Are You The Perfect Trucker?

Today's Thoughts By Jeff Head 4/25/13 Are You the Perfect Trucker?

The perfect truck driver, does one exist? For some they believe that they do, that maybe even they are themselves a perfect truck driver.  For others it will never happen that no one could possibly run completely safe and legal one hundred percent of the time.  I know I have been in many conversations where I say I run safe and legal only to find myself being scoffed and ridiculed just for making such a statement. 

 

What is the true definition of a safe and legal truck driver?  Does anyone really know?  I am always saying that about twenty years ago there was nineteen feet of shelf space just on all the regulations to drive a truck on the federal level.  Of course, each state, county, and city has its own thoughts on the matter.  Toss in the EPA with their opinion on the matter then adding each individual's interpretation of those rules and regulations and the true definition of a safe and legal driver becomes something that not even a God could accomplish.

 

Defining a safe and legal driver under such scrutiny is near impossible to do, but it can be done with consideration.  First, we have to realize that we do not live in a perfect world.  Cookie cutter regulations may look great on paper, but out in the real world a driver often finds himself or herself choosing between playing it safe and saving a life, or following the rules and taking a life. Depending on the person looking in and their interpretation of the event, this driver could be called a renegade just as quick as they would be called a hero.  Often I find myself doing the "safe" thing, yet breaking a rule to keep someone alive.  This is because I have chosen life for those I share the highway with over worrying about a ticket.  Does this make me a safe driver?  Perhaps I am the renegade, the answer depends on your interpretation?

 

No driver will ever be one hundred percent considered safe and legal by everyone as long as this world is not perfect.  We will always find ourselves facing situations that make it impossible to do the exact right thing that will please everybody at the same time. In my opinion to consider yourself safe and legal one has to exercise a thought process, let us say a mentality or a life style that leads us up the path of being as safe and legal as we possibly can.  We do this even though we understand the world is not perfect and that we are but human. Then when we find ourselves falling or being forced from this path because life has left us no other choice we know what to do.  We pick ourselves up, we dust ourselves off, and we go right back to being that safe and legal truck driver as we humanly can be depending as I said before, how the person looking at us at this moment sees it.  

 

In our hearts though, we know one thing that is very important to ourselves.  We know that our every waken moment spent behind that wheel is spent being as safe and running as legal as we can.  Because quite simply, we are who we are, safe and legal truckers and no one should ever be able to take that away from us.  Why would they even try?

 

God Bless America

Drive Safe Drive Sane

Be sure to add me as a friend if you like "Today's Thoughts"

Copy and share as much as you want (-: