should.
We're a family, should, Yeah, exactly. So I think some
people are just a little bit more comfortable with that,
with that, you know, they'd be okay check on their
phone at the light, of course, sure, I'm sure that's
of course not something that they've fread about. But there's

(16:39):
there's an important thing here because due to just the
height of the cab, what I think a lot of
people in stands don't realize is that it is very
very easy for a driver or a passenger and a
semi just see everything that's going on in the vehicles
next to them everything. And if you if you doubt this,

(17:01):
take a look online, do whatever kind of word search
you want to do for this, and you'll see a
view from their vantage point and you will be surprised
at just how much they can see into your vehicle. Now,
tinted windows or not, doesn't matter. It's there's there's well,
different times a day play into that as well, you know,
the sunlight instead. But um, some people are in it
for in it to be seen and other people are

(17:24):
trying to be a little bit more secretive about it.
But in both cases, um, you know, it's it's seen
either way. I don't want to sound like approved no
but can't wait till you get home, or like they're
they're motels everywhere. Yeah, just man, I don't know. But
but here's the here's a cold drink or something, right,
take a walk to the lapp But here's here's one

(17:45):
of the things. Though this sounds like maybe one of
those folklore urban legend type events that's perhaps more widely reported,
but it actually occurs. However, Apparently it's so common that
some truckers say one of the easy ways to spot
a rookie driver or a newbie trucker is when they

(18:06):
start blowing up the radio, blowing up the cb uh, saying, oh, whoa,
watch out. These people are messing around in this car
because they don't understand how common it is, because it's
just happening everywhere. It's like, oh, it's just old hat
at this point, right right, Yeah. Yeah. So here's another
one that's less Yeah you got that one for me.

(18:30):
Well done, man, thank you. Yeah, you knocked that one
out of the park. Although I have to admit I
don't know where old hat comes from. Imagine it's literally
an older hat. I'm sure it's a very old saying
old hat is old hat. Um. Here's another one that's
a little more family friendly, but definitely more important for

(18:50):
any driver. People should know this. And this is the
one that we had talked about just briefly in the
very intro and I said, remember when you see that
truck on the road that you don't think longs on
that type of road, you know, a smaller road. What
are you doing on this mountain with these switchbacks? Yeah,
well it happens. And and some of the reason why
that happens now, okay, So there could be the reason
that you know, there's a local delivery, they have to

(19:11):
be there. They have to you know, it's a moving
van and they're moving someone into a neighborhood and they
have to go down this road to get to it.
That that happens all the time. Or it's you know,
a grocery store or something that's kind of out of
the way. It's a rural community. This is a path through,
but you don't normally see them. It's it's infrequent, you know.
Other times the problem is GPS GPS that a lot
of trucking companies require their drivers to use because it

(19:35):
takes them the shortest route in you know, every situation. Uh,
the GPS doesn't always know that. You know that that
kind of go between road, the one between the two
main highways that you're trying to to cross, is something
that is really almost impossible to navigate with, you know,
a sixty ft long trailer. If you're not impossible to navigate,
So they often get stuck in bad situations, you know,

(19:57):
like a turn that they can't make without knocking over
a lampole um it happens, or you know, they um
drive through a small town where there's just not enough
room for that type of truck on the road, and
you know, they take up more than their lane. You know,
it's a it's an older town with narrow lanes and
and it just makes everybody, uh you know, I will
I'll say suffer, but it's not really suffering. It's an
inconvenience for other people. But that happens too, so it's

(20:20):
not always the trucker's fault that they get put in
these bad situations. As this guy says, and this article
says here and cracked it says, Um, consider that truck
is like a spider, Uh, someone that's probably more afraid
of you than you are of them, because, uh, they
really shouldn't be on that road and they know they
shouldn't be on that road. They probably get a ticket
if they're caught on that road because you know, the

(20:40):
weight limits or whatever. But gps inadvertently lead them to
that road, and you know, what are you gonna do
at that point? You can't throw it in reverse and
back up to the highway. You find your way out.
And that goes to a bigger thing that will explore
in a little more depth, which is how tight the
timetables can be Yeah, so GPS plays heavily into this, right.

(21:00):
Let's see, we talked about sexual inappropriateness, we talked about
indie up on the wrong roads. And there's one thing
that we've heard a lot of rumors about, which would be,
what's the best way to say, it's got like the
criminal underbelly of trucking. Well, you're talking about like drug

(21:20):
dealers and prostitution and uh, I guess well, not just
the dealers, but the people that are buying the drugs,
people that are using the drugs. Uh, and these This
all happens that truck stops, It happens at rest stops,
it happens, you know, just about anywhere that truckers gather.
And I don't know, I don't think it's really boy,

(21:41):
how do how do I want to put this? It's
not that everybody does this, of course, no, It's just
that often people who are trucking professionals have encountered or
like seeing this stuff happening. Sure, so it's it's around,
you know. We we looked at a little bit of

(22:01):
the statistics about how law enforcement approaches this, but the
truth of the matter is it's going to continue now,
you shouldn't believe any fiction on television right inspired by
this sort of crime associated with truck stops, because it's
probably gonna be sensationalized an alarmist. But it is a fact.

(22:26):
It's readily available. You know, all the things that we've
talked about are readily available at these at these lots.
And uh, and some choose to partake, and some choose
not to partake. And um, you know it's funny. You know,
you've you've heard tales of you have, truckers using meth
to stay awake for long, long periods of time to
get across, uh, you know, the whole country in one shot.

