Stephen Graves fuels his truck at a truck stop in Ardmore, Okla., Jan. 6, 2022.
“The lifestyle probably is the first thing that smacks people in the face,” he said. “You know what it does to you. You’re thinking about it all the time. We’re tired. Our bodies are starting to go. Our bladders have been put to the test. And no exercise. We end up with all types of heart and other health ailments. You can’t truly fathom what it’s done to you.”
As the trucking association itself noted, more than 10 million Americans held commercial driver’s licenses in 2019. That was nearly triple the 3.7 million trucks that required a driver holding that certification. Graves is satisfied with his employer, American Central Transport, which has a better retention rate than the average. He has been driving for the company for nearly seven years, and he earns what he describes as “a comfortable living” — enough to finance vacations to Australia, Bulgaria and other far-flung destinations — though he declines to disclose how much.
He considered training to be a plumber or a carpenter, but those professions entailed years of apprenticing. Driving a truck put him in position to begin earning in a matter of weeks.At 3:30 on a blustery morning in Kansas City, Graves emerges from his bunk inside his Kenworth T680 tractor and commences his day.
This is Day 10 of a 19-day trip that has taken him from Texarkana, Arkansas, to Texarkana, Texas, with three separate runs through Chicago, a stop in Indianapolis and a drop in Spartanburg, South Carolina, before bringing him to Kansas City. “If this isn’t scary, you’re a fool,” he said. “It takes more than the length of a football field to stop out here.”
“I try to give everyone a smile,” he explained, compensating for the others on the road. “Drivers are generally snarly because they are tired, they’re hungry, and their schedules suck, and they tend to take it out on other people.” “During the summer, the tall grass, the prairie grass is going full,” he said. “It blows gently in the wind. You can just listen to the wind. It’s such a calm and soothing feeling.”One of the primary reasons young people tend not to stick as truck drivers, Graves explained, is the challenge of maintaining ties to the rest of the world.
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