It doesn’t take long on social media to find the drivers of certain carriers ridiculed. It is also not hard to hear people referring to other drivers as not being “real” truck drivers. Another interesting phenomena is that people will take time to record another driver making a mistake instead of using that same time to stop the driver from making the mistake in the first place.
None of this seems like a good methodology to increased camaraderie. At the end of the day we are all drivers whether we are in a straight truck, a flatbed, refrigerated trailer, low boy, heavy haul, drive van, mega carrier, owner operator, independent owner operator, lease purchase operator, or a few categories I have missed. Wouldn’t we be better off stopping someone from making a mistake instead of videoing for our next post on social media? Wouldn’t it foster this illusive comradery if all drivers were treated equally? First of all, comradery starts with each of us as individuals doing the right thing for our fellow truck driver.
I have a good example of how this can go from when I pulled a flatbed trailer. I started always helping the person ahead of me to un tarp, roll up their straps, and roll their tarps before I would start on mine. I had other drivers say to me why are you doing that they are not going to stay and help you. I usually told them I did not expect them to stay and help me. What I did tell them was the line will move faster as they are in a position to be unloaded. I started un tarping my load as the truck before me was being unloaded. As it turns out a good portion of the time that very same driver would stay and help me to un tarp my load. There was a large number of drivers that operated along this same route and over a period of time it became a regular occurrent to see a driver helping another to un tarp or tarp.
The key I am hitting on here is if we want to have comradery it all begins with our own individual happenings. If each one of us waits until someone else initiates an effort we will never find the illusive comradery that so many people seem to be longing for.