The Iron Skillet restaurant of the Oak Grove, Mo., Travel Plaza looks, smells and feels just like a truck stop ought to. There are a few tired-looking waitresses, all under 30, with their hair either hastily pulled back or badly permed. There is a long salad buffet with few takers. The aroma is a curiously comforting, Saturday-morning smell of greasy breakfast food and stale cigarettes. And dead ahead is a low, beige coffee bar patronized by three customers.

The first is an overweight woman with a cigarette in hand. She’s got peroxide blonde hair and long, fake purple nails with a flowery decal stuck to the tip of each one. A few seats down is a man who looks to weigh 300 pounds, Camel Lights next to his coffee cup, and sporting a red plaid shirt and a huge belt buckle. The third customer, half the size of his companions and bald, is lighting up a Marlboro Ultra Light 100. Red veins etch into his cheekbones and nose.

Their dialogue is a slow, ambling discussion that can easily be paused to light a cigarette or abandoned to get back on the road. It alternates between “son of a bitch”-riddled diatribes about lousy dispatchers and tall tales about impossible weather, traffic or ex-wives. The breaks for laughter are frequent and prolonged. Each is generous with his smoky, wheezy guffaw. Everyone’s a stranger by the civilian world’s standards, but teasing insults and empathetic kindness come out as easily as they do among old friends.

And that’s just how truckers are: easygoing and grateful for a few moments’ conversation and story swapping. They don’t judge the man who admits to seven children and four ex-wives, and they don’t forget to tip their waitress. The stereotyping ends with appearance and mannerisms. Truckers are wise, good-hearted people. They’re fairly educated too. According to a profile in Newport Communications, roughly half of truckers have some college education. Approximately 90 percent have a high school diploma or equivalent.

They’re an integral yet often overlooked part of life.

“I’ll sum it up for you,” says Dieter Reyes, an Army veteran and driver for 10 years. He quotes a T-shirt he saw at a truck stop, “‘If it wasn’t for trucks, you’d be naked, without a home and with nothing to eat.’”

Life on the road

Truckers see more of North America than the most dedicated road-trippers. Keith Henry, a driver-turned-owner, says he has seen every state except Hawaii “more times than I can count.” From purple mountain majesties to amber waves of grain, truckers live in picturesque frames.

But they do it alone.

“Loneliness” is the immediate, universal response to any inquiry about what makes life as a trucker hard. But they find ways around it. In Henry’s early years, he would often walk up to a farmhouse and ask if he could join its residents for dinner, offering to pay for his plate. His presence was never turned down, but his money was every time.

Loneliness manifests itself in a lot of ways, not the least of which is the infamous “truck stop love,” anonymous homosexual encounters at roadside stops. Reyes says he has been approached more than once by a “baba booey,” the advertising call and nickname for gay drivers on the CB, the “citizen band” radio used by truckers to communicate with one another.

Back at home, drivers usually have a miserable record of personal relationships. Studies consistently show that truckers have a higher rate of divorce than the national average. They aren’t sheepish about admitting to numerous failed marriages, but they don’t complain about the horrors of divorce, either. They simply move on. For most, driving is a lifelong marriage to the road. It’s not just a job, it’s a lifestyle.

Photo by Kit Leffler

Every aspect of Paul Stephens’ life has been influenced by his trucking career. When he does make it home, he seldom can stand to be there for more than a few days. In his 34 years of truck driving, he’s spent more nights in the cab of his truck than in his own bed. It’s hard for him to get comfortable in a bed, so when he’s at home, he often fires up the truck in his driveway and sleeps there.

There are few other jobs that entail as much private thought as truck driving. Each day holds between eight and 11 hours of solitary confinement. The trucker’s legal workday recently got extended. Last month, the Bush administration reaffirmed a 2004 Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration rule change that extended the allowed workday from 10 to 11 hours.

Henry says that good drivers use obstacle-free driving time for mental planning so that in the event of bad weather or a collision, they’re ready. He describes a sort of endless solo “what if” game, with no situation being too outlandish to plan for. On the lighter side, music, CB chatting and cell phone calls can help break up the monotony.

Drivers insist “smokey bears,” or cops, are more likely to go after a trucker than anyone else, because the penalties are so much higher. Reyes was passing through Colorado and failed to follow a sign dictating a lane change. The police caught him and charged $600 for the infraction, he says — nearly a whole week’s pay.

Trucking Reality

Photo by Kit Leffler

The trucking industry is ruthless and demanding with a high failure rate and merciless odds. After clearing tremendous overhead costs in fuel, maintenance and insurance, a huge trucking company — one with, say, 17,000 trucks — could profit only a dollar a day per truck, said Henry. His company, with only six trucks, pays nearly $5000 each month in overhead. The industry makes its $255 billion in revenue through sheer volume.

There are two main types of drivers: owner-operators and company drivers. Owner-operators own their own trucks and have more independence. But they must pay for maintenance costs and the $70,000 to $115,000 trucks. Company drivers drive trucks that are owned by their employers. Should a company truck break down on the road, its driver need only call the company to have the damage repaired — at no personal cost. But company drivers also have less autonomy.

