Why do most motorists hate truck drivers? Is it because their big rigs are so intimidating? Or do we think they’re all red-neck cowboys living the life on the range, and we’re secretly jealous?
I respect truckers and
think, for the most part, that they are much better drivers than the rest of
us. They have stiffer licensing requirements, better safety monitoring
and have much more experience behind the wheel. And unlike most of us
driving solo in our cars, they are driving truly “high occupancy (cargo)
vehicles”… 22 tons when fully loaded.
For an inside look at the unglamorous life of a trucker, I can highly recommend the 2018 national best-seller “Long Haul” by Greenwich native Finn Murphy who’d been driving since he was 18 for the Joyce Moving Company, based in Oxford CT.
Murphy is what truckers
call a “bed-bugger” because he specialized in high-end corporate
relocations. He was at the top of the trucker food chain, both in income
and prestige, far ahead of car haulers (nicknamed “parking lot attendants”),
animal haulers (“chicken chokers”) and even hazmat haulers (“suicide jockeys”).
While Murphy says a lot
of long haul truckers do the job because they can’t find any other work, his
career choice was an educated decision. He left Colby College before
graduation, realizing he could easily make $100,000 packing, moving and
unpacking executives’ prized possessions without his BA.
Since the start of COVID, millions
of Americans have moved their homes and from this
author’s perspective they all have too much stuff. They covet their
capitalist consumption of furniture and junk (what movers call chowder).
And it ain’t cheap to move it, averaging about $20,000 for a long distance
relocation. But as Murphy sees it, he’s more in the “lifestyle
transition” business than simply hauling and he must be sensitive to clients’
emotional state.
Murphy’s African
American boss nicknamed him “The Great White Mover” as, at age 62, he was one
of the last few white drivers. Most of the industry is now handled by
people of color, especially the local crews that do the packing and
unpacking.
When self-driving trucks eventually hit the
road, thousands of minority drivers are going to be out of luck. Robots
already do most of the loading and unloading of trucked merchandise bound for
big-box stores.
As an independent operator, Murphy incurred all of his expenses. His tractor (the detachable engine part of the truck) cost $125,000. That’s not counting the $3500 he paid to register it or $10,000 to insure it. A new tire (his rig had 18) costs $400 at a truck stop and maybe double that if he’s stranded on some interstate.
The average rig isn’t just a tractor hauling an empty trailer. Even before loading, that trailer has hundreds of pads (each of which must be neatly folded), plywood planks, dollies, tools, ramps and hundreds of rubber straps for tying things down. Loading his truck is like solving a giant Tetris 3D puzzle.
Murphy’s driving hours were
regulated and carefully logged, then checked at every state truck inspection
station. But he thought nothing of driving 700 miles per day, usually
parking at a truck stop and sleeping in his on-board bunkbed equipped with a
high-end stereo and 600-count Egyptian cotton sheets.
On the road he listened
to audio books and NPR, which is probably how he learned to write so well (the
book is not ghost written). Finn Murphy wasn’t the brawniest of movers,
but he’s easily among the smartest and most articulate.
After decades on the
road Murphy retired and moved to Colorado, transitioning to a new career in the
cannabis business… going $300,000 into debt but writing another
book, “Rocky Mountain High: A Tale of Boom and Bust in the New Wild West”.
Even if you have no
aspirations of life on the open road, Murphy’s well-written book may give you a
new appreciation of truckers and may even change your stereotypes.
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