(22:47):
I think I've heard, you know, tales of bite gangs
doing the same thing so they can go from you know,
east coast to west coast or vice versa. Um, sure,
that probably happens, but it's not the Uh, it's not
the common I guess it's not the it's not the
it's not the They're probably the exception to the rule.
They're not the rule. Maybe that's the best way to
put it. Yeah, And there's there's another thing, and this

(23:12):
I think is crucial and inspiring. This is probably one
of the most unappreciated jobs in the US, or at
least I would say under yeah, undervalued, because as as
we said, these people are literally the reason you are
able to buy stuff in a store. Whatever the store

(23:33):
is doesn't usually matter. Um, And there's a there's a
high demand for truckers at this point, oh sure, yeah. Yeah.
In fact, just about every truck that you pass has
a sign on that says we're hiring. Here's a phone
number to call. But what that means is there's also
likely a high rate of turnover. And well we'll talk
about that in just a moment, but this gets we're
we're kind of undercutting what our number two item on

(23:56):
this list is here, and that is that it's surprising
easy to get a trucking license. And you wouldn't think so,
You wouldn't think that'd be something that's simple to get.
But do you remember the old uh, you know, the
commercials on Tellerson. I don't know if they still do
these or not where you get your Yeah, you can
get your CDL, but you can also get a degree
in welding or sewing or you know whatever, and they
listed you know, fifty different professions. You can get a

(24:18):
degree in in something like two weeks or four weeks
or whatever. It was maybe six weeks um. But but
it's surprisingly easy to get a trucking license from a
diploma mill, as these truckers in this article call it
called a trucking school. And I guess that's the most
basic form of education that you can get for this
type of job, is it is a truck to go

(24:38):
to trucking school, just get a quick diploma, and you're
on the road. But a lot of it, just so
that this is clear, a lot of trucking companies will
then require further training of their drivers because they don't
want somebody that just came out of a trucking school
that only has you know, X number of weeks of
training or x number of hours of on road experience
behind the wheel of their big rig. And and under standably, so,

(25:00):
I mean they're carrying let's say they're carrying a half
a million dollars worth of uh, you know, product on
and in the back end, who knows how much that
that big rig costs, and you know that the tractor
trailer part of it. So you know, it makes sense
that they would want their employees to have more training.
The problem is that there's a huge rate of turnover
in this job as well, and an extremely high number,

(25:22):
shockingly high number, yeah, seven percent turnover insane especially we
can consider I don't know how you feel about this, Scott,
but I'm a big believer in experience. I think experience
goes much further than you know in school training. So

(25:44):
a lot of a lot of folks who are listening
now who are experienced truckers probably do notice behaviors that
newer trucker's exhibit that they're probably gonna have to get
rid of over time. But and I think that what
this takes into account is that you know, they're sure
there's some companies that you know, guys or girls will

(26:05):
will sign on with early on and stay their whole
career with them. You know that they'll they'll they'll go
from end to end. The ones that they're talking about
are the uh, you know, the companies that are are
more about um, you know, cutting costs. You know they
want they want to or that they would feel more comfortable.
I guess if you can call it this putting unexperienced
drivers on the road, where you think that would be

(26:27):
more trouble than it's worth. But but it's not to them.
That is the way they see it is they want
to keep the costs low, so they're they're willing to
hire these inexperienced drivers in order to just get the
bodies on the road and get the product there, even
if that means that they lose the truck here there
they have some incidents on the road. I mean, that's
that's not the greatest way to think about it, obviously. Um.
The other thing is that, you know, fuel is a
huge expense, so you know, one one solution that they've

(26:50):
come up with is to make the CDL you know, um,
just really really easy to attain. And then the wages
that they can pay these unexperienced drivers is extremely low.
You know, you can get that CDL easy, and then
you can get into a trucking job that pays very
very low. But they don't really care. They just want
to get the product there. And again they'll kind of
wipe all these incidents under the under the rug for

(27:12):
as long as they can and then just get a
new batch of young and experienced drivers in and and
it's a terrible system. And some of the again some
of the older truckers, as you said, don't like seeing
this trend happen, but again a turnover and that's they
said that, that's after the numbers have dropped a little bit.
This was back in I think these numbers coming from
I don't know that. The way they put it in

(27:32):
the article is that that means that, statistically speaking, every
driver you see is both new on the job and
about to quit at the same time. Oh wow, I
didn't think about that. Yeah, So that means that a
lot of these new drivers that you see on the
road are more preoccupied with thinking about their next career move. Uh,
then whether you're currently inside their wheel Well, that's how
they put it in the article, so you know, like

(27:52):
they're they're more focused on what's going on outside of
the cab than what's going on inside the cabin. That's
not a good place to be. This leads to an
immediate question, which is why is that turnover rate so high?
And we will answer, at least partially after a word
from our sponsor and we're back and Ben, you had

(28:17):
kind of hinted that we were going to talk about
maybe maybe an answer to you know, to to why
that's happening. Yes, it turns out that overwhelmingly truckers are
paid by the mile, and this is quote insanely dangerous.
I agree the authors make the case here that trucking
differs from a lot of other careers because it's really

