What Skills will Help a Truck Driver?

Being successful in a truck driver job involves a lot more than sitting behind the wheel and driving a truck all day. Truck drivers are not held in the highest regard today, but there are multiple skills needed to become great driver delivering  fast, friendly and safe service.

A good truck driver should have excellent communication and people skills. There must be no confusion between them and their dispatcher and they must be able to work well with customers to resolve any delivery or pick up problems. No matter what phase of the job, a driver will be in contact with people and needs to be able to get along and communicate with others.

While modern electronics and GPS have made things easier, a trucker still needs to be able to navigate, particularly in the case of a large semi truck, and be aware of roads that can and can not be traveled. Even with electronics, drivers should be able to read maps in case they find themselves in a remote area where their GPS keeps “recalculating” and they must be aware of all clearances to make sure the truck and trailer can safely pass under them.

Truck drivers need to be reliable and responsible. a truck driving job can be a dangerous proposition and the driver must be constantly aware of all others on the road to help prevent accidents and mishaps. It goes without saying that they must follow the rules of the road and all laws, such as the posted speed limit, as well.

As in many other contracted fields, self motivation is very important in a truck driver job and helps a driver to perform at their best. It’s so easy to hit the “snooze” button on that alarm after a long haul, but being motivated to make the delivery on time is what separates the men from the boys, or the women from the girls, in a truck driver job position. Let’s not forget that truck drivers may be male or female and vary greatly in age and experience.

Perhaps one of the most important skills to be a success in a truck driver job is organization. With the latest regulations, there is more and more paperwork that must be done on a daily basis. All logs, electronic or otherwise, must be filled out correctly to avoid troubles with regulators and employers. Speaking of electronic laws, some basic computer skills can also be very helpful. Trip packets have to be completed as well as accurate expense reports to either get paid or as deductions on tax returns.

With so much time spent alone on the road, sometimes in very “out of the way” places, it can be a trip saver if the driver has some basic mechanical skills and a thorough understanding semi truck operation. With these skills, a trucker can identify problems before they cause a breakdown and may be prevented as well make some the necessary repairs to get back on the road if an issue does occur. While not a necessity of the job, it can definitely come in handy and save a great deal of time and money in shop repairs.

For the aspiring trucker, having some of these skills will make you even more employable. For experienced drivers, these skills can help to ensure a success

ful career, advancement and generally will make your life a whole lot easier.  For the rest of us, next time you meet a trucker you might want to shake their hand and appreciate a little more all the skills and techniques they master in order to deliver our stuff safely and on time.

Go filmi to dodge penalty!

Somit Sen, Times of India News Service May 19, 2010

MUMBAI: Amitabh Bachchan or AB for short, Lal Rumaal, Kachcha Papad... Well, these are
some of the monthly code words used by unscrupulous agents to help truckers bypass RTO
checks for overloaded trucks and tempos in the state.

Sources in the transport industry have revealed a major nexus between agents and RTO
officials whose unusual modus operandi has encouraged rampant overloading in the past few
months. Besides being illegal, overloading is a major hazard as it can cause accidents on busy
highways as well as damage road surface.

A big-time Mumbai transporter who did not wish to be named told TOI, "The RTO has a flying
squad which checks trucks and tempos anywhere on the highway for overloading. The agents,
who are hand-in-glove with them, usually operate from some of the dhabas situated en route."
According to the modus operandi, a truck driver is instructed by his owner (or the party
sending a consignment) to contact an agent at a particular dhaba. The driver is supposed to
stop over at the dhaba for refreshments. He then interacts with the agent over a cup of tea or a
glass of lassi and collects the chit containing the code words.

Sources said that sometimes, these codes are the first few lines of a song from a recently
released Hindi film. Once the driver sings the song, he can bypass every check, they said.
Another transporter from Dana Bunder said, "The RTO has to maintain its targets of
recovering fines. So, it nabs innocent truck and tempo drivers who are not part of the cartel.
They are harassed by the officials who scrutinise every detail of the consignment and find some
loophole to fine the truck driver."

When contacted, Maharashtra Truck Owners Association general secretary Parshuram Katke
confirmed that there was corruption in the RTO, which encouraged rampant overloading of
vehicles across the state. "The fine has increased from Rs 200 a few years ago to Rs 2,500 per
tonne recently. But, this has not deterred unscrupulous truckers," he said, and added that there
have been accidents due to overloading, which posed dangers to other motorists driving on the
highway.

J K Jain, general secretary of the Bombay Goods Transport Association, said that the RTO
often harassed those carrying machinery for government projects. "Since the machinery is
fixed to the vehicle, the officials often insist that they would calculate the collective weight of
both vehicle and equipment. And, if this weight is not declared in the documents, it is termed
as overloading," he said. Another transporter alleged that the RTO manipulated the fine
collection to meet its annual targets.

A senior RTO official denied the charges by saying that the transport department was serious
about collecting fines from overloading vehicles. "Our fine collection for overloading offence

Courtesy: Times of India

Hollywood 1957 classic: Hell Drivers

Truck driving madness.....

Must Watch....

Try to locate Sean Connery in this movie - third or fourth after he was launched.

Not Emperor Ashoka’s enemy!

“Don’t mistake me. I am not an enemy of the Great Emperor Asoka,” says Dr S T Ramesh, Director General and Inspector General of Police, Karnataka Government in mid-May this year. He agreed to meet after I “SMSed” my request for an audience with him to discuss the “failing law and order” situation on National Highways while traversing through Karnataka, which he and his team police. For a while, I could not get the drift of his comments. What has Asoka got to do with him or National Highways?

