Momma Trucker: What It's Like Being a Woman Truck Driver

I have been driving truck since June of 2002. When I first started driving it was for a OTR company, which means over the road. I've been just about everywhere in the U.S.A. The best part of driving OTR is you get to see a lot of places you never been to before. There are many states that are breath takingly beautiful,such as Oregan. The worse part of driving OTR is driving in the winter. there are a lot of states where the road gets so icy and slick . Also another bad part of being OTR is you only go home for a few days out of the month. I drove OTR for little more then one year.

Now I drive for a company that does both OTR and local. Now I am a local driver, which means I never go more then a hundred miles to deliver a load. I have been doing local driving for two years now. I go to work every night and work for about ten hours then go home in the morning. The best part of being a local driver is of course being able to go home every day. The worse part about being a local driver is there is a lot more work involved. Driving local you try to pick up and deliver as many loads from the customers that you can,which means you are dropping and hooking up to trailers constantly throughout you're shift.

Now a lot of people might think that driving truck is easy, well it's not. Many don't understand just how much is involved in driving a truck, so let me share it with you. There are many rules and regulations by the DOT that have to be followed and obeyed. If you do not comply to these rules then you may get fined a penalty fee. there are so many rules I can not list them all only give some examples. I once got a ticket for not having a mud flap on my trailer that was lost while driving. I didn't know it cause i have not yet stopped the truck to do a check on it, but the weigh station saw it when i was rolling across the scale. That ticket was $90.00 and is now on my dmv print out. The entire Truck and trailer can not weigh more then 80,000 pounds. each row of tires you see from front to back have a weight limit also they are called: the front tires are steers with a limit of 12,000.

The next set of tires under the front of the trailer are called drives with a limit of 34,000. the next set of tires at the end of the trailer are called the tandems or rear tires with a limit of 34,000. If you go over the weight limit on any of these you will be fined and if it can not be fixed you will end up staying there put out of service and if you are a driver you never want to be put out of service. It is up to every driver to make sure when they pick up a load that they stop at a scale usually located at a truck stop to weigh there load and make sure that it is not over weight on any of those tires. There are still endless rules that i will not mention today.

In edition to the rules drivers also have the task of driving itself, which is more involved then many people think. In some places like where I live even at night I have to share the road with a very large amount of people. Being a proffessional driver I have to watch every move every person makes behind me, in front of me, and to the sides of me. The reason why is so i can predict there moves and mistakes and take action to counter them. For example I see some one along side of me they keep looking over at me then the car in front of them. I know that as soon as the car in front of the one along side me moves up far enough the one along side me will bolt out in front of me to go around the other. What do I do to prevent this you wonder I slow down, thats what I do.

You see if I slow down then the car can safely get around the other car without risking a crash into me or the other car and yes people do this on a daily bases. People get in a hurry and in a lot of traffic do some pretty crazy things. I the proffessional have to see and know everything, be aware of everything and everyone. Every driver should keep at least a truck and a half behind any vehicle in front pof them. That will save lives, why because if there is an accident that happens in front of them traffic will stop suddenly. Keeping enough distance will allow the driver to be able to stop in time. Trucks take a great distance to stop do to the weight. Never cut a driver off and slam your brake in front of a truck to make your exit . A good driver can predict that and prevent that from happening, but we are only human and just like everyone else we can be taken off guard.

In conclusion driving truck is not an easy job and there is a lot of pro's and con's to the job. There is many responsiblities that a driver has. I enjoy my job, but would rather work from home and not deal with the daily stress of driving proffesionally.