*** MY TRASHY RANT ****

I read an article last week eluding to the fact the general public has the opinion that "truckers" are nasty, dirty, and generally uneducated individuals. I was appalled.


My first instinct was to shoot a quick email to the editor standing up for and defending the REAL road warriors of the country, The Truckers!


I wanted to stand firm on my position that the individuals in the cabs of all these trucks are people who forfeit being at home, with all the conveniences at their fingertips, so they can be the "supply" part of the "supply and demand" chain this country survives on.

I wanted to explain that although truck stops are not in abundance, in certain parts of the country, there are available showers along every main route and no we are not "dirty!"

I wanted to blast the author of the article with the facts stated in all my former corporate america jargon I could muster.

Basically, I wanted to rant and rave with a little diplomacy!

And then it dawned on me, as I started to reflect on my own experiences living over the road for the past six months....

I realized I had taken "their" point of view to heart and was personally offended.

For me, I am a neat freak... self confessed... neat FREAK. I like order, I like organization, I like cleanliness, I like things to be in place.

Most of us drive into a truck stop, park, and either don't leave the truck or we walk only in front of the truck toward the truck stop. I would dare say we just don't take the time to really notice our surroundings.


I decided, while we were in Fletcher, NC, to walk to the back of the trailer and scope out the scenery... we were parked in the back row...


Here I am walking toward the rear... notice anything... "nasty"

As I looked to the left... notice anything "trashy"...

And as I looked to my right... the mother load!

There was evidence of swept out trailers, bunk covers, bunk mattress, and more trash and pee bottles than I could count. This is disgusting. The people that owned this trash... I wonder what the inside of their truck looks like? I wonder if their backyard looks like this? Would they mind if I swept out our trailer in their driveway? How about leaving a few hundred pee bottles by the mailbox?

And we wonder why Wal-Mart is a little LESS trucker friendly now???

My point with this post is this.....

If the general public regards "truckers" as dirty, trashy, nasty, uneducated... OK... if this is all they see, if this is what "truckers" leave behind.... then I too would use dirty, trashy, nasty, and feel that education wasn't on the list of priorities.

We all complain, at one point or another, about the lack of parking. Parking is a huge concern in the trucking industry but answer this...

Business101... would you open a nice truck stop just to have the patrons trash it? And, by the way, the actual building and parking lot of this particular truck stop were outstanding.... very nice, clean, and orderly. And the parking lot part had enough room to actually move the truck around in.

We've been at 3-4 truck stops since I took this picture and two of them were just like this. I found it disgusting but I'm less appalled at the article now... I can see why "truckers" are generalized if this is what the public sees.

Pass the word, for all of us.... PUT TRASH IN IT'S PLACE... Please! If not for the environment... at least for our reputations!

Thank you for listening... or reading rather...