The Source for Trucking News, Opinions and Trucking Jobs | Trucks Rural vs Trucks City

The other day I had a trip that took me over 450 miles of two lane road. No interstates at all. I would much rather drive small two lane country roads than the boring interstates any day. But the pay structure the way it is and the timeliness of the job demands driving the interstate when possible.

This was through Nebraska and Kansas. A couple of small towns, but mostly wide open farmland. Farmers were out in the fields with combines and when it got dark the lights on the tractors and combines came on. Like a trip back in time, old rural farm houses dotted the landscape. Most times the house was the smallest structure on the property.

I like to think I am like the truckers of the past. King of the road. Respected for what I do, not for the power tie I wear and the size of my office. In the small towns during the cool evening hours people were sitting on their porches chatting with neighbors or just watching traffic go by. I would get a wave once in a while.

Trucks in rural parts are not taken for granted. They are the arteries that allow the small towns to be connected to the rest of the world and in order to survive they must be connected and they still realize it. Trucks bring grain to the huge elevators from the fields and then trucks take it to market. Cattle still get trucked to market. Trucks and truckers have a completely different reputation in small towns than the treatment we get in large cities.

Most of the small towns the truckers know each other and everyone else. They might do the local grain or cattle hauling or even the dirt hauling for the construction company. It’s through that familiarity that reputations are made. As opposed to the ignorance of the city folks. And the ignorance of anything unusual usually breeds fear and contempt. Which would explain a lot how and why trucks and drivers are treated the way we are in larger cities.