"TRAVELIN MAN"

It Will Be A Year ...The 27th Of This Month... In June...That Ive Been Doing This Job For This Company..J A E..Out Of Seekonk Massachusetts
Since The Day That I Started...I Have Burnt 13,989 Gallons Of Deisel Fuel
I Have Driven 97,746 Miles...This What The Life of a truck Driver Is Like Here In The USA
Each Over The Road Truck Driver Starts Out With A 14 Hour Day
(How Many Occupations Work That Many Hours?)
By Federal Law..Each Driver Must Show On His Logs(Line 4..On Duty Not Driving).. 15 Minutes(During This Time Were Supposed To Be Making A Pretrip Inspection To Be Sure All Is In Working Order)
When That Is Done...We Go To "Line 3"(Driving..Then We Go)
We Also Must Watch Our Weight...Our Front Tires(Steers)Cannot Exceed 12,000 Lbs.....Our Back Tires On The Tractor Cannot Exceed 34,000 Lbs....And Our Rear Trailer Tires Cannot Exceed 34,000 Lbs.
If Were Over These Weights Anywhere..We Must Lock The Rear Brakes And Move The Trailer Over The Rear Tires To A Certain Point(Then Go To A CAT Scale And Have The Whole Truck Weighed)Remember ..All of This is Going On While Our 14 Hr Clock Is Running(It Cant be Stopped)And Our Employers Told Them Wed Be There At A Certain Time
Out Of That 14 Hours We Have 11 Hours Of Driving..But After 8 Hours..Be It Driving Or On Duty..We Must Sit Somewhere "Off Duty"(Line 1) For A Half Hr To Get The Rest Of The 14 Hours We Have left..If We Dont Do This..We Are In Violation And Will Be Shut Down....Then Theres The Problem of..Where Are We Going To Sleep?(Will There Be Room?)If Theres No Place To Park When You get There..And ur Running Out of time...Youre Screwed And In End Up In Violation
Then Theres Traffic Jams..Accidents..Truck Inspections..Weigh Stations...In Line To Get More Fuel(More Time Wasted)
And if We Do get A Spot To Stop..We Have 10 Hrs..You May Think Thats A lot...That 10 Hrs Is For Eating..Maybe Watching Tv..And Sleeping(Not To Forget That We Have To be Up And Ready When That 10 Hours Is Up To Start another 14 Hour Day(Hr To Wake Up)
And When You get There..They Complain That Your late..The People U Work For Complain Why Your Late(You Become The Bad Guy..All The Time)..We Live In These Trucks More Than At Home..When We Do get Back...Most of The time We End Up With 34 Hours Off..And Then Right back To The same damned Thing Again
Did I Forget We Are Sometimes sent To "High Crime Areas"(Where We Could get Robbed or Even Killed?...Thats The Just The Tip Of The Iceberg Of The Bull Shit Life We Live
So Maybe The Next Time You See A Tractor Trailer..You Might Think Differently About Us
Without Tractor Trailers..90% Of People Wouldnt Have Jobs
Without Tractor Trailers..Thered Be No Economy
Truck Drivers Are The Economy(Yet We Are Treated Like Shit By The Cops.The People Driving Cars .. Our Employers..And Just About Everybody Else
Oh Yeah..And If We Make a Wrong Turn?...Were Screwed..You Just Dont Back Up or turn Around driving One Of These
We Could Drive For 20 Miles Out Of Our Way To Find A Place Just To Turn Around
And all So You Can Go To The store And With Your Hand..Take Something Off Of The Shelf
Now You Know How It Gets There(And Just The Tip Of The Iceberg Of The Shit The Drivers Have To Go Through And The Wonderful Life They All Live)(And theres a Whole Lot More)