9 Ways To Appreciate Truck Drivers
In the spirit of National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, we wanted to share some practical ways anyone inside or outside the transportation industry can appreciate the demanding and important jobs 3.5 million professional truck drivers do every day.
1. Know their value
Did you know that more than 80 percent of U.S. communities depend solely on trucking for delivery of their goods and commodities?
Retail stores, construction sites, grocery stores, and restaurants are just some of the industries that truck drivers help keep moving every day in virtually every aspect of the business.
Class 8 trucks are big for a reason - every truck on the road is transporting valuable cargo you or someone you know will be using very soon! You name it – a truck brought it!
2. Get off the phone
Despite logging many more miles than the average driver, truck drivers have an overall crash rate 29% lower than that of other vehicles, and many truck-involved crashes have more to do with drivers around trucks than the truck driver themselves. We hear it from drivers almost every day - distracted driving is becoming a serious problem.
While there aren’t many drunk drivers on the road, virtually everyone has the ability to drift into adjacent lanes and fail to respond to changes in traffic because of a cell phone. Do yourself and everyone – especially truckers a favor – keep highways safe and get off the phone!
3. Give them room
Be sure to allow plenty of space between you and the truck, pass quickly when safe to do so, and remain visible at all times. Trucks need more time to slow down and their visibility in front and behind the truck is extremely limited. And please - don’t rest in the passing lane!
The more room you provide, the safer everyone will be on the road and the better you’ll communicate that you care about the driver.
4. "Hot shot" drivers are truckers, too
Not all professional drivers are behind the wheel of a big rig with a sleeper cab. Heavy loads can also be moved using heavy-duty pick-ups with a gooseneck trailer, commonly known as "hot shots.”
It's important to remember that every large vehicle or loaded trailer is slower to stop and has significantly less visibility than a compact car, so if you want to make a driver feel appreciated, pay attention to the load, not just what’s pulling it!
5. Tell them!
It has never been easier to tell truck drivers how much you appreciate the work they do, and they many never hear it outside the companies they work for – if at all.
Something as simple as a comment on a truck drivers’ social media post or YouTube video can go a long way. And being that one of every 16 people working in the U.S. are in the trucking industry, they’re closer to you than you think!
Don’t worry about saying too much or too little – just say thanks!
Our roots as a trucking company fuel every load our team books today. When we first started working with brokers, we appreciated how they kept us hauling profitable loads, but we found that too often the customer service was lacking.
So when we got our freight brokers license, we made it our mission to provide a better service to other trucking companies like us who were searching for a better brokerage experience.
Here are a few commitments we’ve made to our carriers to show how much we appreciate the work they do for us and our shipping partners.
6. TONU (Truck Order Not Used)
If something falls through with a load we’ve put a driver on, even if we sent the rate confirmation 5 minutes ago, that company will still receive a TONU from us.
That’s because we understand the amount of time and resources a carrier must invest to cover the load and the opportunity cost when things suddenly change.
If a driver plans his or her day around a guaranteed load we provided, we’re going to provide compensation for that time because it’s the right thing to do.
7. Detention time
We don’t argue with trucking companies about detention time. One of the most frustrating aspects of a truck driver’s job is to arrive at the destination and have to wait for hours before being able to unload - oftentimes without compensation.
If there’s a circumstance that causes one of our drivers to wait for multiple hours to unload, we make sure we let our shippers know they deserve to be compensated for that time and work to make sure our drivers do get paid.
8. Communicate
Our fourth value as a business is “Open Communication is Essential” because of how important we’ve found it to be for everyone to be on the same page. As our general manager Chase often says, “bad news doesn’t get better with time.”
While we do the work necessary to keep them from happening at the onset, it’s our responsibility to make sure when problems do arise, we handle them in the most timely, effective manner possible.
9. Put yourself in the driver’s shoes
Empathy is key. That’s why we keep the truck driver’s work environment in the forefront of our minds during our day-to-day conversations and work to make every conversation as personable as we can.
When there’s thousands of miles between our freight agents and the driver, what we say and how we say it really matters. It’s important to remember that there’s a human in the driver seat who want to do a good job and make it home safe at the end of the day and we can only do that when we treat them how we’d want to be treated.
The truck driver is called “the king of the road” for good reason. Without them, we wouldn’t have many of the goods we experience on a daily basis and our country would look very different.
So stop taking your 2 day delivery for granted and Thank a Trucker!