“Permit me to explain,” he requests. I oblige. Ramesh was on the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways’ Panel on Road Safety until recently. He was of the firm opinion that trees on both sides of highways are a big obstacle causing accidents. So, he was giving expression to the agitation of some group or other who were opposed to cutting trees to widen roads. “How can you widen roads, if some trees cannot be felled down?” he asks pointedly.

Now I get his “Asoka” moment. At school, we learnt that the Great Emperor Asoka planted trees on roadside and he was lauded for that developmental work. Nobody doubted – or will – the brainwave behind the ‘plant tree’ movement of those days. But, the ex-cop from Karnataka simply cannot see eye to eye with those who oppose tree cutting for highway development.

His line of argument is simple. Forget about felling trees for widening of roads so that today’s heavy movement of commercial vehicles ferrying goods to various parts of country. Ramesh goes to the extent of saying trees are one of the “major causes” of highway accidents. “Not every stretch of national highways is four or six lane. Put it differently, a major length of national highways are just dual carriageways and with decades old trees on both sides. Today, the vehicle sizes have also undergone changes. They carry more,” adds he. It is no secret that road has come to dominate even for long haul, causing heart burns to the railways, a government monopoly.

Ramesh is not alone in voicing his demand to fell trees. Prashant Gawasane, Project Director at National Highways Authority of India at Mangalore, joins the chorus. Don’t mistake them for anti-nature campaigners. They are as good a development strategists as you and I. As our Leyland truck, ferrying granules from Bangaluru to Mangalore is passing through NH 48, I am witness to highway expansion most of the time. Massive tree trucks, cut in large pieces are lying on the roadside for transportation out of the place. Road levelers are working as early seven in the morning. Two lane highways are being turned into four or perhaps six lane highways. Good, we will all agree. If NHAI’s Gawasane is to be believed, tree displacement is the second biggest challenge before him next only to land acquisition.

“What do they expect me to do? They certainly appreciate road expansion. But put a condition that trees if they to be cut, should be uprooted and planted elsewhere. What can we at NHAI do? We are not into tree plantation. The state government has to make provision for such things because afforestation falls under its jurisdiction,” explains Gawasane in his office in the heart of Mangalore hardly a few kilometers away from Mangalore port.

Reverting to ex-cop Ramesh’s tree-as-the-cause-for-road-accident, it appears he is not off the mark. On my journey from Tata Nagar in Chattisgarh to Ludhiana in Punjab with steel wire rods on the Tata truck we were moving via Ranchi in mid-February. Having passed through the capital of Chattisgarh, suddenly I notice a tree in the middle of the highway, left untouched. Since Pandeyji travels in the same route always, I could not help looking at him seeking explanation. “It is a big challenge to veer our trucks around. We also don’t know why this has not been felled down so far,” says he.  At the nearest dhaba where he halt for a tea-break, other heavy commercial vehicle drivers echo the same sentiments. Catching hold one of the contractors en route supervising the expansion project, I politely ask him about the tree-in-the-middle-of-the-road syndrome. He throws up his hand in despair and sneaks out.  Such things lead to accidents mostly in the night time due to lack of adequate lighting on the highways.

What Asoka, the Great, did in his time has little relevance to us today. Those days, trees provided shade to travelers on foot. Perhaps to horse riders as well. There were no motorized vehicles moving on those passages. Today’s situation is totally different. Roads, it is rightly said, changes the landscape of thousands of villages through which they pass through. Road building exercise provides massive employment opportunity and helps trade in a big way.

Development comes at a cost. Let’s accept this fact. Let’s not miss the forest in search of trees.

NOTE:

This Chapter was part of 10,000 KM on Indian Highways published in November 2011. 

To know more about this book, visit www.10000kmonindianhighways.com

Mr S T Ramesh has retired since then.

Truck Driver - Bollywood clip

Check out from 6.15...

Life of a truck driver and his dreams on the food front alone...

Film: Mela (2000)

Check out  for more details:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mela_(2000_film)

Novel Justice!

Dushman, released in 1971, turned the spotlight on how to tackle when a truck driver kills someone and this untimely death renders living unbearable for the victim's family.

This movie, a super hit, examines how it can achieve twin purposes: punish the guilty and at the same time ensure the victim's family also gets support...

Watch this clip - an emotional scene (with English subtitles)....

Truck driver song-1 - Gaddar (2001)

It was one of those peppy songs with a typical truck driver's penchant for loud and foot tapping number.

Sunny Deol, in this movie Gaddar released in 2001 alongside Aamir Khan's Lagaan, was a super hit.

To know more about this movie, check out ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadar:_Ek_Prem_Katha

FEEDBACK: Straight From The Heart...

Dear Mr Ramesh,

Yesterday (20 August 2013), I met Mr Gur-Prasad Kohli and received your book, An Affair with Indian Highways.

Everything seems to have been said in Preface itself. 

Check http://driversduniya.blogspot.in/2013/08/preface-to-affair-with-indian-highways.html

to read Preface in full.

Each word is as inclusive and explosive as an Atom can be.

This reminds me of writings of Tao mystiques and Zen monks. 'Less is more' is well reflected in this piece of your mind.

Speaking from your own experiences, straight from heart, this books seems to be a benchmark in anything which is worth writing and can be written about drivers and our attitude towards them,

Its shaking and thought provoking.

My best compliments for this awakening effort.

