"TJ" wrote in message
news:P1Z2e.864278$8l.567848@pd7tw1no...
It's amazing how just one comment by a single person got this group into
an uproar. I really think that the public in general has a romance with
the life of the trucker brought on by the movie and media hype. Truckers
are just ordinary people who do an thankless job of moving just about
everything there is in North America to and from wholesalers to retailers.
Over the years the average trucker's education level has gone from grade
school drop outs to men and women holding degrees of various ranges of
education. Over the years I've come to know a rather large group of
people from a very large slice of various levels of education, similar to
that of most truckers. I hold two degrees and a commercial Radio Telephone
license, but for some reason I ended up returning to "trucking" all the
time. And all the trucks I've driven, over 1 million miles, I've always
had my amateur radio(s) and a CB. Each had it's own nicessity and each
one had it's own language. On one radio I as a respected amateur radio
operator who drove truck, on the other I was just another trucker looking
for a traffic report.
Oh, for those who are of the illusion that truckers are the cause of all
the terrible accident on the highways, well the only person your fooling
is yourself. To get the facts do a little research and you will find that
four wheeled vehicles cause more accidents than any other vehicle. Trucks
seem to fall into the same catigory as motorcycles do in the public's
perseption of the cause of accidents. After you have done your research
you will find that both trucks and motorcycles end of up being a very low
percentage of the cause of accidents. The only thing the public sees is
that when a truck gets into a bad accident it is very bad and devestating
distruction. But statistics show there are fewer truck accidents than four
wheeled vehicles and there are also far fewer accidents that are caused by
trucks entirely.
But, this is just this over educated truckers opinion.

73 de ve7agw, Al

One DOES wonder if the gent that cut me off the other day is an example of
the good trucker or otherwise. On that day I was driving the speed limit
(60) when a truck began to tailgate me. When traffic cleared, he snatched
the truck to the right lane, passed, blew his airhorn at me, and cut right
back in front of me. Now just what the hell am I supposed to do? Get a
ticket to please him? Not a chance! BOTH groups, trucks and cars, are
responsible for plenty of wrecks simply because they aren't paying
attention, going too fast, or too fast for conditions.

J