Not a whole lot has changed in four decades of trucking.

It's Deja Vu All Over Again

DAVE SWEETMAN • GUEST COLUMNIST

When it comes to trucks, I read anything I can get my hands on. Web sites such as truckinginfo.com, and online driver forums like truck.net and layover.com, offer good examples of 21st century trucking information from the cyber world. But they haven't replaced trucking magazines like the one you're holding.

So, the other day, I'm sitting in my garage, going through a box of trucking magazines. The headlines screamed about cheap labor and big, powerful mega carriers ruining our business and killing good rates. It was driving down the trucking economy and making it tough for the true working man, they said. I turned the page.

More shocking headlines and sob stories about foreign workers crossing our borders, stealing our business, ruining our trucking economy. "They are working too cheap, we can't compete," was the logic behind the writer's musings. I turned the page.

A government that doesn't care about the small business man. Taxes that are killing the free enterprise system, giving truckers nothing in return. It's time for a revolt, said the writer. More hand-wringing from an observer with observations but no answers or solutions.

Picking up another magazine, I read about the insane cost of fuel that would cause every truck in the country to sputter to a halt in short order. Not only skyrocketing costs, but also shortages. The only thing missing was Chicken Little running in circles, wailing, "The sky is falling."

In the Letters to the Editor sections, the tone was the same. Guys trying to scratch out a living on a buck a mile. Barely ahead of the repo man. There were the crazy four-wheeler stories, the crooked DOT stories, the mean cop stories.

After reading through several issues of the magazines, it dawned on me that these were not current publications. The color picture of the 1966 Peterbilt on the back cover was my first clue. Another mag featured a review of the all-new International Harvester 4070 cabover.

It's clear that in the past 40 years of trucking, not a darn thing has changed. Oh sure, the trucks have gotten nicer, bigger and more powerful. We have air-ride comfort and power steering, computer navigation, satellite tracking and dispatch. But what have we really gained? Drivers are still trying to make ends meet with a buck a mile at 1969 rates, pulling 53-foot trailers with twice the freight.

I also found it interesting that back then, the worry about foreign drivers targeted Canadians who were coming over the border to take away our business. Today's worry is that Mexican drivers are the boogeyman.

The vintage magazines said we needed deregulation to get the government out of our business. Be careful what you wish for. It seems the same ones who wanted it could not deal with it when they got it. The smart ones adapted and expanded. The not-so-smart ones wrote letters announcing their demise.

The costs of trucks and equipment have quadrupled. The costs of filling the fuel tanks have increased so much we are now "happy" it's only $2.75 a gallon. Yeah, I'm "happy." How about you? My current truck cost me four times what my first one did, but have my profits increased four times to keep up? I'll plead the Fifth on that one.

Just so you good readers don't think I'm crying in my iced tea, there have been many improvements in trucking. Thanks to rule changes with IRP and IFTA, we now only need one license plate and a single fuel decal instead of the half dozen license plates and 15 or so stickers in various places on the truck. Fuel emissions have been cut to the point where you can practically put your lips on the exhaust pipe with no ill effects. (Just kidding, kids – don't try this at home.)

And, as previously stated, we have computers, cell phones, satellite TV, microwaves, DVD players and lots of little niceties to take the boredom out of the haul and stay in touch with family, friends and the office.

Yet, all things considered, we really have not changed much in the past 40 years. Or like baseball legend Yogi Berra used to say, "It's like déjà vu all over again."

Dave Sweetman is an owner-operator who hauls exotic automobiles for Horseless Carriage. He is a regular contributing editor for HDT sister publication, RoadStar.