Also congratulations for being part of Congress Library !


thanks n regards,

Achal Paliwal
Head - Logistics & Exports
Honda Cars India Ltd
Greater Noida, UP

PREFACE to An Affair With Indian Highways

Where do I begin?

And where do I end?

It’s a challenge.

It has been a long drawn affair. I have been sucked into its orbit and honestly unable to retrieve from its octopus-like grip.

Am I cribbing? Nope.

Not at all.

This affair with Indian highways is enchanting. Educative.  Most times it helps me clear my mental cobwebs on a host of issues concerning my fellow human beings. Businessmen. Ordinary men – like you and I. Rulers and policy makers.

No doubt, am happy to note the growth story of India – however sputtering it might be.  If only, a few things can change, how different the lives of my 1.2 billion fellow Indians.

Simple respect for fellow human beings will bring about a sea change in the way in which the Indian trade and commerce is being carried out. But that is something similar to asking for the moon at this moment.

Imagine a day from dawn to dusk and you will unhesitatingly accept that without them-  HCV drivers, to be precise – you and I will be leading a stone age lifestyle.

Do we care to admit that?  Not at all.

If we do, then the loud cry about the looming driver shortage – 5 million by 2015 – will be just a dream, not an emerging reality.

Without drivers at the wheels of the fast-trundled out sophisticated dashboards in trucks that carry raw materials from production lines and subsequently finished products to nook s and corners, the Indian economy story will turn negative. Do we need that?

Honestly, none of us want that.

The life of truck drivers on Indian highways is pathetic. After turning the spotlight on this issue through my maiden book, 10,000 KM On Indian Highways, I did not – and could not stop the odyssey. By the time I clocked 21,000 KM in December 2012, I sat down to look at the fresh experience and nothing has changed as far as drivers were concerned.

But one thing has changed. There is a greater discussion about how to usher in a change of mindset all around – involving stakeholders. That’s a pleasant development for me.

The government is keen. Industry is eager. Yes, driver community is watching this minutely changing script.

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Certainly.

But, at this moment, that ‘light’ is far away.

Still, am happy that there is that hope.

Don’t forget that dirty-looking, lungi-clad, bidi smoking, illiterate truck driver who ensured that you have your Colgate toothpaste ready in the morning to brush your teeth. Your scented lavender bathing soap in the washing room.  Your bread toast and hot beverage on the breakfast table. As you sit behind the wheel of your own vehicle, the personal mobility item itself and the diesel/petrol in its belly to move you wherever you wish to go. The mouth-watering lunch at home or workplace. And your favourite tippler as you shut down your day’s work and decided to chill out. This list is endless.

All, courtesy, that man – the truck driver.

It’s said that God is omnipresent and omnipotent.

To me, this guy – the truck driver is more omnipotent and omnipresent.

The only difference is that God knows his strengths.

This Dirty Man does not.

It is a pity.

The day he knows that, it will be a different world for you and me.

The future is tense. Let us change our behaviour.

It’s never too late.

Ramesh Kumar

14 February 2013

Those Madmen Driving our National Highways

Book Review


DWIGHT GARNER


KILLER ON THE ROAD
Violence and the American Interstate
By Ginger Strand
Illustrated. 252 pages. University of Texas Press. $25.


When Vladimir Nabokov wrote in “Lolita” that “you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style,” he was not predicting the arrival of the serial killer and necrophile Ted Bundy. But he might have been.

It’s unclear to me how fancily Bundy wrote. But he spoke with a grisly élan. Asked by a prison interviewer to describe his crimes, he said: “How do you describe what a quiche tastes like? Or what the juice of a bouillabaisse is like or why it tastes the way it does?” He added, “Some people taste clams” while others “mullet and the mussels.”

Among American serial killers, Bundy seemed especially terrifying because he was mobile. He confessed to murdering 30 young women in the 1970s, and those killings were spread across seven states. He was bad, as the ZZ Top song has it, and he was nationwide.

Ginger Strand’s new book, “Killer on the Road: Violence and the American Interstate,” examines the links between random killings and the anonymity and soullessness bred by our Interstate System. These are connections most of us have long ago made in our minds. As Ms. Strand observes, “If a song or book title contains the word Interstate or Freeway, expect mayhem.”

Ms. Strand’s slim book is part true-crime entertainment, part academic exegesis, part political folk ballad. I don’t wish to overpraise it: it has soft spots; it frequently deals with material covered in better books; you will not confuse the author’s modest prose with Nabokov’s. Yet her cross-threaded tales of drifters, stranded motorists and madmen got its hooks into me. Reading Ms. Strand’s thoughtful book is like driving a Nash Rambler after midnight on a highway to hell.

On its most primal level “Killer on the Road” recounts the crime sprees of men like Charles Starkweather. In 1958, at 19, he cruised around Lincoln, Neb., in stolen cars with his girlfriend and a sawed-off shotgun, killing 11 people and leading the National Guard on a multistate manhunt. His bad actions inspired two indelible pieces of American art: Bruce Springsteen’s song “Nebraska” and Terrence Malick’s film “Badlands.”

Starkweather was driven, in no small part, by class rage. He said later, “Dead people are all on the same level.”

Ms. Strand, whose previous work includes “Inventing Niagara” (2008), a history of Niagara Falls, dilates frequently upon class issues in her new book, upon the social inequities and simmering resentment behind many violent crimes. But her political analysis has more tentacles than that.

