Life on the road just gets tougher and tougher. Larger metro areas, denser traffic, increased road construction, anti-truck corporate policies, more trucks on the road, less parking, political/environmental laws aimed at truckers, over-regulation, blackball trucking companies and degenerate drivers all contribute to the increasing difficulty of life on the road.



Here's a day in the life of a truck driver who is intelligent, clean, respectful and works hard to make money for his or her family. Let's call this driver Bob. Bob, is a good guy. Here's a recap of Bob's day:



Bob wakes up at three o'clock in the morning after having shut down at six the night before. It's cold, windy and snowing out so Bob knows he has to get an early start to have any hope of getting to Walmart for his appointment this afternoon at fourteen hundred hours. He pulls his boots on and his parka and heads out into the icy cold storm and trudges three hundred yards to the truck stop so that he can grab a cup of coffee, use the facilities and brush his teeth.



Bob walks back to the truck, climbs in and starts up the engine. He then flicks on the lights and four ways and does a walk around pre-trip inspection tilting his head away from the driving snow. After fifteen minutes of examination, he determines that everything looks alright.



He climbs back in the cab, starts his log, sips his coffee and heads out into the tempest. There is little traffic at this hour and the plows haven't kept up very well so, seeing the road is tough right from the start. He calls into dispatch night crew on his Bluetooth gear and lets them know that things look pretty tough out where he is and that there is a risk he might not make the appointment on time. He's told to give it his best shot.



As Bob drives, the snow gets a little worse. The road is entirely covered. A few other idiotic truck drivers are trying to push fifty miles per hour when they should be down to thirty-five max. If they had to stop, Bob thinks to himself, they'd be done for.



Half an hour later Bob sees the first car off the road. It's a spin out in the center median. In the next hour, Bob's seen seven vehicles off the road including a tanker with its rear-end still hanging out over the road. At this point, Bob's hands are getting cramped. This is white knuckle driving.



Bob had made the decision to push on. There's really no place to stop where he is anyway. He just passed a rest area that was jammed to the hilt. However, Bob has to use the facilities. It's three and a half hours into his driving day and he has yet to see any decent place to find relief because they're all absolutely packed.



Finally, he sees a Walmart off I-80 that he has parked at before. So, he takes the exit. When he gets there, he is confronted by a sign that reads, "Parking lot construction. No Semi's." He curses under his breath and with some degree of difficulty, finds a place to turn around.



Back out on the highway, the snow is worse still. At least the plows are starting to bite into it.



Incredibly, the next rest area is not as packed and Bob is able to take care of business. Feeling a lot better, Bob heads back out.



Watching the clock, Bob is getting clenched up with tension. It's inevitable. It's now thirteen hundred hours and his appointment is at fourteen hundred. He still has forty-three miles to go but the roads are terrible and traffic is appropriately slow.



He calls dispatch again to let them know and his regular dispatcher says, "Just head there and see if they let you in."



When Bob arrives, it is Thirteen hundred hours and fifty minutes. He's made it ten minutes early. He breathes a sigh of relief.



There's a line of trucks there though and it takes Bob eight minutes to get into the guard shack. There, it takes another five to be processed and sent on to a dock door and to the receiving office.



It's fourteen hundred hours and fifteen minutes when he finally, after standing in line in the office to get waited on, gets called to the window. Keep in mind now, that Bob has been pushing it to the max for the last two days to get here through the weather and so forth.



The lady takes the paperwork, tells him it'll be fifty bucks to get unloaded and that he's late.



Bob says, "I was here at ten till."



The lady says, we give you an hour window ahead of your appointment time to get here. You need to be standing here talking to me at two o'clock. It may be a while before they can get to you. You might have to wait until all the seven-thirties are done."



Bob feels the air deflate from him. He looks at the lady with unbelieving eyes. Doesn't she know what he's just gone through to get this load here?



The fact is, she doesn't know and she doesn't care. It's a Walmart policy. Same as Sam's Club. A few other places are similar but these two are notorious for not caring and sticking like superglue to their policies. The fact is, if there was someone available to unload the truck at two o'clock, they'd still be available fifteen minutes after that and Walmart could make some degree of exceptions for the weather. But they don't. It's not policy.



So, Bob has to sit in the parking area and wait until whenever they call him to let him know he's been unloaded. It could be two hours. It could be seven hours. Bob really doesn't know.



What Bob does know, however, is that he will run out of hours if it takes Walmart longer than four hours to unload him. If he runs out of hours, he's stuck. But, Walmart won't allow him to stay on the property once he's unloaded. Federal regulations state that he cannot move the truck. Walmart orders that he must.



Couple that with the policy Walmart has that disallows idling while on their property. It's seventeen degrees out and Bob's company truck is not equipped to remain heated while the engine is shot down. After fifteen minutes, the temperature in the truck is the same as it is outside and Bob, despite having layers on, a heavy parka and so forth, is shivering to the bone.



Unable to stand the cold, Bob goes into the waiting room where there's heat.



Seven hours later, he gets called.



He walks back to his truck and tries to start it. "Tick, click, click..." No power. Battery is dead.



It takes three more hours for a wrecker to arrive and get him started. Bob's about dead on his feet and out of hours. Out of compliance totally. But, Walmart won't let him stay on the property like many other places will not.



Bob has to go find a place to park and shut down. It takes another forty-five minutes and Bob is having trouble keeping his eyes open and focusing on the road.



He finally finds a place and as soon as he turns off the ignition, gets a call from his dispatcher who gives him a verbal warning for being out of compliance and being late to a delivery.



I'm sure every driver has a story. Probably a whole bunch of them. About how the roads weren't constructed for trucks to drive on. About how a certain place was so rude even though you as the driver were polite. About other drivers and the danger they pose. About impossible delivery times and insane dispatchers. About parking problems and anti-trucking policies. It's part of the life and it's getting harder all the time yet the pay has stagnated for years and the overall quality of the drivers has decreased.



It's going to break sooner or later. One thing is for sure though; there are not many people out there enjoying the job any more and most of us are looking for something else to do. The only way the industry changes is if they have to in order to get freight moved.