Driver Dynamics - Part II

Today’s truck drivers drive because we have diesel in our veins and asphalt under our skin. We drive because we can’t imagine being happy doing anything else. We are fiercely independent, unattached, and dedicated to our lifestyle. Truck drivers may not be born, but within a year of hitting the road we are made, or broken.

You shake hands with someone and see that telltale scar of the CDL chip on the back of their right hand...you know they are Family, with a capital F.

Okay, it’s not all chummy camaraderie. So we’re a Family. A huge, dysfunctional Family. We have our black sheep, our annoying uncles, our favorite grandparents, our bullying big brothers, slutty sisters...you get the idea. All under the oligarchic thumb of the Fed, the Old Man, the USDOT.

Some of us are literally family; generations of truck drivers going back to the earliest days of the occupation.

I became a truck driver on account of my Dad, but not for the usual reasons. Ben, my dad, is a veteran of two wars: the Gulf and the ’Stan. That’s as much as I know about him. As far as I know, he doesn’t even know I exist. When I was twenty, I overheard my mom talking to an old family friend. He said Ben was pretty messed up from the fighting, and took to driving truck when he came back stateside after twenty years overseas. When I asked about it, about Ben, I never got an answer. That’s my mom for you. So I had this idea that if I became a truck driver I would be able to find him. I’ll let you know if I do.

Oh, and if we’re all Family, then we also have the equivalent of kissing cousins.

Like I said, most of us don’t have homes. We don’t tend to make permanent attachments, even in relationships. Especially Ghosts. When we get off a truck there’s no place to go besides truck stops, lounges, or hotels. No one to hang out with but other drivers. No one to shag but other drivers, or Pros.

Luckily for us women, there’s just the right amount of female drivers. The ratio is something like 4:1. We are never left wanting, and get to pick and choose our partners from a considerable stable, from studs to geldings (yes, we often prefer geldings) to swayback nags.

And we are just ‘rare’ enough to be cherished in our Family. The man who is unkind to a woman driver will find himself staring down any number of protective brothers. The man who abuses a woman driver will wake up in a ditch somewhere, broken and bloody. And if their offense warrants it, their CDL chip will be cut right out of their hand.

We commit our own brand of justice out on the road. It is often swift and uncompromising, seldom wrong or miscarried, and these days, seldom required. You hear about enough chip removals—we call it Xing due to the scar that gets left behind—and you know it is for keeps. You keep your shit together.

Next week: The X Factor
© 2013 Kristi Cramer