In a chapter about the killings of young people, mostly black boys, in Atlanta in the late 1970s and early 1980s, murders for which an unhinged man named Wayne Williams was ultimately arrested, she carefully parses how the Interstate System plowed through black sections of town, eliminating old neighborhoods. These were “white men’s roads,” as the National Urban League put it, “through black men’s bedrooms.”

She charts the social atomization that resulted. “Atlanta’s urban renewal and expressway construction had, at the very least,” she declares, “built the stage on which the tragedy in Atlanta could unfold.”

This book’s most unsettling chapter takes its name from one of the great, literate rock bands in this country: Drive-By Truckers. This chapter gives us Ms. Strand at her angriest, grisliest and most convincing. In it she proposes that America’s 10,000 or so truck stops breed serious crime, including serial murder, at a terrible (and largely preventable) level.

She commences by observing that “at least 25 former truckers are currently serving time in American prisons for serial murder.” Trucking has become a job that attracts marginal characters, she writes, “less educated, less stable, less tied to unions, less rooted in family life” than they once were. She quotes the economist Michael Belzer, who calls trucks “sweatshops on wheels.”

The bars to entry are low: criminal records and even drunken-driving convictions are often overlooked. The pay is abysmal. Many drivers are lonely and depressed. Annual turnover at some trucking companies, she says, is around 100 percent.

This information is clearly not enough to suggest that even a fraction of America’s 18-wheelers have sociopaths at the wheel. But in 2009 the F.B.I. went public with its Highway Serial Killings initiative, noting the numbers of women, often truck-stop prostitutes, killed each year, and suggesting the suspects are mostly long-haul truckers.

Ms. Strand focuses primarily on one case. She attended the 2010 trial of Bruce Mendenhall, the so-called Rest Stop Killer, who was convicted of murdering one woman in his truck in Nashville but will likely stand trial for the killings of other truck stop prostitutes in other states.

Her analysis deepens. She notes how little work has been done on the mental health of truckers. She asks if there might be “something about trucking that could push some people predisposed to violence over the edge.”

She advocates for trucker’s welfare. Do truck stops have to be such soul-crushing places? “It’s not hard to imagine how truck stops might counter the rigors of driving,” she writes. “They might have salad bars and dog runs and fitness centers. Instead they offer arcades and dingy drivers’ lounges — a row of easy chairs all facing a giant TV, as if what a driver should do when he stops driving is go and sit some more.”

She is even better on the lives of truck-stop prostitutes, the so-called lot lizards who knock on truckers’ doors at night, offering their services for as little as $30. (Truckers who don’t wish to be disturbed, the author says, post a sign in their windows, “a lizard behind a circle with a bar through it,” so they can get some sleep.)

When these women disappear, few tend to notice. Ms. Strand interviews an Indianapolis detective who calls them “throwaway people” about whom, sometimes, only the cops seem to care. But these women can be made more safe, as can the truckers themselves, by better lighting, design and security at truck stops, the author argues, in much the same way planners designed away much of the crime at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan.

Her plea on behalf of these prostitutes is a plaintive call for simple human dignity. “Those devalued lives,” she writes, “like the truckers’, are unimaginable outside the landscapes highway federalism built: the anonymous world of exit ramps, right-of-ways and travel plazas where places are numbers, people are anonymous, and human interaction is entirely mediated by commerce.”

Ms. Strand probably doesn’t mean to creep us out on her book’s dust jacket, where she writes that she “spends a lot of time on the road.” No matter. We’ve already been creeped out. “Killer on the Road” is a small book that carries a heavy load of unpleasant but important freight.



Courtesy: The New York Times, September 4, 2012

Dalian to Rotterdam in 35 days - 13 days less than via Suez Canal

Richard MilneFinancial Times | Sunday, 11 Aug 2013 |

A Chinese cargo ship is attempting the country's first ever commercial transit of the Northeast Passage above
Russia, as global warming opens a short-cut that promises to reduce shipping times between China and
Europe.

The Yong Sheng, a 19,000-ton vessel operated by state-owned Cosco Group, set sail on August 8 from
Dalian, a port in northeastern China, bound for Rotterdam. According to an announcement on Cosco's
website, the journey via the Bering Strait could shave as much as 15 days off the traditional route through the
Suez Canal and Mediterranean Sea.

Also known as the Northern Sea Route, the Northeast Passage is Europe's answer to the more fabled
Northwest Passage that threads its way across northern Canada and then around Alaska. Sir Francis Drake
and Captain James Cook were among the many adventurers and entrepreneurs who coveted the fabled routes as potential short-cuts to lucrative trading markets in East Asia.

The longer Northeast Passage, at approximately 5,400 kilometers, has the advantage of offering a relatively
straight journey over the top of the Eurasian landmass. Its shorter North American rival, by contrast, twists and turns through narrow, dangerous channels in the Canadian Arctic. The Northwest Passage claimed the life of explorer Sir John Franklin and the crews of his two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, in 1845.
First traversed in 1879 by a Swedish explorer, Baron Adolf Erik Nordenskiold, the Northeast Passage has more recently attracted serious attention from shipping companies as climate change opens Arctic sea lanes for longer periods each year. Russian authorities have granted 372 permits this year to ships intent on sailing all or some of the passage, compared to 46 full Asia-Europe transits last year and only four in 2010.

Arctic shipping is taking off faster than the other big economic prospect for the polar region, oil exploration,
where companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and Cairn Energy have been plagued by delays.

