What do trucks do

It's nice not to have a boss constantly breathing over your shoulder. The health insurance and pay are nice. I also enjoy the interaction with my co-workers; we all get along, and that helps. What are your least favorite aspects of your job?

Not having the weekends off, but the company makes up for that in spades, so you take the good with the bad. What personality traits do you think would help someone to be successful as a truck driver?

Common sense, the ability to be alone with yourself a lot, and the drive. You have to want to be a truck driver. What personality traits do you think might hinder someone's success as a truck driver? The exact opposite of my last answer. Don't get behind the wheel if you don't have any common sense. Especially an wheeler flying down the freeway at 60 mph! What advice, or words of caution, would you give to a student who is considering studying to become a truck driver?

Well, just know that this is what you want to do, as with any career. Or have the mental capacity anymore. You need to be able to move into the management side of things when you get older. Either that or save really well and retire early! Truck drivers rank among the least happy careers. Overall they rank in the 11th percentile of careers for satisfaction scores. Please note that this number is derived from the data we have collected from our Sokanu members only.

What is a Truck Driver? What does a Truck Driver do? There are three types of truck drivers: Company Truck Drivers - are employees of a trucking company and drive a company truck Owner-Operators - may own their own truck - may lease a truck from a company and make payments on it to buy it in two to five years - may lease their truck by contract with a trucking company to haul freight for that company - may haul loads for a number of companies and are self-employed independent contractors Independent Owners - own their own authority to haul goods and drive their own truck - may own a small fleet anywhere from two to ten trucks Truck drivers work very long hours, typically around 70hrs per week, and are expected to keep track of their hours in a logbook.

Are you suited to be a truck driver? Continue reading. Take some time to consider both the disadvantages and the advantages of this career: Disadvantages Time away from family and friends It is not uncommon for an OTR Over the Road truck driver to earn only one day of home time for every week out on the road.

Advantages Truckers are always in demand Today, almost everything is moved by truck. For some further insight into the trucking industry, read, below, some excerpts from an interview with a professional truck driver of almost a decade: Are there common misconceptions about your profession? Within 24 hours of the trucking industry shutting down due to natural disaster or terrorist attack, delivery of medical supplies will cease, and hospitals will begin to run out of supplies.

Gas stations will begin to run out of fuel leading to long lines at the pump. Mail and package delivery will cease, and this is all just within 24 hours of no trucking. Nearly every sector of the economy relies on trucks to transport their goods. It starts with shipping raw material such as lumber and stone from forests and quarries and delivers them to manufacturing centres.

Once these manufacturers turn out a finished product, they are then transported via truck to their final destination or a distribution centre. This makes the trucking industry vital to the health of the economy. From small trucking companies, owner-operators, and large trucking companies, all truckers contribute to the health and strength of the economy. The trucking industry has a right to ask — why do we need the current regulatory push towards more efficient trucks? That may not sound like much, but that translates into more than half-a-billion tons of carbon pollution each year in the U.

More troubling is the fact that emissions from freight transportation are projected to increase by nearly million metric tons over the coming years.

For context, this increase is greater than what is expected in the entire commercial, industrial or residential sectors. Technology is already in place to make a huge improvement across all categories. Fuel-efficient trucks are not enough on their own. Low-impact alternative fuels are critical in the long-term; as is increasing the productivity of each truck trip.

Supply chain optimization and modal switches can save millions of more tons. These steps save companies money too — as Ocean Spray Cranberries has demonstrated. But, even though operational improvements offer an important contribution to driving down emissions, truck fuel efficiency is a crucial factor.

Trucking is essential to our economy; it has a vital role to play in continuing to improve its environmental footprint.

The good news is that, at the root, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are about reducing fuel consumption and that also means saving money. Protective greenhouse gas standards and a healthy truck industry can go hand-and-hand. Businesses of all sizes depend on the trucking industry to maintain fast delivery times and deliver products safely all over the nation.

The trucking industry handles much more cargo than trains, ships or planes — and without trucks, goods could never travel from rail yards, ports and airports to their final destinations. If the trucking industry stopped rolling, the U. A tow truck or a breakdown lorry or a recovery vehicle is a truck that is used to move a vehicle that is being impounded, wrongly parked, disabled, or indisposed in any other way.

The truck may be brought in when a law is being broken, or an accident has occurred, or when infrastructure has been damaged, and a vehicle has to be extracted from the situation. Tow trucks were first invented in in Tennessee when a car was pulled out of a creek by six men using ropes.

Adjustable booms are now used to recover vehicles from ditches and similar situations. A flatbed truck or a flatbed lorry is a completely flat level bad that has no sides or roof. It is not used for goods that can be damaged due to rain and for abnormally large loads that require huge spaces. The bed of the trailer is literally that, completely flat. And since that is the case, the loads are tied down to the surface with ropes. The truck is often equipped with hooks so that tying down is much easier than simply tying tight knots.

Improperly fastened loads can slide off during transport which is why flatbed trucks are becoming less and less popular as of late.

They have become a dying breed of once proud trucks. Furniture trucks are built to load and unload furniture. They are used to move houses and to move huge hauls of furniture from manufacturers to dealerships. They are equipped with a ramp or a lift gate if required. The drivers help as much with the lifting as they do the driving.

Highway repair trucks or highway maintenance trucks are equipped with very special features that allow a single person to stand on the back and place cones on the highway.

This allows for specific strips of the highway to be isolated for repairs to be carried out. The trucks also have a retractable crash barrier and high-intensity lighting so that work can be done in the dark. The truck is also equipped with all sorts of tools and cargo space so that the appropriate materials can be hauled over for repair.

Livestock trucks are used to transport animals to and from farms. It is a vehicle that is built specially to hold on to livestock and to hold them in place. Some are even fitted with special equipment so that they stay in place and are well fed.

The trucks are usually open slightly from the back or the top so that the livestock can get daylight and air and not be confined into a small space. This type of cargo requires a dry bulk tanker. Although these trucks are shaped similarly to tanker trucks containing liquids, they are generally easier for new truckers to handle because the dry goods do not move around as much as the liquid ones.

However, dry bulk hauls are generally not as common as liquid tankers. But as truckers are critical to nearly every industry, there are also a good amount of trucking jobs out there hauling more niche or unusual items. We have trained thousands of truck drivers over the past four decades to haul every type of load imaginable.

Contact us today to learn more about how we can get you quickly and safely hauling loads of all sorts across the country. TRAIN with experienced instructors — multiple good-paying, secure job choices with benefits available for eligible graduates. Get started today by filling out the form below. We look forward to hearing from you! TDI August 23, Truck driving career.