I always thought truck drivers have a great experience. I saw that the dems infrastructure bill includes money to help women get in to truck driving. Lord only knows the details. When I saw that I thought of you. You could testify that you didn’t need Congress to be a truck driver.
I used to tell my kids when I retired I’d like to travel the country in an RV. I was at a gun show one day, and saw an RV sale. Found a great RV, but chickened out on even taking a test drive on the fairgrounds! There went that dream. I told my son, and he said to find a husband to drive me. I told him I didn’t want some man going where he wanted to go and doing what he wanted to do on my dime. So here I am, but at least I haven’t been shot for driving 10MPH on a 2 lane road in the hills somewhere.
I have a friend who became a truck driver at the ripe old age of 52.
She and her hubby were a team.
She loved it at first but as time wore on hated it.
She said that she thought they would get to see the country but they were always on a deadline and never saw anything much but the interstates.
The shaking of the truck caused much pain and internal damage to her body.
She fell out of the truck once, trying to get out in to big of a hurry, and broke her shoulder.
She couldn’t wait to retire at 65.
I don’t know how it is now, but I suspect not much different than when I drove. Biggest change I can think of is the log book is now automated. Which makes it harder to run illegally.
But driving over the road (vs. driving local where you’re home every night) means that you’re pretty much gone from home 3-4 weeks at a time, and then get about 3-4 days at home before you’re gone again. That’s a drawback for a lot of people, especially women with kids. You will miss holidays and special occasions.
Then there’s the whole dealing with traffic, road construction, bad weather, bad directions, bad information, picking up loads or making deliveries at 2 a.m., dealing with receivers who don’t like the way the product was loaded into the trailer and you have NO CONTROL over that, having deliveries scheduled for a time that is physically impossible to make, sitting for hours waiting for someone to fix an issue on either end of the trip, not being able to find a truck stop to park for the night before your hours run out so you’re parked at the side of the road with no bathroom, no shower, and no food unless you’re smart and carry supplies with you.
Plus, you have to have a clean driving record and you WILL be drug and alcohol tested.