But analysts caution that it will be years before the route, which is only passable for a few months, is
commercially viable let alone a rival to the Suez Canal, which handled more than 17,000 ships in 2012.
Valentin Davydants, captain of Russia's Atomflot fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers (see below), estimates that by 2021 15 million tons of cargo will use the full route. In addition, 15 million tons of liquefied natural gas and 10 million tons of oil will use the route partially to leave Russia's northern Arctic shore.

But that pales into insignificance compared with sea freight in the Suez Canal where in 2011 almost 18,000
vessels transported 929 million tons of cargo.

"You might see some oil and gas leave Russia - but I think the day that container ships will choose to use the
northern sea route for economic reasons is quite a long way off," said one of Norway's biggest shipowners.

But some see great potential if the Arctic route can bring its costs down, which is indeed happening as the
melting sea ice means icebreakers are no longer required under Russian rules for all journeys.

Besides the Suez Canal, the traditional maritime route linking China to the EU passes through the contested
South China Sea, the Strait of Malacca and pirate-infested waters in the Indian Ocean.

The voyage between Dalian and Rotterdam along this southerly route takes 48 days. By sailing the Northeast
Passage, the Yong Sheng is expected to reach its destination on September 11 - a transit time of only 35
days.China, which claims to be a "near-Arctic state", has become more aggressive in asserting its interests in the northern Pacific and Arctic oceans. In May, Beijing secured "permanent observer" status at the Arctic Council, a group uniting the eight countries with territory in the polar region. It also stands to gain from Russia's de facto control of access to the Northeast Passage.

COURTESY: The Financial Times and CNBC.com

Improving driver health one click at a time

Part of any insurance company’s job is to minimize risk. That includes ensuring driver health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average life expectancy for a commercial truck driver is 61 and high blood pressure is one of the primary health risks facing commercial drivers. 

Further, few commercial drivers eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

This is one reason why Travelers Insurance, Northland Insurance and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) have teamed up to offer Drivinghealthy.org, a website and related social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter dedicated to improving the health of commercial truck drivers. The site received initial support from the National Surface Transportation Safety Center for Excellence.

“There are a lot of statistics out there that connect driver wellness and driver safety,” Matt Bordonaro, spokesman with Travelers’ Claims and Risk Control group, told Fleet Owner.

Traveler’s and VTTI experts were on hand Friday at Travelers’ Claim University in Windsor, CT, to discuss driver wellness as well as other commercial insurance needs with trucking customers and agents in a series of workshops as part of the Travelers/Northland Truck Safety & Education Symposium.

The Drivinghealthy.org website includes information crucial to commercial drivers such as what they need to know to maintain their medical card, what a medical screening is and is not, and links to finding a certified examiner through the National Registry of Certified Medical Examiners.

The site also includes resources for drivers dealing with smoking cessation issues, obstructive sleep apnea, mental health, drinking problems and other conditions. Healthy eating is the focus of yet another section with tips on eating out, how to pack food for road trips and information on serving sizes.

Sleep apnea is a concern for many drivers who maintain irregular sleep schedules. The site addresses the symptoms, tips for managing and resources for addressing sleep apnea.

“There are things in commercial safety that are not out there that can help drivers,” said Chris Hayes, director of transportation safety, Travelers Risk Control, “but at some point, it comes down to healthy drivers.”

VTTI is currently conducting research in this area, led by Dr. Jeff Hickman, group leader, behavioral analysis and applications, Center for Truck and Bus Safety. The research, Worksite Health & Wellness Case Study, seeks to draw conclusions about health and wellness programs. The effort will focus on Schneider National, which launched a driver wellness initiative with Atlas Ergonomics in 2006.

Through phone interviews to garner opinions of those involved in the program, researchers hope to develop a set of recommendations for implementing and maintaining a carrier-implemented health and wellness program for drivers.

The DrivingHealthy.org website is associated with a Twitter feed and Facebook page so drivers on the road can easily get updates and links to resources. Both resources provide daily health and wellness tips.

Courtesy: print | close

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A New Dawn?

Sure you would have read about Yogita Raghuvanshi, the woman truck driver, who drove the 16-tonner potato vehicle into the APMC Navi Mumbai complex in the first week of August. Well, she is not the first or the ONLY woman truck driver in India.  Selvamani from Tamilnadu is there too.

Yogita, by the way, is no uneducated woman behind the truck steering. As of now, the Commerce-cum-LLB degree holder (Yes, she can practice ‘law’ at any court in India!) has 500,000 km mileage to her credit. Add to that a genuine ‘HCV licence’. She is no ordinary personality.

In case, you have not read her saga, here is this gutsy lady’s story: Check out: http://goo.gl/IUBcKU and  http://goo.gl/E5wyNJ ).

Our highway vultures – read RTOs – are ruthless as usual to this lady truck driver. No gender differential!

“There is dearth of truck drivers today, she said. For the last decade there have been hardly any new drivers joining this trade. She attributed the problem to the harassment by policemen and RTO sleuths along every highway”,  says the report.

What about highway amenities? Listen to her:

“I finally took a bath. It was my first after Agra, which was last Sunday," she said beaming, adding that sleeping in the ghats, bathing by the riverside and using open air washrooms were something she had become used to.”

Shame on every single stakeholder: motor maliks, transporters, 3PLs, OEMs, Federal and state governments.

Sixty plus years after the Independence, none bothered to create the basic facility for these unsung heroes/heroines who feed, clothe and shelter us day in day out.

Governments at the Centre – even when the same political party was ruling both at the Federal and state levels – and states have done literally nothing to address the genuine needs of truck driving fraternity. Shameful and disgraceful.

