The key to educating Joe Public about the importance of trucking: watermelons

Every once in a while, I get talking to a civilian who’s curious about trucking. Depending on their intellectual wattage, the questions may be limited to things like ‘How many gears does a truck have?’ The queries often stay at that simple level, and they dribble away pretty fast despite my enthusiasm for the subject. You’ve probably had similar experiences.

I do chat with bright lights on occasion, of course, but their questions usually aren’t much different. Almost nobody on the four-wheel side of the street seems to have a clue. So once they’re past a mild curiosity about the trucks themselves, the questions dry up.

Just the other night I found myself in the midst of one such chat with a guy who understood sweet-you-know about trucking, but he had the wit to pose a good one: namely, what are the issues in trucking these days?

Aha, I thought to myself, here’s my chance to educate somebody.

I dealt with the obvious and easily understood things like punishing fuel prices and expensive insurance. Then I launched into one of my favorites: the extreme sophistication of the modern truck. You know, programmable engines and satellite tracking and all that pretty impressive stuff. Then I got into things that will soon be available on heavy trucks, like electronic braking. Cool, as my kids say about every 13 seconds. And active suspension, a fascinating technology that was banned from Formula One cars a couple of years back because it made the cars handle too well and not all the teams could afford it. His eyebrows arched at that one, but he was still with me.

There was trouble brewing, however, because he then asked me about truck safety and driver fatigue and all that. I’ve been through this one a zillion times, of course, enough to know that things can go one of two ways depending largely on the kind of car the other person drives.

Seriously.

In this case I happened to know that his wheels were dull — a green Toyota sedan of some sort, no doubt a fine car but a very bad sign in the present context. Ownership of any such car implies that it’s for transportation, not pleasure, that the road is not a source of excitement. Had it been an old Z28, no sweat. You get the picture.

To make any sensible conclusion here you have to put the car thing together with a few other facts, some of which I had, so I knew that he was likely to have swallowed a lot of the crap about trucking in the mainstream press. He was a smart guy, though, so I also knew that I could explain things — make him believe the truth of it — if I employed a little flair.

So I went through all the usual statistical stuff that shows how safe we really are per mile travelled, how more commuters fall asleep at the wheel than truck drivers do. I said the vast majority of truckers are highly skilled and utterly responsible in the way they handle themselves on the road. And then I attacked.

I said if there’s a problem on the highways, it’s your fault. My fault? Yeah, yours.

It all comes down to watermelons, I told him.

He cocked his head to the side a little and narrowed his eyes, saying nothing and looking a little taken aback. Works every time. Toyota drivers don’t smoke, bless their little clean souls, but it was the kind of moment where people like me light up a cigarette and hunker down a little to get deeper into the subject.

Watermelons, he said, not a question. Yep, I retorted.

You want your watermelons fresh, right? Of course, he said.

And you want ’em cheap, right? Well, yes, he replied.

So it’s to your advantage that the trucker who drags those watermelons up here from Arkansas or Mississippi should do it fast and cheap, right? And in a competitive environment the guy who does it fastest and cheapest will sell his load first and head south for more before the next guy, right?

Well, sure, he said, but I don’t want anyone breaking his neck on my behalf. Ah yes, I countered, but do you have any idea about what has to happen to bring those melons to your table? Do you have any influence on it? Do you really even care? Your only priorities are already established here — fresh and cheap, end of story.

The conversation went on at some length, and of course I switched watermelons to cars and lumber and Barbie dolls and all the other things that he might buy as an ordinary Canadian family man. In an era when the customer is king, the solitary trucker is always the one at the end of the line. The one forced to perform, regardless, because Joe Consumer wants it now and wants it cheap.

I wasn’t telling a sob story, and I wasn’t whining on your behalf. I was just telling him the way it is in 2002. The way it’s been for quite a few years now. And all the while I was thinking of those suits in Ottawa and Victoria and Winnipeg and wherever else who aim to change the regulations that govern your lives without talking to drivers. Without understanding. Like I said, it all comes down to watermelons.