The industry as a whole desperately needs drivers. Henry says there is a shortage of 50,000 drivers, resulting in a new standard of “if you’ve got a pulse, you’re going in a truck.” The trucking industry is trying to recruit with the concept “your own boss,” hoping to attract drivers to the career, which has no dress code or set hours and pays an average of $32,000 annually.

The turnover rate is high — about 120 percent, according to the American Trucking Association. Truckers complain that larger companies often treat them as mere extensions of the trucks they drive, not considering their individual needs. And truckers suffer from “the grass is always greener” syndrome, says Reyes, leading to an industry-wide habit of frequently switching companies.

The health of drivers takes a hit too. According to a study by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, 75 percent of truckers are overweight, and 25 percent are obese. Most truck-stop food is just grease in different shapes and colors, accompanied by bottomless cups of coffee. A typical meal at the Iron Skillet, the “breakfast sandwich platter,” comes with two metallic-tasting pancakes, two strips of bacon that are more chewy white fat than glistening meat and a tough sausage patty. An entire bottle of syrup and generous portions of butter come on the side. Top off a meal like that with a cigarette or 10 and it’s a wonder drivers don’t expire walking out the door.

Trucking over time

Most middle-aged drivers have plenty of negative things to say about the newer generation. Henry blames the driving schools, who train drivers in just four or six weeks and seem to instill a “me first” attitude. He recalls that 10 or 15 years ago, when a truck would pull over with a problem, three or four drivers would pull over behind it, offering help. He says a trucker would be the first to stop and help a civilian change a tire or call for help. Stephens says he used to carry scores of spare parts in his truck at all times, just for other people. With roadside crime increasing, however, truckers are making these gestures less often. Nowadays, recalls driver Penny Lowery, one runs the risk of being shot and robbed when pulling over. Kindness is simply too risky.

Truckers are also subject to a Department of Transportation crackdown on drug and alcohol use. Estimations among old-timers vary, but some estimate that any more than 20 years ago, 50 to 70 percent of drivers were on drugs at any given time. Now the Department of Transportation can call a dispatcher at any time and require any driver to stop for a screening. The screenings are frequent; Henry estimates he has a driver being screened every week.

Truck stops have changed, too. They are now called “travel plazas” and have improved features like personal showers, showers for women, even movie theatres and chrome shops. (“A trucker’s favorite color is chrome,” Henry says.)

The information age has also brought change to truckers. The portability of televisions, laptops and phones and the tremendous variety of satellite radio have made the road more pleasant for truckers. Recreation is now easier than it has ever been. And the Web offers some great programs. The “trucker buddy” program matches drivers with classrooms across the country. The instructor uses the trucker’s route and experiences to teach, and the students send postcards and letters.

But along with advanced entertainment technology comes more relentless tracking and communication devices that often irritate truckers. Company trucks are often fitted with limiting systems that cap the car’s velocity at a certain speed. Instant message systems allow companies to contact their drivers at any time, day or night. After being constantly disturbed by his company’s dispatcher, Stephens says he cut the wires off his instant message unit and shipped the whole device back to his company.

The industry is also growing more diverse. Traditionally a man’s profession, women now make up about 12 percent of all truckers, according to the Newport Communications profile. More than 75 percent of women owner-operators have spouses who also drive trucks.

Penny Lowery is one such woman. She and her husband work for the same company, making it possible for their schedules to correspond. She says that for the most part, men have treated her equally. If they give her “shit,” she gives it right back, she says, and that usually takes care of it.

A dangerous profession

A 2000 article on www.thecybertruckstop.com says truckers have higher rates of fatal injuries than people in any other profession.

It’s not surprising. Truckers have to endure extreme weather and traffic risks. Henry has been through two hurricanes, an earthquake, a flood and a sandstorm. Nine percent of America’s annual 41,000 to 45,000 traffic deaths involve a commercial vehicle, according to www.truckinfo.net. More than 80 percent of those accidents are not the fault of the truck drivers. In 1998, 600 truck drivers were killed on the road.

Henry was in many dangerous situations during his 23 years as a driver, but the worst was in 1989 in Dallas. He was driving a tanker truck carrying 8,500 gallons of gas. A woman drove off the on ramp. While swerving to miss her, Henry lost control and rolled his truck. He had seconds to climb out the passenger side window and run before the truck went up in blazes. The explosion made headline news as far away as California, he says. The next day, six drivers quit when they saw what was left of the tanker: a pile the size of a card table. Henry just went back to work.

The industry isn’t a gentle one. Truckers are a tough breed. They deal with great struggles — from natural disasters to marital problems — and must do so alone. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration found that a high percentage of truckers suffer from high blood pressure, high stress levels and a poor diet. They must be self reliant and able to make split-second decisions.

In a world of Google satellite maps and GPS, truckers still maintain a bit of the rugged explorer’s lifestyle: they are usually far from home and uncertain what the next bend in the road will bring them. Any trucker will tell you it’s a rough life, but there’s a reason 3.3 million Americans choose to be drivers. Reyes gets almost sentimental when asked what his favorite aspect of trucking is.

“I’ll give you a bullet list,” he says, taking a long pull on his Marlboro. “Sunrise in the Rockies. The ocean view in British Columbia. The harbor and ocean along the Atlantic and Canada. Sunset in California.”