Comments By Kieran L.

And I think the whole violence vs nudity thing has to do with the fact that sex and the reproductive areas are inherently a private thing, and there's a certain sense of subconscious violation that goes along with even being exposed to it second-hand, especially in kids. Violence, on the other hand, is found commonly and openly in nature, is often justified (as in war), and usually glorified in such cases. It's inherently okay to defend oneself violently if presented with a violent attack (as in self-defense), and the case can be made that the protagonist in almost any violent media is acting to defend himself or others from worse violence. Think "Lord of the Rings:" pure good vs pure evil, with the good guys being violent because they have to be to survive.

Just playing a bit of a devil's advocate here, but I would like to point out that "the fact that sex and the reproductive areas are inherently a private thing, and there's a certain sense of subconscious violation that goes along with even being exposed to it second-hand, especially in kids" is purely a construct of the society in which we live, its a social taboo, something we learn from our families and friends growing up. But there's nothing natural about it. In fact there are many indigenous cultures especially ones isolated from "modern" civilization, in which these taboos against the human body being displayed simply do not exist.

Which brings me to "Violence, on the other hand, is found commonly and openly in nature..." This is of course, correct. And nudity isn't found commonly and openly in nature? When's the last time you saw a lion or chimpanzee wearing underwear or attempting to hide its junk for fear of embarrassment or harassment from the other animals? There exists no such taboo against nudity in nature. People, like all the other creatures on earth, are born without clothes. That is our natural state. Clothing does serve a purpose in keeping us warm in cold weather, but honestly the whole freaking out over nudity thing wouldn't even be an issue if it weren't for modern society artificially imposing such taboos on us from an early age.

for me, the main issue of violence vs nudity is that one kills people but is openly accepted, while the other is really harmless (other than if you want to say seeing someone naked causes psychological damage, which again is purely due to our society's imposed view of it rather than any actual harm) and yet the really harmless state of not wearing clothes is somehow seen as worse or more taboo that killing. Pretty ironic, to me.

Anyway I'm not suggesting we all start a nudist truckers club or anything lol, just making conversation. :)

Hopefully him getting in trouble with the police and having to go before a judge and answer for his actions will embarrass and shame him enough to not want to do it again. I'm glad he's having to deal with some legal consequences at least.

Ahh come on lol... I mean, I know it might not be what you wanted to look at, but seeing the upper 40% of a fat man in his bed isn't that big a deal, there are lots worse things out there. BTW, if you only saw the upper 40%, you really don't know if he was naked or not. I mean, he could have had his shirt off and been wearing pants or at least his boxers or whatever, you didn't see so you don't know.

I have always thought its kinda funny how we can be so offended at seeing naked people (especially on TV, i.e. censorship) and even diligently try to protect kids from seeing it even though we all have the same equipment, but most of the same people have no problem with watching countless depictions of violence, gunfights, murder, etc. on TV and playing out the role of a killer in games and whatnot. Its somewhat ironic to me.

I don't know what your sexuality has to do with trucking, as long as you can haul freight safely and efficiently it shouldn't matter. As for getting along with other truckers, there's probably plenty out there that you won't get along with, and some you will get along with just fine. I think most people encounter other people they don't get along with and some they do. Sure there are the stereotypes of truckers but there are plenty that don't fit the stereotypes as well. From what I've seen, the good people here at TT do their best to avoid promoting the old stereotypes of truckers.

But others have said, and I agree, that its good to develop a strong backbone and a thick skin for trucking. In other words, have some self confidence, know how to stand up for yourself when needed, and don't let every off-hand remark someone makes get to you, you have to learn how to ignore stupid people and get on about your business unharmed without getting lured into a fight.

I think trucking is not right for everyone, but if its what you want to do, it can work for you if you make it work. Like many things in life, the experience will be largely whatever you make of it. That is to say, if you put 2 different people in the same situation, one may hate it and be miserable, while the other may have no problem and be happy. If you learn to effectively manage stress, ignore idiots, and make the best of any situation, you'll do just fine I think. :)

Its really sad that this kind of thing keeps happening over and over again in bad weather conditions.. I'm sure many of you remember the series of huge pileups on I-80 earlier this year? There were dozens and dozens of semi trucks involved that just kept on driving through the snowstorm until they hit the accident and became part of it too.

People need to keep their braking distances in mind and not drive faster than the distance they can see and safely stop in. Constantly ask yourself while driving, "If a parked or wrecked vehicle suddenly came into view in front of me now, could I safely stop in time?" If the answer is EVER no, then SLOW DOWN until you can say "yes" with confidence in that situation.

That sucks and I hope he gets what's coming to him. Also, don't listen to that school bus driver about having to go OTR. You don't HAVE to do that at all. Remember, the trucking industry in general is woefully short on drivers, so the companies want all the drivers they can get. They may prefer OTR drivers (because they need more of them) and might try to talk you into it, but if you stick to your guns I've no doubt you can land a regional or even a local job right out of trucking school. Plenty of others here have.

Keep your head up. This was a bad day, everyone has bad days. Things will get better. :)

...because who actually can sleep good in a moving truck.

I just found this part funny because I hear people say that so often, but actually I arguably sleep better on the road (with someone I trust driving) than I do when all is still and stopped. The sound of the engine and the motion of the road actually lulls me to sleep. Kinda like how some people can't sleep without a fan (or even a TV for some people) on in the room for noise. In fact, my parents told me that when I was a baby and wouldn't stop crying at night, the only way they could get me to calm down and go to sleep was to take me for a drive in the car. The moment I was in the car with that engine running, I would stop crying. A few minutes of driving later, I would be fast asleep.

So I guess it depends on the person, and it might take some getting used to at first, but I'd say many if not most people could adapt to sleeping in a moving truck without too much trouble. :)

Now that I think about it, have I heard the phrase "Super Solo" somewhere? Like maybe exactly what we're talking about here - a company that dispatches a truck like a solo truck but because there's two drivers they get more miles than a regular solo truck? Seems I might have heard that somewhere before.......

I did a little bit of quick research on that and though I had never heard of it before, it seems there are a very few teams running what is known as "Super Single" or alternately "Super Solo" which apparently means each 24 hour day is broken up into three 8-hour chunks, with each driver driving 8 hours and the last 8 hours the truck is shut down for the night. This allows a couple to still sleep together for 8 hours while the truck is down, and each drive 8 hours. Seems exactly like what the OP wanted. Only problem is, I can't seem to find any info on which companies (if any) are currently offering this type of schedule. Could be a thing of the past, for all I know.

I'll take a stab at this...

You won't always be running your full 22 hours (11 each) a day, but many times you will have to. There are plenty of times when you'll have days where you do almost nothing but sit around and wait on people or on situations which are out of your control, and you could view that as down time when you can take care of personal things. However, teams get paid more because they expect teams to be able to run twice the miles in the same time frame, so you can take more time-sensitive loads and get them there in half the time it would take a solo driver. Running a team truck only 16 hours a day may make your delivery window impossible to hit in many cases.

Because of this, every company (that I'm aware of) that runs teams is going to expect you to make the most of your allowed driving hours in a day whenever possible. If you want to run as a solo truck instead of a team truck, that could be a possibility and would leave you more time for personal stuff, but you'll only make what a solo driver makes for a paycheck. If you want that big team paycheck, you'll have to run the miles associated with it, and that means running your full 11 hour shift each whenever possible.

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