| Do We Really Need Trucks? |
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| OK, this is the only editorial on this site, but if you are
not a trucker there's a few things to consider if you don't think big
trucks are necessary, and if you are a trucker and someone tells you we
don't need big trucks, maybe you can educate them a little by reading
the following: |
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| Trucks have been around, and been necessary, in one form or
another almost since time began. |
| Before the automobile, the horse was man's main source of
transportation, and the primary method of moving products from one point
to another was with a wagon of some kind pulled by a horse.
That horse
is the predecessor to today's modern truck, and the wagon is the
predecessor to today's modern semi trailer.
So as you can see, everyone that used a horse and wagon of some kind,
from the American Pioneers to the Greeks to the Romans to the Native
Americans, used some form of a truck and trailer to transport their own
belongings or to transport goods to a marketplace. |
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| Trucks are an inconvenience on the roads. We could
use trains instead. |
| Some people think we could eliminate trucks and
simply get all of our goods via train, but not only would it be almost impossible to
run a train track to every store in the country, if you think trucks are
big, compare them to the size of a boxcar! Not only that, if you think
trucks are hard to get around, could you imagine having to cross a dozen
or more train tracks running across almost every mile of every street in
every American city? It would take you hours waiting for trains to
finish switching cars and crossing the roads on the different tracks
just to drive a few miles to your local grocery store. |
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| There are smaller trucks, so why do we need so many of the big
ones? |
| While small trucks do serve a purpose, and are just as necessary as
the big semis, think about how many more smaller trucks there would be
on the roads if the big trucks weren't there. Some ten wheel straight
trucks can carry up to 20,000 pounds, but they're basically a class 8
truck that doesn't pull a trailer, and they're still pretty large. An
average size, six wheel delivery truck that some people would like to
see replace the large semis can only carry around 10,000 to 15,000
pounds of cargo, and many of the smaller ones can only carry about 5,000
pounds. Now, lets do the math. A full size, class 8 semi can carry
around 45,000 pounds of cargo on average. If we replace 500 big trucks
with medium size and smaller trucks, were talking about anywhere from
3,000 to 4,000 MORE trucks on the roads every day and night. If
we tried to replace a million semis with smaller trucks, there would be
as many as 6 to 8 million MORE vehicles on
the roads every day and night. Could you imagine the congestion
that would create in some of the big cities? It would be gridlock 24
hours a day, 7 days a week. No one could get to or from work,
or
anywhere else for that matter! |
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| Now, I'll ask you a very serious question:
What
do you own or use that didn't require a truck to deliver it? |
| Obviously, everything you buy at a store was delivered by a truck,
but did you ever stop to think that the car you drive was delivered by a
truck? Not only that, the supplies you use at your job, whatever it may
be, was delivered by a truck. I guess if you like having a job so you
can earn a living, you can be thankful there are trucks and men and
women to drive them. Do you think we could forget our jobs and modern
conveniences, go back to the old days before there were trucks and
figure out a way to live without them? Then I hope you're good with an
axe, because the wood, stone, brick and every other material your home
is made of was delivered to the site your home sits on by a truck.
Without trucks, you would be living in a log cabin. While we're talking
about your home, consider the fact the even the land your home sits on
had to have bulldozers and heavy equipment brought in on a truck to
level the land and prepare it for construction, and unless your home is
built on a natural piece of land, the trees and grass in your yard were
delivered by a truck. Even the water you drink flows through pipes that
were delivered by a truck, and let's not forget where the faucet you use
to get that water came from... a truck delivered it to the hardware
store you bought it from.
Now, I won't say that EVERYTHING we own or use on a daily
basis was delivered by a truck, because there is ONE thing we all
use every day that a truck didn't bring, and
that's the air we breathe. Of course, individuals that require oxygen
from a breathing apparatus actually do rely on trucks for the air they
breathe.
Other than air in our atmosphere, EVERYTHING else we use EVERY
DAY was transported on a truck, including the computer and monitor
you're using right now to read this! |
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| OK, I've made my point, so I'll stop now, but hopefully by reading
this you might have a little more appreciation for trucks than you use
to, and for the men and women that are able to handle moving a 70 foot
long, 80,000 pound vehicle up and down the interstates and in and out of
your town to make sure your local store and mall has all the things you
need to buy, and all of the nice little extras like furniture, air
conditioners, hot water tanks, televisions, stereos, and all of the
other things that you don't actually need... but like to have to make
life a little more comfortable for yourself and your family. |
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