“There’s nothing semi about Finn Murphy’s trucking tales of The Long Haul.”—Sloane Crosley, Vanity Fair More than thirty years ago, Finn Murphy dropped out of college to become a long-haul trucker. Since then he’s covered more than a million miles as a mover, packing, loading, hauling people’s belongings all over America. In The Long Haul, Murphy recounts with wit, candor, and charm the America he has seen change over the decades and the poignant, funny, and often haunting stories of the people he encounters on the job.
The road is a long and winding place in V. W. Sheperd's fascinating debut collection, Over and Over the Road: A Truck Driver's Stories. This short-story compilation, based on Sheperd's real-life experiences while on the road as a cross-country truck driver, features the ups, downs, and everything in between as he forges a life for himself in the confines of a high-rise tractor trailer. Life is never dull when you're driving hundreds of miles a day for three months at a time. Through it all, Sheperd manages to keep his humor, his wits, and his sanity. With seventy-eight different tales of terrible weather, terrifying near-accidents, fascinating people, and philosophical observations, readers will gain a glimpse of the unpredictable- and oddly beautiful- life out on the open road.
A collection of firsthand accounts from truckers who have driven all over the United States and have encountered strange and unusual phenomenons which can only be described as paranormal.
Wit, wisdom, adventure, and revelations from sixty years on the road. They say that only truck drivers experience the true grandeur and landscape of America: the winding mountainsides at sunrise, the first frosts of winter descending on apple orchards, the call of the rising roosters. In A Trucker's Tale, Ed Miller gives an inside look at the allure of the work and the colorful characters who haul our goods on the open road. He shares what it was like to grow up in a boisterous trucking family, his experience as an equipment officer in Vietnam, the wide range of vehicles he's mounted, and the daily trials, tribulations, risks, and exploits that define life as a trucker. Ed's vibrant, no-holds-barred tales are hilarious and heartwarming, sometimes cringeworthy or unbelievable—recollections of heroic feels as well as the “fishing stories” that have stretched and shifted from CB radio to CB radio. Many are the results of what he calls, “just plain stupidity.” Others bring to light the small acts of kindness and grand gestures that these Knights of the Highway perform each day, as well as the safety risks and continual danger that these essential workers endure. Together they paint a compelling portrait of one of the most important, but least-known industries, and reveal why Ed, and so many like him, just kept on truckin’.
Long-haul trucks have been described as sweatshops on wheels. The typical long-haul trucker works the equivalent of two full-time jobs, often for little more than minimum wage. But it wasn’t always this way. Trucking used to be one of the best working-class jobs in the United States. The Big Rig explains how this massive degradation in the quality of work has occurred, and how companies achieve a compliant and dedicated workforce despite it. Drawing on more than 100 in-depth interviews and years of extensive observation, including six months training and working as a long-haul trucker, Viscelli explains in detail how labor is recruited, trained, and used in the industry. He then shows how inexperienced workers are convinced to lease a truck and to work as independent contractors. He explains how deregulation and collective action by employers transformed trucking’s labor markets--once dominated by the largest and most powerful union in US history--into an important example of the costs of contemporary labor markets for workers and the general public.
Driving the big rigs for thirty years can sure build up a repertoire of stories! Tough loads and smooth sailing, fun people, and the occasional old hat, I met them all on the road. This one time, Id been having a streak of bad luck. It was summertime, and my AC broke. Then my favorite hotel on that route had no rooms for the night. The shop was moving slow and couldnt get my truck back when I needed it. Well, Ill tell all about it here. This is about the laughs and struggles of an everyday truck driver.
Climb aboard Big Blue and ride along with veteran trucker, Long-Haul Larry as he tells tales of his journeys across America's heartland. Share in the humor and struggle of driving a truck for the first time and teaching others to do the same. Experience nail-biting tension while trucking through ice and wind. Learn how to train a cat and how not to train your wife. Find out what to wear when the shooting starts and discover the fastest way to get a Thanksgiving turkey. Know how NOT to meet your maker and what it's like to walk a stranger to the hereafter. Larry's stories will move, entertain, and impress you in ways you never imagined as you experience life as an American trucker. Publisher Note: Truckerology is a clean and wholesome read appropriate for readers of all ages. This book is a series of short-stories sure to warm the heart and tickle the funny-bone. About The Author Veteran trucker, Long-Haul Larry hails from the eastern lowlands of Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee, but can be found anywhere along America's vast highways piloting Big Blue along with Chicken Johnny. Larry firmly believes, "If you're gonna drive 'em, you better be able to fix 'em." Using his natural mechanical aptitude and experience as a truck mechanic, he keeps Big Blue "running the miles" and their deliveries on time. Join Larry and Chicken Johnny in their daily adventures on the Long-Haul Larry YouTube Channel at https://bit.ly/LongHaulLarry. What's up with the chicken, you ask? You'll have to look for Chicken Johnny on Larry's YouTube channel to find out. Special thanks to John Vollrath with JBG Travels for the Introduction.
Bill Overmyer drove in military convoys as a contract driver for five years in Iraq. Over The Road Truck Driver Poems is his latest work. These poems highlight the daily trials and tribulations of over the road truck drivers around the world. Bill currently works in the North Dakota oil fields.
Starting in the 1950s, Americans eagerly built the planet’s largest public work: the 42,795-mile National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Before the concrete was dry on the new roads, however, a specter began haunting them—the highway killer. He went by many names: the “Hitcher,” the “Freeway Killer,” the “Killer on the Road,” the “I-5 Strangler,” and the “Beltway Sniper.” Some of these criminals were imagined, but many were real. The nation’s murder rate shot up as its expressways were built. America became more violent and more mobile at the same time. Killer on the Road tells the entwined stories of America’s highways and its highway killers. There’s the hot-rodding juvenile delinquent who led the National Guard on a multistate manhunt; the wannabe highway patrolman who murdered hitchhiking coeds; the record promoter who preyed on “ghetto kids” in a city reshaped by freeways; the nondescript married man who stalked the interstates seeking women with car trouble; and the trucker who delivered death with his cargo. Thudding away behind these grisly crime sprees is the story of the interstates—how they were sold, how they were built, how they reshaped the nation, and how we came to equate them with violence. Through the stories of highway killers, we see how the “killer on the road,” like the train robber, the gangster, and the mobster, entered the cast of American outlaws, and how the freeway—conceived as a road to utopia—came to be feared as a highway to hell.
www.truckingtruth.com Trucking schools can teach you to drive, but nobody's there to teach you everything else.This book is a no-holds-barred, call 'em as I see 'em account of what I went through when I decided to become a truck driver. I hope to shed some light on what the trucking industry is REALLY like, with no hidden agendas and no regrets.I have absolutely loved my years on the road. The experiences, the friends, the money, the challenges, and the freedom. "There are so many things to know if you want to be successful on the road and they take years to learn.I'm talking about things they don't teach in truck driving schools and things companies don't talk about..at least not honestly. There are "grey areas" and "unwritten rules" in the trucking industry that have a major impact on your life and your career - and only time on the road will reveal the reailtiesof becoming a truck driver......"- Brett Aquila, Author - "Becoming A Truck Driver:The Raw Truth About Trucking"