(28:40):
tough to to project how much money you're actually going
to make because you're paid by how far you go,
not how much time you spend driving. Yeah, well, yeah, okay,
there's there's some rule restrictions, or I should say our
restrictions that the truck drivers have, and uh yeah, if
you want, I can talk about those for just a moment,
all right, So I at the latest set of stats here,

(29:02):
the latest um set of figures that will tell us
how long a trucker can be on the road from
a place called the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration or
fm c s A. You can look these up online.
The the version that I'm looking at was updated on
March nine, so it's very recent. And there's a couple
of different hours of service rules that apply to different

(29:23):
types of trucking. Now we had said, you know, trucking
encompasses a lot of different types of trucks, right, not
just not just over the road hollers, you know that
are that are on the road all night and semis trucks.
It's everything passenger carrying drivers so you know if you're
driving a charter bus or something like that too. So
there's two different categories for service rules. There's property carrying

(29:43):
drivers and then there's passenger carrying drivers. For property carrying drivers,
the semis that we see on the on the highway,
they are limited to eleven hours of driving time. That's maximum. Uh,
that's every day. They can drive eleven hours, but that's
only after ten consecutive hours off duty. So they're they're
these uh, restrictions that are put on not only just
the number of hours you can drive, but but the

(30:05):
restrictions are also on how much time you have to
have in between. You can't break that up into a
different way. So like you you drove eleven hours, but
that was after you know, three hours and then a
two hour break, and then another three hours and another
one hour break, and you can't you can't chop it
up that way. Um. Now, for passenger carrying drivers, they
have a ten hour drive in limit, you know, maximum
per day, and that's after eight consecutive hours off duty

(30:28):
and then ben there's another couple of of line items
here that I want to mention that that go along
with the property carrying and the passenger carrying that I
think we should mention. I'll read it, but I think
that the way I've got it um kind of picked
apart in my mind, is right. But you tell me
if you think of you right? All right, So there's
there's also a fourteen hour limit on property carrying drivers,
but that is um, Okay, here's what it says. The

(30:52):
driver may not drive beyond the fourteenth consecutive hour after
coming on duty following ten consecutive hours off duty off
duty time to not extend the fourteen hour period. So
here's what I think that means. And I may be
getting this right or it might begin as wrong. I
think what they're talking about is, you know, downtime when
you're waiting at the docks somewhere. I think that you

(31:12):
you know, are allowed a certain amount of time to wait. Well,
you know, someone unloads your truck and then you get
back on the road. So that that, I think is
what what plays into this um. For passenger carrying drivers,
that's a fifteen hour limit. Again, I think that this
means if you drop somebody off at a stop like
they take a tour group to a museum and you
have to wait for them for four or five or
six hours. I think that that extends the amount of

(31:34):
time that you're allowed to be on the road because
you've had that break in between. But I could be wrong.
I hope I'm not reading this right. Again. It's it's
a law that I'm not familiar with. I just read
about it this morning and thought I would bring it
in here, because you know, the eleven hour driving limit
with the ten hours off for for property and then
ten hour driving limit with eight hours off for for
passenger seems to be just kind of the general general ruled.

(31:56):
Everybody follows that. There has to be the rule they follow,
and they keep the they keep dogs that that tell,
you know, anybody that might pull them over, a police officer,
you know. Here's here's my latest. And some of these
are electronic as well, electronic driving logs, and this begins
to show the tough situation that a lot of truckers

(32:16):
are are finding themselves in increasingly because you're pushing against
the clock, you know, and you're also pushing against mileage,
and especially if you're a contractor, you have existing overhead
costs that you have to worry about, Like, let's not
like we haven't even got into the cost of gas

(32:36):
and how that works out state by state. That's a
huge one or the limits placed on that because there
are certain states that only allow you to buy you know,
X number of gallons. I think California was listed as
you know one that they can only buy fifty gallons
of fueling. That's the maximum. Yeah, and that can go
pretty fast. Right, Let's put some hard numbers behind this.
The American Trucking Association, again, this is one of the

(33:00):
best resources for this information. In two thousand and sixteen,
it looked like the the labor shortage was going to
be up to forty eight thousand drivers, and over the
next ten years that could bloom to a hundred and
seventy thousand, which automatically poses a threat two multiple aspects

(33:23):
of the American economy. Sure, yeah, of course it does.
That's other huge numbers, and Ben, I think this would
be a good place to mention here that you know,
we're talking about all these rules and regulations that that
apply to truckers, and there are there are a lot
of truckers that don't follow the rules because they realized
they won't make enough money to keep themselves on the
road any longer. So uh, they feel them they feel

(33:45):
that if they don't kind of skirt the edge of
the of the rule, they don't bend the rules a
little bit, that they won't necessarily be able to make
enough money to continue what they're doing, what they love
to do. So, you know, some of these these rules
and restrictions are are so restricting there that they're unable
to continue on, you know, unless they find a way around,
as some of them have resorted to methods of of

(34:06):
cheating on some of these logs. And you can find
forums that talk about things like that. Again, not everybody
does this, and we know that that's probably not the
majority of people, but the majority are on the level,
there's the minority of people that that that do um,
you know, try to I guess a doctor the log
books just a little bit, even if it's an electronic
log book, and they find ways around it. They find

(34:28):
a way to you know, to skirt the uh, the
law in a way that is profitable to them or
to the company, allows them to stay on the road longer,
allows them to drive greater distances, to haul bigger loads,
you know, whatever it happens to be. But um, again,
not the majority to do that. And I think you know,
one other thing is that you know what with all
this talk about how you know what drives them is,

