Construction Middle East: Arabian Civil Engineers by GineersNow GineersNow Engineering Magazine Issue No. 014, Sau | Page 37

Debunked: 4 Biggest Myths
About Truck Drivers
A website called Trucker to Trucker wants to clarify things.
More often than not, our perception about
truck drivers are shaped by news reports and
movies. And the propagated thought about
truck drivers are usually in bad light, with only
accidents and the negative side presented. A
website called Trucker to Trucker wants to
clarify things. In a blog post, it clarified the 4
biggest myths about truckers supported with
truck driver statistics in America.
Myth No. 1:
Truckers are dangerous drivers
and cause most accidents.
Looking at the numbers, this is definitely not
true. Commercial trucks are only listed to be
involved in 2.4% of all car accidents. Trucks
are also 3 times less likely to be in an
accident rather than regular motor vehicle and
4 times more likely to pass safety inspections
than passenger vehicles.
The idea of truckers being r eckless drivers
come from a multitude of truck accidents
being reported. Apparently, what’s not being
reported is the rate of these accidents.
Myth No.3:
Men are better truck drivers than
women.
Truck driving appears to be a man’s job
indeed, but now we live in a world where
women are given equal opportunities to do
jobs usually intended for men. There are now
over 200,000 female long haul truck drivers in
America.
And they are perhaps the better truck drivers.
Statistics show that female truckers are 3
times less likely to get in an accident than
their male counterparts, and 5 times less likely
to violate safety regulations. Also, they are 4
times more likely to pass the CDL certification
exam on their first attempt than men.
Myth No. 4: Truck drivers are poor.
When the national salary median for the U.S.
is $44,389 and truckers are being paid at
$59,000 to $68,000 in Mississippi, Wyoming,
New York, and Massachusetts for example,
you can’t call truck drivers poor.
Myth No. 2:
Truckers use a lot of drugs.
Truckers use drugs, but not a lot. In the 1.4
million drivers arrested for driving under the
influence of alcohol or narcotics in 2009, only
6% of those arrests were truck drivers.
Meanwhile, alcohol- and drug-impaired
driving crashes in 2009 counts to 10,839
cases, with only less than 5% of the truck
drivers being under the influence of alcohol or
drugs.
Construction Leaders • April 2017
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