Several times over the past couple of decades I have been offered opportunities in transportation management. I accepted a few of them. Unfortunately, they never last for long. The issue isn’t whether or not I am a good operations manager, safety manager, or driver supervisor. Not at all. The problem that arises is when I see a truck leaving the yard without ME behind the wheel, something inside me cries.

That seat behind the wheel of the 18 - 34 wheel monstrosity is supposed to have my ass in it. That is the natural place for my posterior to be planted. When there are trucks going down the highway on days when I am working, my butt had better be in the driver’s seat of one of them. That is where I belong. It is where I belong now, in the past, and in the future.

Dan Seals - Big Wheels in the Moonlight

A quarter of a century ago I went and obtained an class Ontario chauffeur’s license. That’s right, the one cab drivers needed. No specific training, just wrote the test and was handed the license. Off I went and got a job driving tractor trailers in downtown Toronto. Not only did I not know how to shift gears, I didn’t know how to start a truck, hook it up or more importantly for a city pick-up and delivery driver, I didn’t know how to back up. So why did I do it? Well, I needed the money.

My first ever delivery was to a huge grocery warehouse in Mississauga. For the life of me I can’t remember the name of the place. I managed to grind the gears, stall and otherwise damn near kill that old Ford tractor getting the trailer to the warehouse. When I hear people talking about idiot truck drivers and morons I know that what they are talking about is me 25 years ago. Once at the warehouse I was assigned one of the 75 doors to back into. I had to back a 45′ trailer between two of the most beautiful trucks I had ever seen, and then into a dark indoor dock. No problem. NOT! I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to get the long wide trailer between those two rigs in the small space provided between them and the fence. An old gentlemen noticed my demise, and probably the tears on my cheeks from realizing that I was in way over my head, but not wanting to admit that I was an idiot. The guy climbed up beside the door of the truck and asked if I needed help. All I could think was, NO SHIT SHERLOCK! But, I said meekly YES.

He told me to get out. I thought at this point the old guy was going to put the truck on the door for me. NOT! He had me walk to the back of the truck, picture in my mind where the trailer had to go to get on the door. After we had the mental picture straight he told me to get back in. I thought he was crazy, but I got back in thinking, so much for helping me. He then climbed up hung off the mirror in such a way that I could see using it. He then began to calmly talk me through backing the behemouth into the dock. It took about 10 minutes and a little moving ahead and back and ahead and back to get it in. Once in I thanked him profusely. Not so fast. He made me pull out and we did it all again. After a couple more times he had me pull out to the right and put it into the dock from the blind side. This maneuver requires REALLY picturing in your mind where the trailer is because for about half of the activity you REALLY can’t see the back. All this between two rigs that at the time were probably worth 150,000 each.

This guy, whose name I still don’t know to this day took 45 minutes and taught me what is probably the most difficult part of driving a truck. I learned two things that day. Driving is serious business, and getting frustrated is worthless and makes things worse. That was 25 or so years ago and it took me about oh 30 years to learn how to drive. WHAT? That’s right! I am still learning to drive. After attaining 2 million accident and violation free miles and, although I can thread a 2 trailer unit that is over 125′ long pretty much through the eye of a needle forwards and backwards I am still learning. Even though I teach people to drive, I am still learning. When I am stuck in traffic caused by weather or an accident, I am still learning. The most important lesson I learned from that old trucker was everything works out in the end if you have PATIENCE. There is a solution to every problem.

When seasoned drivers are screaming for help, I will try to teach them to find the solution for themselves, but to be patient. With patience and thoughtful problem solving, the most difficult maneuver can be completed by anyone. I can teach anyone to pass a road test, but if I teach them patience, they will eventually learn to DRIVE!

Offers come and offers go, but my decision is this: Until such time as I know it all, and I cease to learn something new about my profession every day I work, I am staying in that seat. Eventually I may graduate from truck driving school, but until then, in the words of Dan Seals, I am going to be driving those “Big wheels in the moonlight!!” On my run to Ft. McMurray each day I see kids doing the “honk the horn” signal. I see farmers working the fields and repairing fences along the road. There is usually a big grin and a wave as we pass. So long as it is apparent to the driver of a vehicle that the kids are asking for the horn I blast it a couple of times. For the regular farmers we see each day I let that old air horn rip in greeting. To these people we aren’t “that asshole in the truck, ” we are TRUCKERS! I couldn’t think of a better way to earn a living!!

Keep on trucking!!