(34:48):
you know that they've got you know, they're against the clock,
they're against the mileage, they're against the price of fuel,
they're against a lot of different things. Right. Um, you've
heard rumors or tales of of you know companies that
hand out um, you know, uppers to the drivers that
are gonna be on the road overnight along with their paycheck.
You know, things like that, you know, like caffeine pills
that you know, keep them going. Um, that's again the

(35:11):
vast minority of of trucking in trucking companies, I suppose
it would do something like that. Most of them again
are on the up and up, and they want their
drivers safe, they want the products safe, so they're gonna
take care of them in whatever they have the way
they have to. So essentially, it's just a bad apple situation.
You know, there's there's one that spoils the whole group,
but that's the one that gets the most pressed right right,

(35:33):
Because the thing is when you're doing a job like
this correctly, then people aren't going to really hear about it,
you know what I mean. The the average for instance,
it's like good grocery stores, right, especially given that so
much food is perishable, that is a very time sensitive
product to deliver. The average grocery shopper is not walking

(35:57):
by the produce aisle and going, man, I'm sure glad
that these people showed up on time. What they're doing
is they're seeing maybe one story in the news about
an isolated incident, and then they're saying, oh that is
or they're not saying, uh, you know, man, this lettuce
shures wilted, but I'm glad the truck driver got here safe.

(36:19):
They're not saying that. Unfortunately they're not. Yeah, I mean,
it's too bad that that's not the case, right, you know, like, well,
no one, no one was injured. But you know, this
tomato it looks like it's seen better days again. You know,
truckers are are sacrificing a lot, you know too, in
order to get that stuff to you on time, and
they're trying to do it in the safest way possible.

(36:40):
So give them a little bit of leeway on the road.
That's what we mean, right, Yeah, and you know what,
there's a couple other things here that uh, you know,
some of the questions I guess you know, I said
early on, we're gonna talk about some of the f
a queues that people might have, you know, like when
you're on the road, Hey, why did that truck driver?
That's the question, right, and and let's talk about that
in a moment. Right after a word from our sponsor,

(37:07):
we're back, Scott. I'm glad you brought this up because, uh,
let me tell you man, as longtime listeners know, we
have been driving in Atlanta for years now, and traffic
can be insane. You know, We've rants about turn signals
and following distance aside, it feels like it would be

(37:30):
nerve racking to be driving a rig through a downtown
area in traffic, just because of the way you see
people cut off trucks constantly, the way that people will
try to like edge into the blind spot. Don't get
me started on those hyper milers. Well but see here's

(37:53):
the thing, like you know, you mentioned cutting them off,
so so truckers feel that, you know, cars don't give
them courtesy. Cars feel that truckers don't give them cur
to see. It's kind of this back and forth thing.
But maybe you know this article that I that I
came across in a place called Trucking Truth dot com
and it's called you know, why do truck drivers do that?
That's the big question is why do they do that?

(38:13):
And it's written by an experienced truck driver's name. He
goes by the name trucker Mike on the site if
you want to look up some of his other articles,
but lots of experience, but it's kind of an honest
view of the trucking industry and some friendly advice. And
this article is more to I think it's really more
to people that don't drive trucks than to uh than
t truckers themselves, because obviously they're the ones who counter

(38:34):
this every day. But it will allow you to understand
why why they do that. So, so, why does a trucker,
let's say the number, the first one here on the
list is you know why do they why do they
ride next to each other and try to block traffic
on the expressway. Well, it's not that they're trying to
block traffic. That's not the that's not what they're their
their goal is and you might be thinking that while
they're trying to um, what do you call pace traffic,

(38:57):
you know, trying to trying to kind of set the
law of the road. You know that that's not necessarily
what they're doing. As as trucker Mike points out, you know,
these trucks, a lot of them are governed at certain
speeds they can't go above you know, whether that's sixty
two miles an hour or sixty four miles an hour.
And he uses that in as an example, because that
comes into play here in just a bit. But let's
say anywhere between sixty and sixty five miles per hour maybe,

(39:19):
So there's a faster truck in a slower truck. And
I don't know if you've ever driven a governed truck.
Have you ever driven a governed vehicle? Uh? No, I
have not. Well, and you can think about this in
a simple way, I guess maybe if you were driven
a go kart where on a go kart track and
you're thinking like, well, this is a long straight why
can't I go any faster? That's the limit. You can
be pushing the gas down as hard as you can,

(39:40):
but after a certain threshold, it just stops, well, it
doesn't stop it it fails to progress any further. Maybe
you know it's uh, that's the maximum speed. And these
are said at sixty sixty five in some cases. But
when you have two trucks on the road that are governed,
let's say, as he said, sixty two and sixty four
and there next each other. When it won one that's fast,

(40:00):
or the sixty four mile in our truck tries to
pass the sixty two mile in our truck, you can
imagine how slow that already is. But then you start
to factor in other things like maybe the road starts
to rise slightly in front of them. You know, there's
a little bit of an incline, and that means that
even though the truck may have a faster government speed,
maybe it has a heavier load and that backs it
down so it's unable to climb the hill quite as quickly.

