The popular adage “If you bought it, a trucker brought it” has held true for almost a century now.
However, the men and woman who make the industry run — the drivers — are sometimes subject to mistreatment, hidden from the rest of the public.
One driver on Youtube, exposed the trucking industry’s darker side in his recent video.
By law, truck drivers are required to take a 10 hour break after many hours on the road, but this driver’s company put him in an odd circumstance by scheduling him for two consecutive ten hour breaks.
He slept through the first, but was was understandably unable to sleep during the second break and was awake for the whole ten hours.
The problem was, he had a load that needed to be delivered as soon as the second ten hour break was over.
The driver started his trip but after driving only a short distance decided that he was too tired to continue and posed a threat to the road, the public, and himself, so he pulled over and let his company know he was unable to continue.
The company wasn’t having it.
After pleading with them for over 10 minutes, he was threatened to be fired if he did not deliver the load (as you can hear in the video).
Ultimately, he was permitted to sleep for 2 hours before continuing, but ended up receiving a wake up call from the police –called upon by his company, just 45 minutes into his rest.
The company’s argument was that he should not have accepted the load from his dispatcher if he was tired after the second break, which may be true, however a tired driver and a threat to the road should not be allowed to continue driving under any circumstances.
What are your thoughts? How would you react in this situation?