“I moved here to be with the love of my
life. I hope he realizes on nights like this when I drive home from work, I
risk my life to live with him!”
That was a comment made by one of my friends after a harrowing winter drive
from London to her home in Tillsonburg.
It made me realize that what I consider fun and challenging is to most
people an experience they would rather do without. When it comes to winter
driving the majority of people are white knuckling it out there, and it shows.
My driving experiences over this past holiday season re-enforced my belief that
the greatest hazard we face on the road as professional drivers, is in fact,
other drivers. You can manage the curves that Mother Nature throws at you
pretty well, but managing the actions of other drivers is a different story.
By far the majority of “accidents” I saw over the course
of the 2013 holiday break involved a single vehicle. The majority of people had
simply run off the road and the bulk of those events resulted in a simple winch
back on to the road accompanied by a bruised ego. It wasn’t difficult to pick
out the higher speed events. Rollovers and vehicles that had ridden the guard
rail or retaining wall for extended distances. I’ve found that the best
practice for staying safe in the winter months is to simply stay as far away
from other drivers as you can, or at least give it your best shot. If there is
a pack of vehicles traveling together, bumper to bumper during poor weather
events, I don’t want to be near them. I know that’s easier said than done when faced
with some of the busiest travel days of the year.
When I do have to travel close to others I try to bear in
mind that most folks behind the wheel of passenger vehicles (some commercial
vehicles too, let’s not forget) are pretty nervous on snow and ice. Patience.
Patience. Patience. That’s the key. Although I admit my patience wears pretty
thin at times.
That leaves a minority group of drivers that usually make
driving truly miserable for the rest of us. You know, the ones that may be
sliding into you from behind, or spinning out in front of you, or bouncing off
a wall or guardrail and ending up underneath you. They exude overconfidence and a general
disregard for safety. If you are practicing patience you would call this group
of drivers a challenge.
My friends comment also spoke to the value we place on
different classes of work. When I tell someone that I drive for a living it can
sound like a pretty cushy job, or at least pretty simple and straightforward.
It’s not often a person views a professional drivers job through the anxiety
they have experienced driving in crappy weather. When the average person recognizes
that driving may put their life at risk it says a lot about what we expose
ourselves to every day as professional drivers. In fact it’s easy for us to
forget about that and become complacent as we tackle the daily grind.
When I get out in the nasty weather it gives me a true
appreciation of how much I enjoy my work. In a funny sort of way coping with
the risks we face on the road every day is where I find the greatest joy in the
job. After all that’s where true freedom lies isn’t it? Having the ability to
choose your own path down the road.
The comment my friend made about the stress of her
commute home got me thinking about a lot of different anxieties we face as
drivers. But my mind always comes back to the issues we face surrounding our freedom
of choice and the effect that has on our personal safety and that of the
traveling public. Road safety is about the driver behind the wheel making the
right choices. Those choices extend beyond the decisions we make when we are
behind the wheel. Over the course of the last few decades professional drivers
have found their hands increasingly tied when it comes to how they manage their
time, when they should drive, and when they should rest.
The freedom of the open road is the greatest attraction
the trucking industry has to offer when it comes to recruiting and retaining
people with the right skill set and personality traits to get the job done in
the best and worst of conditions. That freedom continues to be eroded through
hours of service legislation, consolidation of the industry through mergers
& acquisitions, and technology implemented to control actions of drivers
rather than complement their skills.
My friend reminded me we put our lives on the line every
day in our profession. Our safety is dependent on our freedom to choose. Is
that something we have given up on?
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