(40:21):
So there's a point where they kind of even out,
and that is so frustrating to you know, us four wheelers,
I guess you know, the ones that are on the
road thinking like what are they doing? They're blocking you know,
the two lanes here is supposed to be a quick pass,
right doesn't happen that way. You can't pass truck with
another truck that fast. So you know, it's not that
they're trying to be jerks and not trying to stick

(40:42):
next each other, you know in some way that you know,
laughing at you know that the people on the road,
it's that it's a situation where it's it's just it's unavoidable, really, right,
I mean, it's it's an unforeseen circumstance. You know that
the truck did rise, or that the truck has a
heavier load and it can't get by faster. So again,
it's not them trying to be jerks that they want
to go faster, but they just can't, right, They're they're

(41:02):
hard technological limits, yes, exactly right, And it's a situation
that they don't like. They don't like driving next to
other trucks, by the way, because there's not a whole
lot of room there. They have to really be focused
on staying in their lane, watching out for other vehicles
around them, they're passing, etcetera. So they don't like that
situation as well. Then the next one is that they
ask why why do truck drivers cut off cars? And

(41:23):
I laugh, you know, just about it. Every one of
these Why do truck drivers cut off cars? And it's
not that they're cutting off cars, it's because they're trying
to take advantage of the situation well they can, because
later on it's not going to be any better. It's
it's always bad for trucks. How want, how often you're
gonna find a seventy foot opening in traffic? They have
to take that shot when they've got it, and if
there's a if there's an opening, they have to go

(41:44):
for it, if if that's the lane that they need
to be in, and it's you know, oftentimes the space
is small, but they have to make that decision because
later there's just not gonna be that opportunity. And to
be frank, a lot of you know, car drivers aren't
going to give them the opportunity. Who wants to allow,
you know, just to stop and try traffic and allow
you know, eighty feet to go in, you know, to
develop in front of you there because you know other
cars are going to fill up that spot. So if

(42:06):
you allow eighty feet of space in front of you,
you know, from a dead stop, it takes a while
and hopefully the truck is gonna get in there, but
not a lot of people are willing to do that.
You know. The rough part is to this, This has
happened to multiple people, myself included. In a traffic jam.
You're feeling, you know, hospitable, charitable, and and you say,

(42:27):
I'm gonna let this poor schmo who's just trying to
get this freight liner through traffic. I'm gonna let him
get enough room to get in this lane. But as
soon as you create that space, like five BMW swoop in,
it happens, It really does. And so you're trying to
be nice. But what happens is you end up being

(42:48):
five cars behind and the truck is still not in.
So that happens. But the author of this article points
out that even if one person a day allows him
in the traffic, it just makes his day, like you know,
it can just be a bright point. You know that
that someone is watching out for him on the road
because it doesn't happen very often. So if you get
an opportunity to allow truck in, as he points out,
it's not going to slow you down all that much.

(43:08):
I mean, he may be a couple of car links behind,
but we know that doesn't amount to much when you
finally get to your exit at all. Really and also honestly,
if you're already stuck in gridlock, yeah, you're you're not
changing the amount of time it's going to take you
to get through. No. No. And if you watch the
aggressive behavior of people that are stuck in gridlock, it
it's sometimes funny because half the time you end up

(43:31):
in front of that person, no matter what kind of
effort they're putting, you know, putting forth to get you know,
cut in between cars and you know, try to dodge
whatever kind of traffic I get get at a faster lane.
So as he says, you know, it doesn't it doesn't
really gain you a whole lot and it it can actually,
honestly truly make a trucker's day to let them in,
let them merge when when it's necessary. So here's another one, Um,

(43:53):
whiter truckers get into the left lane even if they're
not passing anybody. Now, this is a This is an
interesting one because a lot of people will wonder this.
The real truth behind this is they're not trying to
block the fast lane or anything or slow everybody else
down and laugh again, the thing is that they're taught
to look very far down the road and they've got
this real high vantage point that most cars and trucks
don't have. I mean, they're significantly higher than even some

(44:15):
of the big trucks or SUVs. So you've got this
great vantage point. They might see an emergency vehicle, they
may see something in the road, some debris, you know,
some other situations going on, someone changing a tire that's
down the road that you might not see it. So
if they see a hazard, as soon as they're able
to get over, their training tells them that they're supposed
to get over. And you know, in larger cities where

(44:35):
there are three lanes, the truck drivers are taught to
use the center lane so that they have, you know,
a direction to go either way should something happen. And
that's called the Smith system. And the Smith system is
something that they're taught in a defensive driving course and
a lot of drivers have to take these defensive driving
courses in order to drive for whatever you know, company
that they're driving for. Most required, a lot of them required,

(44:55):
I should say, they teach them that it is a
lot safer to use that center lane again, so that
you know, should something happen on the left or right.
They've got the direction to go either way. They're not
forced one way or the other or just smashing into somebody.
So you know, if you've got to, if you see
a truck in the middle lane and you've got a
left or right lane, choose to pass on the left.
Always because they've got bigger blind spots on the right

(45:16):
hand side. And those you know signs are stickers are
on the back of that truck for a reason. Um.
You know those ones that say that if I can't
see if you can't see my mirrors, I can't see you.
It's absolutely true. And and the blind spots on the
right side are far greater than the blind spots on
the left side of the truck. So always passed trucks,
especially trucks on the left side, if possible. Yeah, I
completely agree. I'm actually, especially if I'm on a little

(45:39):
two lane road or something. I used to until until
actually my uncle told me to knock it off. I
used to be one of those people would just wait
for a passing opportunity and then just gun it to
get around them. But now you know that I've mellowed
out a little bit. I'm fine being behind them and