What is the point of legislating laws if there is no will to implement? Sections 135 & 138 of Motor Vehicle Act specifically talk about highway amenities. While the law was enacted by the Parliament years ago, the implementation is left to states.

Like in the case of overload issue which incidentally has been banned by Supreme Court through its landmark 2005 judgment, once again the Federal government points fingers at states for laxity in implementation.

Yogita took to truck driving as she saw the job potential. If she is a lady, so what? she rightly asked that question and answered positively.

Have we not seen women conductors in Delhi Transport Corporation buses? Have we not seen female attendants at petrol pumps in cities? Have we not driven in cabs motored by women? Are we not familiar with women constables (not the sari-clad, but the pant-and-shirt wearing types) at police thanas and traffic intersections? Even National Security Guards – yes, the Black Cats – have women in their ranks. Nurses and teachers are the stereo-type female job dominators.

Have we not seen women truck drivers on the US-Canada belts steering on tougher terrains, courtesy Discovery TV channel? In this age of Youtube, type ‘women truck drivers” and you will be amazed at the volume of entries that pop up. Cathy Sherman, Lauren Galloway, Gili Williams, Vijante Solitaria, Kithic Wheeler are some of the lady drivers who will floor you in these memorable video clips. Or try “Volvo Trucks Ladies Day” and see for yourself.

 

There is nothing male-centric about truck driving. Why not women? Forget the catcalls and the bitching part male drivers may indulge. Women have overcome these obstacles beautifully. Why?

“Anything men do, women perform better,” asserts Jaiveer Johal, the Chennai-based late twenties and London School of Economics-returned managing director of Johal Logistics, who supplies jockey drivers to truck OEMs such as Ashok Leyland and Daimler Commercial Vehicles India.

“Can you question their welfare DNA? Can you question their ability to manage stressful situations? Forget about that. Women score over men in most respects. So, women truck drivers is nothing to be sneered at,” responds Rajan Agarwal, Managing Director of Rinku Commercial Carriers.

But, few questions, says Rajan.

What?

If they are going to be away on highways, who will take care of their children? Will husbands (non-truck drivers) don the mantle of house-keepers?

Rajan is skeptical.

I am not.

What makes me so optimistic on tackling this issue?

With the induction of women truck drivers, I foresee a slew of positive developments, I assure the Rinku Commercial Carriers malik.

There will be a big change, all around. To begin with, women will be empowered. They will have a job of their own. Greater cash flow at home. Better education. Better healthcare for their parivar (family).

Balwadis (childcare centres at villages) can be strengthened at the village level. Today, these state government-funded activities do not function full time. Like schools or Primary healthcare centres (PHCs), they work fixed hours. If more women at village/district levels can be trained properly under the Automotive Skill Development Council (ASDC), it will be begin to address the looming driver shortage problem.

Needless to harp on the greater patience and grasping power of the so-called weaker sex. Maybe these ASDC-certified women drivers may be deployed in the local level. This may translate into two things: those men who concentrate on local trips within a radius of 100 km so that they can handle the same day return trip may lose out opportunities to women drivers and thus compelled to look for better alternatives viz., other local jobs or take to longer duration trips. Additional supply of truck drivers is a bonus, indeed.

Next, assume that these ASDC-certified women truck drivers are put to long trips. Yogita and Selvamani are living examples of long haul truck driving by women. What more endorsement, one needs?

Yes, there are challenges. More women truck drivers on highways will bring a lot more disciplined driving. Why? They will not – repeat NOT – drink and drive. Is safe and timely delivery not what consignors and consignees are looking for? Is accident-less highways not something the government is aspiring for?

“We have no gender bias. ASDC will be interested training women truck drivers also,” says Balasubramaniam, Lead Trainer, based out of Chennai and who is spearheading ASDC’s Training The Trainer portfolio.

  

What about highway amenities? That’s precisely the point. With more women truck drivers, more oil marketing companies (IOC, BPCL, HPCL etc) will spend more of their CSR budget in making their pump-side toilets more user-worthy. Today, they are not.

Women, by nature, are more disciplined and orderly and seldom tolerate dirty surroundings. Maybe the unhygienic roadside dhabas get a facelift.

Men bathe in the open from huge water tanks – rain or shine. With women truck drivers getting inducted, close door bathing and toilet facilities may crop up.

And on the issue of corrupt RTOs and traffic police in every single state. Women truck drivers versus RTOs/TIs will a beautiful battle to watch out. They will be able to tackle such goons in a much better way than their male counterparts.

Let us not forget the highway safety. Every single state will be forced to improve road safety of cargo and drivers – with women at wheels.

Yes, it is a long term dream. Doable by 2020. Or even beyond. It will be a win-win situation. OEMs (both as consignors and consignees) get better delivery schedules. Less accidents on highways with more disciplined women truck drivers.

Salaam, Vanita Raghuvanshi behen!

COURTESY: By Aditya Anand, Mumbai Mirror | Aug 8, 2013


APMC officials in Vashi say Raghuvanshi is the first woman truck driver they have ever seen

Am I from outer space, asked Yogita Raghuvanshi, as catcalls and booes greeted her. There was a great stir at the potato and onion yard at APMC Vashi on Wednesday, when Yogita Raghuvanshi swerved into the market complex in her massive ten-wheel truck bearing a 16-tonne consignment of potatoes. Work came to a standstill as workers and fellow drivers at the yard dropped whatever they were doing and stared at her in disbelief.


