Believe me -- I know exactly what it feels like to be living on the edge of financial ruin, and I learned that there are really only two ways to react to that kind of situation: you either let it drag you down, or you learn from it and swear that you will never let it drag you down.
If an electrical engineer was to drive a semi for a year or two, I could almost guarantee that they would have a solid six ideas of what could be done to improve the truck, the cab, the trailer.
The same goes with a design engineer who actually lived in the truck as our owner operators and long distance drivers frequently do.