Professional Driver or Professional Truck Driver?

We all heard the expression “Freight Relocation Engineer” and had a big smile to have such a title that seem like a lot of school years are behind it. A true Professional Truck Driver is not only a Professional Driver. A coach operator is also a Professional Driver and must use a lot of skill and smoothness in driving.

To be a Professional Truck Driver you must demonstrate a good general attitude. How many times did it happen towards the end of the week that a load is dispatched to you and it will bring you away from home and you may arrive a day later? The true professional won’t let it show to the customers and other road users. The driver will stay courteous, respectful of the laws, safety because if Murphy’s Law kicks in, if something has to happen, it will happen.

The roads are going to be bad, the weather non favourable, the things to slow down are all present and many are going to fall in the temptation to follow to closely, go over the hours of service or cut off as many stops as possible. Others will be noticed by a lack of patience, sarcasms towards the receivers of shippers, mostly if a spot in the docks is not available and if one is, the freight is not ready to be loaded.

I could write pages on the reasons and the causes that make these events, the psychological way to deal with them but, I am not a psychologist or a social worker. Many, I am one, are going to act in an impulsive way and could start singing the famous Johnny Paycheck song “Take this job and shove it”. Easier for a paid company driver to do so then the owner-operator with all the financial impacts to act too quickly.

We all have a story that involves a “4wheeler” that did something really dumb but, we forget easily the hundreds that are showing courtesy, making a sign with their lights when the path is clear to come back. Did you ever think that is also a two way street? What kind of thought they have on the truck driver?

It is by all your actions on the road, on the docks and with the general crowd that you will let your professionalism shine trough even if you are not noticed for it but you will be greatly appreciated in any circumstances.