Ride-along in big rig would be good education for all beginning drivers

MAN WITH A PLAN: Missouri trucker Norman Jones, pictured during a pause in driving Interstate 40 through Central Arkansas, believes all new drivers would benefit from spending time in a big rig. (The Trucker/Jerry Breeden)

By JERRY BREEDEN
The Trucker Staff

7/30/2008

Long-time trucker Norman Jones believes it would be a real eye-opener if drivers of all vehicles — everything from two-wheelers and up — would spend some time as an observer in a big rig before being allowed to drive on the nation’s highways.

“It would be a great education for all beginning drivers,” Jones said in an interview with The Trucker during a layover in Central Arkansas.

He said the cab of a tractor is the perfect place — a sort of “rolling laboratory” — from which to observe how different drivers behave in a variety of traffic situations.

“You see it all from the cab of a tractor,” said Jones, who lives in Patterson, Mo. “You get a glimpse of the good, the bad, the ugly and the indifferent. You see people who don’t have the first idea about the correct way to merge into moving traffic.

“You see those who seem to live just to tailgate,” he said. “The trouble is, they can die doing it and in the process kill someone else. And you see still others who love to run alongside the big trucks without the slightest thought that maybe one of those 18 tires could have a blowout at any time.”

Jones remembered one motorist, a woman, who was attempting to merge onto the highway by cutting him off, a common occurrence that every big rig wrangler has experienced at one time or another.

“She was sitting there and trying to drive with her elbows on the steering wheel while talking on her cell phone,” he recalled. “The only thing I could do to avoid an accident was slow down and yield to her.

“When I did, she looked straight up at me and flipped me off,” he said. “There are some drivers out there that you just can’t be courteous to. No matter how hard you try, they won’t have any part of it. But as a professional, you can’t let it get to you and you just have to go on and brush it off as just one more bad experience.”

Jones said he started driving professionally some 17 years ago. “I was looking for work at the time,” he said. “There wasn’t much going on, except for factory work, and that didn’t really appeal to me.

“Then I started noticing the big trucks and wondering how I might like to drive them and get paid for it at the same time,” he said. “I went through a Commercial Driver’s License training program and then onto a company where I got more training.

“I was an owner-operator for a while, then I hired on with Crete and I’ve been with them for the past 10 years,” Jones added. “They’ve been pretty good to me. Crete is a pretty good company to work for.”

Jones noted that he’s “read a few articles about other drivers in your paper and I’ve noticed a lot of them come from trucking families, or were born into it.

“I guess I am the exception,” he said, smiling. “I’m the first person in my family that I know of to drive for a living. Oh, I think I’ll probably stay with it for a while longer. I’ve already got a few years invested in it; I might as well stay for the duration. Besides, trucking has been good to me.”

Jones said he enjoys driving “just about any place you care to name, but I will never, ever go back to the Five Burroughs [of New York City]. I’ve been there once before and I guarantee you I will not go back. I don’t know anyone who likes driving up there. The people are just different than the rest of us and the traffic flow leaves a lot to be desired.”

When Jones isn’t driving, he likes to do a variety of things. For instance, he enjoys restoring old vehicles.

“I used to hunt for and collect arrowheads before it became illegal,” he said. “Now, I want to get into metal detecting and digging for Civil War relics. I guess I like to do just about anything that requires you to be outdoors.”

Jones and his wife Barbara, who is a homemaker, have one child, a daughter named Erin, who is married.

Erin and her husband Charles Mize have two children, Adam and Ashley, and live in Poplar Bluff, Mo.

What advice would Jones give someone who might be looking at trucking as a career?

“I think I would tell them that they have to be right for it,” he said. “Trucking isn’t the life for everyone. I think first and foremost they would have to have the right kind of mate for it. Someone who is very understanding about the hours and the time you have to spend away from home.

“Like I said, I’ve been a trucker for 17 years and married to the same woman for 35 years. We must be doing something right.”