(45:59):
giving them enough distance because, um, one author described semis
as sixty ft long highway missiles. You know, there's a
lot of there's a lot of force there, so there's
a lot of weight to stop, right, So I I
try not to not to linger too close to any
any big rig you know, just because it's better, it's

(46:22):
better for the operators if I stay out of the way.
You know what. That kind of touches on another item
here on this list, and I'm gonna jump ahead, you know,
a little bit out of order. But um, it's it's
okay because we talked about weight and how hard it
is to stop something like this right that. You know,
you know, it's like a missile on the road. A
lot of people will think that, you know, the trucks
have they have eighteen wheels, are gonna have eighteen breaks, right,

(46:43):
Not the case. They do have ten. They do have
ten breaks. However, a lot of them have ten breaks,
so that's still a lot of breaks. But the problem
is that means for a fully loaded truck, each break
has to stop something like eight thousand pounds. Now think
about that. I mean, your car is probably like, you know,
three thousand pounds or pounds or something like that. You've
got four disc brakes that stop that they've got they've

(47:05):
got ten breaks that each have to stop eight thousand pounds.
So um, you can see that. You know, it's very
difficult from the stop. And they're also thinking about things like, um,
you know, the uh, the load in the back, how
it might shift if they have to slam on the
brakes or you know, make an abrupt maneuver. So um
that that's one of the reasons why And this is
the question here, is that why did trucks sometimes run

(47:25):
yellow or even red lights. You know, they have to.
They have a point of no return. They decide when
it's safe to stop and when it's not safe to stop.
You know, there's a point where they say, anyway, whatever
happens here, I've got to go through there. And they
may blow their horn, they may flash their lights or something,
but they're letting you know, I can't stop this rig
in time safely. It's safer for me to continue on through.

(47:46):
And hopefully everybody is paying enough attention to to allow
that to happen without any kind of incident. It doesn't
always happen, but um, again, that point of no return
is something each truck or ever has to think of.
And you know that also has to do with the turns,
like the speed that they take turns um you know,
the stopping and you know how how how the loads
are are you know, set up and everything in the back.
So when they're on curves, give them a little bit

(48:08):
of leeway and that you know, they do have to
take them a lot slower. You know, the posted signs
that no one else pays attention to, you know in
the cars, you know, thirty five turn or twenty five
hour turn. Truckers will often take that at a you know,
even ten miles an hour below that posted limit because
they understand that everything in the back is shifting so dramatically.
And if even if like the bottom box of a

(48:28):
you know, a stack of produce gets crushed, that means
that the whole stack is then at risk for tipping
over and that could be a lot of money. And again,
you know, sometimes as they said, they're carrying you know,
half a million dollars worth of produce. That's that could
be a problem. I guess if you know, they open
the gates or they opened the door and a lot
of that is crushed or destroyed, it's it's unusable. So um,
you know, it's in their best interest to to keep

(48:50):
things you know, slow and steady and get it they're
safe and and you know all intact, I suppose, and
you'd appreciate that too as a consumer, because you know,
the stuff gets to you undamaged. Absolutely. Yeah. And oh,
here's one that we had talked about on our on
our road trip, we passed in the middle of the night,
we passed so many trucks that were pulled off on
the side of the road or on off ramps, and

(49:12):
we you know, we knew what was going on. There
was a big storm that was happening. So that's one thing.
You know, truckers will often pull off in heavy storms
that they know they're coming, and that's kind of a
cueue for other drivers to know there's some serious weather coming.
But at night, a lot of truckers have to kind
of find somewhere to pull the truck off. There's a
huge shortage of parking, at least here in the United

(49:34):
States for trucks, and I didn't know this. I didn't
realize that, you know, there just aren't enough truck stops
there just aren't enough even rest areas for trucks to
pull over. You know that sometimes they have designated sleeping
areas for trucks, but in a lot of states and
a lot of parts of the country, they don't. So
they have to find wherever they can, and a lot
of times that's on or off ramps, just on the
side and they have to sleep there, just just let

(49:55):
the truck idle overnight. And it's not the most comfortable
thing for them. It's dangerous. They don't like it, but
it's something they have to do because they can't find
anywhere else to park. So if you see that happening,
realize that they don't choose to be there, that's just
where they end up. They have to have to end up,
I suppose overnight. And then the last one on the
list band is something that, um, I don't know if

(50:15):
this is something that we have talked about so many times.
It's kind of a moral dilemma. And this person that
wrote this again, trucker Mike, writes in and says that
you know, there was a time when truckers were known
as the knights of the Highway. You know, they would
they would help about anybody that was in a bad situation.
They would stop and pick up hitchhikers, they would help
people with a flat tire, you know, whatever they happened,
upon an accident exactly, they would be sometimes the first

(50:37):
responders because they're the ones on the scene. But that's
not the case anymore. That now a lot of companies
actually have policies against stopping to assist motorists. So you
would think that, um, you know that those kind of
I don't know, the rules that are not really the
rules of the road, but the unspoken rules of the road.
You know that you help out a motorist that needs assistance,
A lot of a lot of us adhere to that.
You know, if you see somebody that needs the tire change, well,

