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The definition of anachronism is: a person or a thing that is chronologically out of place; especially: one from a former age that is incongruous in the present. Old hand drivers, like me, are becoming the anachronism of trucking; we no longer fit the industry.

The image of the old time driver - that of being strongly independent, able to make decisions on their own, and able to work without constant supervision was true and necessary to the way trucking used to be. Truckers had to be independent and able to make decisions and work without supervision because there was no technology around to do this for them.

We were the captains of our own ships and had no one to hold our hand except for the occasional call to dispatch or to the shop if we broke down and could not fix the problem ourselves. That occasional call was not from a cell phone or satellite communication device, either; to find a phone, one often had to hitchhike or walk then stand in line for an available pay phone.

What made us icons that were featured in movies and that glorified us and the trucking industry is now our downfall. No longer is what made the old time driver special or unique now wanted or necessary; we old hands have to adapt now or leave trucking itself.

Where once individual independence was looked for in a driver, now drivers who can fit into a business model of cookie cutter drivers who all drive the same, use the same technology, and who can fit into a mold are wanted. Today's generation of drivers are trained to use satellite systems that tell them where to load, fuel, and stop to sleep and where and when to deliver the load. The only individuality that is overlooked is that of what a driver wears or how they look. Companies no longer care as much about those things as they once did except now, if one is too fat or has a too high BMI, some will not hire the driver.

Today's drivers at most companies cannot talk to a dispatcher and develop a relationship with them. Dispatch is just the fingers on the keys of the computer and the driver is just the person in the seat. If there is a problem serious enough for a driver to have to call in on a landline or cell phone, there is no personal touch anymore. Forget about a driver trying to stand up for what is right and attempting to speak to the higher ups in the company about it, because they are automatically DAC'd as ‘not complying with company policy' or some other such black mark.

Instead of taking a real look at the driver in a personal way, the personnel office looks at a DAC report and decides whether to hire the driver or not. Get too many bad reports on DAC and you do not work for the company; no one asks what your side of the story is as they did in the past. Computer reports do not lie, nor can they be wrong, can they?

Back in the day, a long time driver was looked for and one that had longevity at a company was offered top dollar to come to work for another company. This year, a friend of mine with 20-years at one company and a clean record was told by 5 other companies when he was looking for a new company to work for that "you are too set in your ways to learn ours,' and he was not even considered for a job.

Within the next year or so, black boxes will likely become standard equipment on trucks, and these boxes will include electronic logging features. Drivers will become even more scrutinized than ever before with every stop questioned and recorded, and they will also be told where and when to do everything by an impersonal computer that is run by someone that does not know the driver.

In no way do I think that present and the future drivers are or will be bad; just different than we old hands are. That may or may not be a good thing, but that depends on who or what a person is and how he/she thinks. Today's drivers will perhaps have an easier time behind the wheel than we did in the past because of all the bells and whistles of modern technology. I sure hope so, for their sakes.

I am not adverse to change if done for good reasons, but the changes go deeper in the near future of trucking. We could not have survived the early days of our trucking careers by being anything other than what we are now. I wonder if we old hands will be able to survive and adapt to the new world of trucking as it approaches, or if we will be anachronistic icons only remembered in old movies as the strongly independent, unique individuals that we are with the look of the far-off horizon in our eyes. This remains to be seen.