Raghuvanshi was the first woman truck driver at the market complex and had actually created
history. But as she entered, the crowd there broke into a buzz of bitchy comments; she was also
greeted with hostile stares but was unfazed, referring to every male around as "bhaiya," even as a
bunch of loaders booed at her.

In comparison with what Raghuvanshi has endured in her life, this reception was as nothing and
rattled her not at all. The series of unfortunate events that planted her firmly behind the wheel of a truck, started with her arranged marriage in 1991.

Raghuvanshi was originally from Uttar Pradesh but brought up in Nandurbar, Maharashtra, in a family of four siblings. Till she arrived in Bhopal as a bride, she had no clue that her husband was not the advocate he claimed to be.

"I was told he was a lawyer practising in Bhopal High Court. But his family hid the truth from us," Raghuvanshi said. But she resigned herself to her fate and all was well till 2000, when her husband died in a road accident. "His death got me into becoming a truck driver," Raghuvanshi, who has a B.Com and
LLB degree, and is also possibly the most qualified truck driver in the country, said.

Why did she not take on a white-collar job, with her qualifications? Driving a truck gets you instant payment, she says. And with her two children, she could not wait to earn. Trying to get clients as a lawyer, then getting them to cough up their payment, would have been very tough, she said.

With her husband not leaving a will behind, she and her in-laws battled it out in court for his property, but the latter managed to acquire everything. "It was a nightmare. I had to bring up my children and run the household," Raghuvanshi, who has single-handedly brought up her two children, Yashika and
Yashwin, said. While Yashika is doing her BE, son Yashwin is in class ten."

It was a sudden change in plans that brought me to Mumbai," Raghuvanshi said. She and her cleaner Trilok Singh, known as Kallu, had set off from Agra on Sunday for Bhopal, which is also where Raghuvanshi lives. She has been driving her monster truck for eight years now and, before she reached Vashi,
had been on the road for the last 20 days.

Raghuvanshi is the first ever woman truck driver they had seen, confirmed APMC officials in Vashi who too, had come around to take a good look at her, having heard she was arriving. "I don't understand why these men think that a woman driver is unacceptable. Have I come from outer space?" Raghuvanshi asked this reporter.

She wants people to know that she is a "frog in the ocean" and not a "frog in a well". There is dearth of truck drivers today, she said. For the last decade there have been hardly any new drivers joining this trade. She attributed the problem to the harassment by policemen and RTO sleuths along every highway.

She has driven 5 lakh kilometres so far, and has also met Tamil Nadu's Selvamani, the only other known lady truck driver in the country. "Roads in south India are the best to drive on. Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are the worst," she said.

Her favourite consignment is beer. "There are better margins in beer. The worst is biscuits. They break in these craters called potholes," she said in disgust. After unloading the potatoes at Vashi, Raghuvanshi got busy making calls to get her next consignment.

"I finally took a bath. It was my first after Agra, which was last Sunday," she said beaming, adding that sleeping in the ghats, bathing by the riverside and using open air washrooms were something she had become used to.

For Raghuvanshi it is another five years before she hopes to retire. "My kids will be settled by then. I will elope in my fantasy," she said. But even as she said she hoped for a delivery that would take her back to Bhopal, where she could sleep peacefully in her own home, a consignment of biscuits headed for
Agra came her way!

Letter to CEO, Ahmednagar Cantonment Board

5 August 2013

Mr Vilas Harischandra Pawar,

The Chief Executive Officer

Office of the Cantonment Board

AMX Chowk, Bhingar

Dist Ahmednagar/Maharashtra

PIN 414 002

Phone: 0241-2326009

Dear Mr Pawar,

Sub: Vehicle Entry Tax @ Ahmednagar Cantonment area – Onkara Constructions

Greetings.

During my interaction with truck drivers at Devaraj Urs Truck Terminal in Bangalore in July this year, they shared some of their bitter experience with the alleged illegal gratification of Onkara Constructions, your concessionaire on the Ahmednagar Cantonment Board stretch who is authorized to collect Vehicle Entry Tax on your behalf.

Each truck passing through this section, I understand, is charged Rs.200/- (Rupees Two Hundred Only) in either direction. Onkara Constructions staff, manning this stretch, issue receipt  in the form of multiple Rs.15/-.

That is, drivers pay Rs.200 and get 10 numbers of Rs.15/- receipt (see attachment of receipt images). This works out to Rs.150/-(Rupees One Hundred and Fifty only).

Extra Rs.50/- is pocketed by Onkara Constructions staff obviously with no receipt of this amount.

Drivers’ objection to this kind of ‘highhandedness’ by Onkara Constructions staff is met with a deafening silence.

Sir, one is tend to believe is this ‘highhandedness’ is practiced without the Board being unaware. Or perhaps, Board officials are aware, but turn a blind eye.

Either way, this calls for a thorough investigation at your end.

A Right To Information Act application is being filed seeking more information about the Board practices on Vehicle Entry Tax collection procedure and the antecedents of Onkara Constructions selection process etc separately.

                                               

 Look forward to hearing from you,

Cheers

Ramesh Kumar

Copy to:

Hon’ble Minister for Defence, Government of India,New Delhi 110001

Chairman, NHAI, New Delhi

AIMTC/AIWTA/ACOGOA

Always in public!

Pitch dark it was all around. Nothing visible. One can hardly see beyond two feet. February it was. The double carriageway National Highway 56, linking Benares or Varanasi as is popularly known with Lucknow, remained silent. No vehicles at all. I could not fathom what the time was then: four? Five? No idea.