(50:59):
we've talked this probably at at length, if not in
too much depth, in other another podcast, so I'll skip
over that. But as this guy points out, as Trucker
Mike points out, a lot of times, the cargo can
be in the millions of dollars, you know, so, um,
it's easy to see why it's it's not a very
smart move for a trucker to pull over in the
middle of the night to help somebody that you know

(51:19):
has a flat tire, you know, because it may not
be that, it may be the set up. Well. Yeah,
times are changing, man. The common practice of stopping to
help somebody on the roadside has really dropped off in
this country. Yeah, and again this is another one of
those bad apple situations that you know a lot of
people truly do need help. And and again he says,
you know, if if we see something like that, a

(51:40):
lot of times we'll call and alert you know, the
local authorities that something's going on. There's a car broken
down at this mile marker, and you know, go check
it out and see if they need help. I can't stop.
I'm not not able to stop. Um. But but they say,
they do say if they witness an accident. You know,
some companies have said if you're not involved, don't stop.
But if you're involved, of course you want to stop.
But the other thing is, okay, there's all different levels

(52:01):
of this too, Ben. It's that you know, if if
they see something like that and someone's hurt, obviously most
of these guys are gonna stop and and and assist
in whatever the way they can. You know, they don't
want to see anybody suffer. They don't want to see
anybody that's you know, going to die because they have
to get their load to you know, Walmart or Target
or wherever it's going. Um. But but they also say that,
you know, they have to keep their wits about them.
They have to understand that, you know, maybe in some

(52:23):
cases as best for law enforcement to kind of take
over and you know, to to just alert the authorities
or somebody that can do something that's not in a
position that they're in. So this knights of the what
I say, Knights of the Highway, that code doesn't really
apply anymore. But that's kind of sad that that's kind
of gone away. And and you know the reason that
that's gone away. And speaking of code, camaraderie and community.

(52:47):
I would like to bring this the last thing I
have for today for our intro to an inside look
behind the curtain of the trucking industry. And it's this Convoys,
not just an amazing song, not justin an okay movie,
but the the actual the actual phenomenon of a convoy.

(53:11):
So a lot of people know it through the song,
probably more than no The actual practice a convoy is
any group of vehicles traveled together to exploit the old
truism about strength and numbers, safety numbers too. So a
convoy could be any type of vehicle, right, yeah, convoy

(53:31):
could be planes, it could be boats. It could be
a bunch of guys on pogo sticks. Man, it's still
technically a convoy, okay, and uh and and I have
not seen a pogo stick convoy. I don't know. If
there's probably some. There's probably something like that. It's probably
like a pogo stick festival or something. Sure, I don't know.
Let let me know if it's in your town, I'll

(53:52):
see if I can make it. But the long and
short of it is this practice existed way before motor vehicles. Nowadays,
at least in English, convoys are almost if they're associated
with something aside from again just an astonishing piece of music,
then they are they serious. Then then they're going to
be associated with tractor trailers. And this did come out

(54:17):
of a move for protection, because here's what happens the
United States when they had a national fifty five mile
prower speed limit, eighteen wheelers will become the prime targets
of speed traps. So in the in the film Convoy,
the sheriff who's played by Ernest Board nine get his

(54:38):
name correct, Okay, a little before my time, but I'll
rub it in. But one of the things I couldn't
help it. One of the things that the sheriff character
does is goes on the CB pretending to be a
trucker and telling people it's okay to speed so that
you can bust them. But Rubbert Duck is onto him.
That Chris Chris Stefferson, right, let's Chris Christofferson. You know

(55:01):
your stuff a little bit. So the rationale here was
that truckers already even at this time, had really difficult
schedules to keep because of the timeline and to reach
the destination on time, just the way the math worked out,
they had to go faster than fifty. So the idea
was that multiple rigs could run together and if a

(55:26):
speed trap occurred the police chase them, they would only
be able to get one most. And then also you
can conserve fuel by drafting, just like hyper miles, which
you know, if you're listening to this and you are
a trucker, I hope you're enjoying the episode, and I
hope no one's drafting off you because that that would

(55:48):
drive me crazy. Yeah, but you know what, sometimes I
think that again, trucks from the same company will do that.
They'll draft in a kind of a train, I guess,
so that you know that they can conserve fuel, they
can move across at a faster race. Um. I've seen
before where the trucks from the same company are seemingly
three or four ft apart and they're just screaming down

(56:09):
the highway. I've seen that. It's been a long time
since I've seen it because now it seems like in
the area that we're in there's just not enough open
road to do something like that. But I've seen that
in the past when I was younger, on you know,
road trips out west or wherever that you know, they're
just it's hard to describe, but it does become almost
like a train. It's like they're connected, but they're not connected,
but they are so close, just so trusting that the

(56:30):
other driver knows what they're doing, that they're not anticipating
any kind of abrupt stop. You know, they just know
they've got open, free road ahead of them and they're
on their way. It's it's kind of a cool thing
to witness to see it. But the ones that I've
seen have been very small, not anything that you know,
like not fifty trucks in a row. I'm talking like,
you know, four or five trucks at the most. I've
got one cool thing. So we focused on the US

(56:52):
for most of this episode. There's one thing I just
couldn't resist related to convoys. Okay, what's that? So in
several European in countries there's special rights for marked convoys.
They have to be treated like a single vehicle. So
if you and our superproducers and I are all driving

(57:15):
in Norway, Greece, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and a couple
other places, then if, like if you're in the lead
and we go through an intersection as a marked convoy
and the light changes, the rest of us still go
no kidding, no kidding, that's not what I thought you
were gonna say. I thought you're gonna say that. You know,
if one gets pulled over, they all get tickets. But

(57:36):
it sounds like this is something that's that the I mean,
it must be a common thing, right, Well, how do
you know? How do you know that there's four more
trucks coming through that intersection when you see one, they're
they're marked, so they have like a uniform marking, so
you can you can tell their gang, you can tell
their click. They've got tats pretty much, they got the

(57:59):
one percent best they've all got. They've all got stupid hats.
They've all got old hats. Okay, brought it back around. Um,
so if other drivers overtake the convoy, you can't. You
can't cut into it. If you're passing that last car,
you have to pass the other four or five as well.