Anil Pandey’s snoring from the upper berth was discernible: loud and clear. Poor guy. He was in deep sleep. Somehow, I managed to snuggle out of the more comfortable lower berth. The fog outside had made the huge expanse of Tata truck’s front glass too opaque, adding to the sea of darkness pervading there already. Hardly a feet away, I noticed a bundle over the bonnet sandwiched between the two front seats. That ought to be Parvez Khan, second driver of the vehicle. Pandeyji, the senior most driver, commandeered the ship carrying 26 tonnes of Tata Steel’s wire rod for Ludhiana. It was a stock transfer from the company’s Jamshedpur mother plant.

Pandeyji’s mission was to cross the 1,650 km stretch crossing five states – Chattisgarh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab – in six days. We had been flagged off by Ramesh Benniwal, fleet commander of Credence Logistics, at the Transport Nagar in  Jamshedpur just before sunset two days ago. That’s when the entry/exit restrictions had been lifted permitting heavy commercial vehicles to ride onto the Tatanagar tarred road: National Highway 33.  

It was Valentine’s Day (February 14) and Credence’s Arvind Ambo quipped through SMS, “What a way to celebrate your Valentine’s Day in the company of drivers!” Valentine Day or no, my trip was planned well in advance. Moreover, if one has to celebrate ‘love for one’s beloved’, it can be any day. Why only February 14?

I rubbed my eyes and succeeded in locating my spectacles, lying next to the make-shift pillow. My biological clock was working fine and it was time for bowel movement. So I surmised that it ought to be past four because for fifty five years that’s how my bowels have been functioning. Wake up at the pre-fixed hour, empty one’s bowels, brush teeth and gulp down a hot cuppa: sugarless tea or coffee. In that sequence. This programme has not changed much all my life. Why should it today?

The only hitch was that I simply had no clue as to how to extricate myself out of this narrow 8 x 5 feet Tata horse-cum-trailer cabin. No way, I could get out without disturbing the young Khan tucked in a bundle over the bonnet. Gathering courage, I  hissed: “Parvez!” I did not want to wake up Pandeyji in the process.

A startled Khan woke up and sensing my need, made space for me to exit and thoughtfully handed a two-litre Pepsi bottle filled up water. What else, but for morning ablutions! It was no shock for me since it was not my maiden outing on a truck. I had been on a similar binge a few months ago. The only difference was the payload and destination: the payload was eight Hyundai cars for Delhi delivery from Hyundai Motor India’s Irungattukottai manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu and the distance was 2,800 km. With driver Umesh Rana and assistant Pinto Kumar Sahu, I had crossed Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi over seven days.

That’s when I realized that it would be next to impossible to look for a proper western toilet to relieve myself every morning. The young Rana – hailing from Chattisgarh – understood my predicament but could do nothing. “There’s no option, sirji,” he advised while offering a plastic bottle – a two-litre Aquafina PET bottle  – on the first night at Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu incidentally my birthplace! Tears welled up. What a shame! Am I going to defecate in public place? Even if this chore has to be done behind the bushes, still it would be a public place. Sir Vidya Naipaul’s castigating comment on defecating in public rolled over my mind screen.     The memory of opting out of attending a close friend’s family wedding several years ago in a remote village in southern Tamil Nadu purely because I was well appraised of non-availability of western toilet facilities there returned to haunt me for a while.

What now? You can control your hunger. Anger, too. Not this, I told  myself. Tried to reason that my forefathers would not have access to toilet facilities we are used to today. Holding the Pepsi bottle in hand, I climbed down on the NH 56 on a dark February night for the most important task of the day! Looked in both directions and walked a few hundred yards. There was no traffic at this unearthly hour, thankfully. Crouched behind a nameless tree on the kerb and completed the task in the shortest possible time and returned to the cabin. What a relief! Till the next day, I don’t have to be worried. For that, I need to be extra careful in what I eat during the next 24 hours. Just one shameful act a day is what I can concede. Nothing more. Luckily, I met that target effortlessly while completing 10,000 kilometres over the past six months in trucks.

Hardly once or twice in this entire journey, I had recourse to a decent  toilet facilities. For me, this kind of discomfiture was one off or temporary. But for the thousands of drivers and assistants moving tonnes and tonnes of goods across the arteries of India, defecating in public is a daily chore. Once at least, if not more. When I tried to analyze that perhaps they have no access to private toilet facilities back home whenever they return for a short holiday showed my darker side. I cringed.

Barring Gujarat whose highways are dotted with spacious halting spots with cheap eateries and toilet facilities, such a basic necessity does not exist in any other state. Gujarat is truly the most trucker-friendly state!

By and large, HCV drivers halt their vehicles past midnight for a few hours’ sleep. They prefer to halt at dhabas (roadside eateries) where other trucks are also parked for security reasons. There is always an torch and lathi-wielding private security lad – young or old who is not on the rolls of anyone – who ekes out a living by charging a princely sum of Rs.10 per truck per night. Drivers ungrudgingly “pay” for this service. But, these dhabas do not have toilets. Before steering their goods-laden vehicles away from the parking lot, drivers fill their empty Coke/Pepsi bottles, cross over the highway, find a bush and relieve themselves. It’s always in public places.

Why no concerted effort is attempted to meet this basic need of drivers beats me forever.  Whose responsibility it is? Well, it is a question worth pondering.

This was the opening chapter in my maiden book, 10,000 KM on Indian Highways  published in November 2011.

Check out www.10000kmonindianhighways.com