(58:19):
Funeral rules, Yeah, right, like a funeral procession rules. Right,
but that's more of a courtesy, Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
But the this most commonly occurs with the military, Like
during the Cold War, most of these convoys would be
military and nature, which, of course, if you're a civilian

(58:40):
driver and you see a bunch of clearly military vehicles
going by, I think most people would already just sort
of intuitively understand you shouldn't try to cut in the middle.
You know, I see that happen here on the on
the US highways a lot. You know they're traveling between bases.
You know they've got all the humvees and um, you
know that or you know, whatever types of vehicles have
got you know, the fuel trucks that type of thing

(59:02):
that they can drive on highways. They're driving very slow,
but it's you know, they're in full gear, full military gear,
and they're all traveling together, all camouflage vehicles or you know,
the tan vehicles or whatever. But yeah, there's no way
I'm cutting in between a couple of humbes, you know,
with with all these guys that are clearly from you know,
going from one base to the next base or you
know where whatever airport they're headed to or something. Yeah,

(59:23):
there's there's something a little bit intimidating about it. You know.
You you wouldn't want to disrupt that. And NGOs can
also exercise these rights, so it's not a it's not
a super common thing. We have to have legal permission.
We can't just all like slap a red stripe on
the hood of our respective vehicles and then say, all right,

(59:44):
we're a convoy now. But how cool would that be? Yeah,
that would be cool. So hopefully this is shed a
little bit of light on the trucking industry for non truckers.
You know, some of the some of the statistics and
the numbers are pretty impressive. Yeah, and I know that
we've only kind of you know, touched on a few
of the uh I guess maybe f a qes that
you might have as you're driving down the highway. But

(01:00:07):
we'll probably dive into, you know, some more of the
uh I guess mechanicals of of semis and some of
the the origin stories of some of the semi companies,
because I'm sure that there's gonna be some interesting ones.
We just have to define them, we have to dig
them out and if I find out what makes them
really an intriguing story, what makes them interesting? And here's
where we're looking for your help. If you are associated

(01:00:29):
with the trucking industry, if you're a trucker UH and
you have some stories or some things that you would
like your fellow car Stuff listeners to know, then find
us on Facebook and Twitter where car Stuff h s
w UH And you can also, while you're on the internet,
check out every episode we've ever done on our website
car Stuff Show dot com and there's a lot, a

(01:00:50):
lot you can I think we're almost to the point
where you can just type in any car name. It
seems like it it's almost like like an encyclopedia that's
getting there. Man and nice it's kind of nice to
be able to say that, you know, like we can
We've we've touched on a lot, like so much that
you can just about type in any word and something
will come up that that is related in some way.
We've you know, we've bumbled a few of those, well

(01:01:15):
a couple, sure, I mean, and it may be that
you know, you know, here's the other thing. Like you
can type in the words, you may not know that
it's associated with it. But if you if you're if
you're able to keep this type of thing sorted out
in your head, you may say like, oh, yeah, you
did mention this in that episode, but it's not something
that you could maybe do a word search for in Google.
So so that's the benefit of maybe listening to every

(01:01:36):
single episode of car stuff. So that's that's why we
get people to listen to every single episode ben, so
that they can kind of file it away and they
can bring it up at a party or something, you know,
like a like a little known fact or maybe a
stat a spec that's that's impressive to other other people
at that that party. Um, maybe that's all it's good for.
I don't know that that's a pretty good pitch Sky Well,

(01:01:59):
you know, no, that's kind of a weak pitch. But
it's but but that would take you like a thousand
hours to go through. It would be a long time.
I mean it's close to a thousand hours. It would
be a long Like, yeah, you could get your pilot
license multiple times. We have listeners that have listened to
the entire catalog from start to finish, some that have

(01:02:19):
some that have got a late start to the game
have gone back and listen to our classic episodes. I
guess all the way through today. Man, I give them
a lot of credit for some kind of award. How
would we ever prove it? How do we ever prove it? Yeah,
I don't know. This is getting complicated, but we'll work
on it. Let us know if you have suggestions for
that too. And what would the award be. That's a

(01:02:40):
great idea. That's a great thing for us to figure out. Well,
if you're asking me right now, I would say a
Convoy T shirt, But I I think maybe I'm just
getting a little carried away about a firm handshake. Firm handshake.
Let us know what you think the prize should be

(01:03:02):
for checking out every episode. Let us know your experience
in the world of trucking, and most importantly, if you
would like to take a page from your fellow listeners
book and suggest a topic you would like us to
cover in an upcoming episode where all ears. You can
write to us directly. We are car stuff at how
stuff works dot com. For more on this and thousands

(01:03:28):
of other topics, This is how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast that how stuff works dot com. M