Trucker During Early COVID Lockdown: Deregulation vs Criminalization Paradox

Vance Crowe [00:00:01] As the crow flies on the Vance Crow podcast, Chris Neiman, welcome to the podcast.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:00:09] Thanks a lot for having me. Appreciate it.

Vance Crowe [00:00:11] So you are a regional trucker that is not around the house very often. You are running all over delivering supplies. And since this coronavirus stuff hit, I have been seeing your Facebook post where you have talked about the challenges of being a truck driver as rest stops and things are getting shut down. So first, why don't you give a little background. What, what's going on out there right now in the world of a trucker?

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:00:34] Well, it's, it's kind of crazy right now. We got, we got stuff all over the place. Me personally, I haul livestock, I haul pigs. Got a lot of friends that are kind of on the boundaries of a little bit of hauling everything too. So I'm in the mix of a lot of things and I like to kind of keep a lookout for, for everybody, you know, to kind of keep a, a track of where things are and what's going on as well. And so that's where I fell into this place with this, everything kind of going chaotic. They've lifted hours of service on some people, but not others. They've shut down rest stops. They've, they've changed a lot of stuff on us. And as regulated as we are, it's, it's real hard to kind of keep track of where all of that stuff falls, you know, for what individuals. So for me personally, running, running livestock, they have lifted the hours of service on us on livestock. And so I guess technically you could say that we can run whatever we want.

Vance Crowe [00:01:27] And so for people that are, aren't involved in trucking, that means you're normally allowed to run a certain number of hours in a given day, and now they're saying, Hey, we are not putting those restrictions on you anymore.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:01:37] Right? We are typically allowed to run 11 hours of drive time within a 14 hour day, which means we've got 14 hours to run 11 hours plus a mandatory 30 minute break inside of that 11 hours. And so within that, that those 14 hours, that also accounts for load time, unload time, stopping for fuel, stopping to, you know, normal human necessities as you may. But once we, once we run out of 14 hours, we're done. So if, let's just say we sit at a, at a dock for five hours and there's nothing out of the ordinary of that, so that five hours, you take that off of your 14, you're now left with nine, well, but wait a minute, I've got 11 hours that I can drive. No, you've got 14 hours of a day. You now have nine hours to drive, plus a mandatory 30 minute break in there. So you've got eight and a half hours left to drive. Well, now that they've lifted these restrictions from us, they did it because there is such a need for product. Both, you know, I mean, you need livestock for food. You can't get the food to the store if you don't have the livestock brought in for slaughter. And so that's where they've lifted us for livestock hauling. So now if we sit at a dock for, let's just say eight hours, which that's not normal for livestock, usually livestock moves, but freight haulers can sit at a dock for, I've got a couple guys that have complained about sitting at a dock for almost 36 hours. You, you'll sit at a dock waiting to get loaded, and now you can now take off and run however you feel. And so if you sit at a dock for six hours off of your 14, there is no 14 no more.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:03:11] You, you run. And that's, that's why they lift these restrictions in order to get products where they need to be. And that, and that, that's what gets real frustrating as a truck driver, that we are one of the heavily, most heavily regulated industries there is. I mean, it's the book we have, the Bible is a coloring book compared to the book we have to live by. It's, it's, it's ridiculous. I mean, it's just the, the, the number of pages I wish I had the book with me, I've got, I keep it in my truck. That's, that's my bible in the truck. But it's ridiculous the regulations that we have. And so that's where a lot of truck drivers get, get frustrated in a time of need in a time of a crisis like we're in right now for getting products to the store. All of a sudden these regulations aren't needed all of a sudden. Well, why were they needed in the first place? So, so it's, it's a,

Vance Crowe [00:03:58] Well, I, I was gonna jump in. One of the things that you said that really struck me, or I don't, somebody posted that was around you, is, is that because of the way that they don't allow dine-in at restaurants anymore, right? So now you got a trucker that's trying to eat and keep on the road, but because they can't go into a restaurant and they can't pull up into the drive-through because they got a big semi now they're not having now, now they're not able to eat. What, what's going on out there with things like that?

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:04:26] That's, that's been the crazy part. You know, like when they lift hours of service and stuff on us for like Katrina and other, other natural disasters, we still got a place to stop and eat. A lot of guys take food with them on the road, but let's be honest, after a week, you can't eat mama's home cooked meal, heat it up in the microwave for the sixth time already this week. You know, the food situation has become very chaotic in the simple fact that common sense has gone out the door. We don't really like McDonald's and Burger King every night, but now we're kind of down to just that, you know, the fast food restaurants where they've got drive-throughs, but at the same time you go park your semi literally right across the curb and these people don't understand you just came out of a semi and if you walk up to the window, they can't serve you that, that's, that's against their code of conduct, which I understand, you know, you can't serve somebody that comes up to a window, you might get robbed, but at the same time, we're trying to do our job. We just wanna meal and get going down the road, and we can't even do that. So that, that's become very, very chaotic. And at the same time, it's kind of become patriotic too in a few senses. There's become a lot of mon paw restaurants that have kind of gone by the wayside because they're kind of skipped over for being small or not enough room to park a truck. Well now, because there's not so much traffic, there's more room to get trucks in and outta these smaller places. And so they're posting on Facebook left and right, not only trying to get business, but trying to help the truckers too that, you know, park here or park there. We've, we've had a few smaller restaurants that have said, there's parking at our local auditorium in town.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:06:01] Please park there, call this number, order your food. We've got a guy that will deliver it to you. You know, we're, we're a half a mile into,

Vance Crowe [00:06:07] Into town. Oh man, that's great,

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:06:09] But there's no room to get your truck and we apologize for that. But we're here for you. Just call us, tell us what you want, pay for it over the phone or cash when we get there, and we will deliver it to you. And so that's come around to a sense of, you know, these places never did delivery before. You know, you, you never had Grandma's fried chicken from downtown delivering anywhere. And so now they're reaching out to us to try and help us. And for a trucker coming from us that, I mean, that's huge. You know, we don't have to do McDonald's and Burger King every day. You know, we get an actual home-cooked meal that we're used to sitting down and eating. The other funny part about this whole not being able to dine in sort of thing from the hours of service side of things, if you are in your truck, you are still on duty. If you get out of your truck, you can put yourself off duty. And so that's how you take, you know, like your, your 30 minute break would be, would be off duty, but now you gotta sit in your truck to eat. You gotta sit in your truck to do everything because you have nowhere to go. Oh.

Vance Crowe [00:07:10] So

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:07:10] Technically your hours of service never stop it. It gets, and there again, it, it falls into a big gray area of what is and what isn't. And the, the hardest part with a truck driver when it comes to what is and what isn't, is that my idea of what isn't, is not the idea of what isn't to an officer. And, and, and the the biggest words in that, in that bible that we carry is officer's discretion. Well, that, that's a huge gray area right there.

Vance Crowe [00:07:42] So, yeah, I mean, I think that this, this whole thing is gonna swing the world into some really weird places because on the one hand, Trump, for whatever criticisms people have of Trump, one of the things that he did right, was he said, we're gonna strip off the regulations from all kinds of industries, whether it's pharmaceuticals or truck drivers or any of these things, and that, that allows capitalism to bring its full weight on this. But then on the other hand, you have the most restrictive regulations we've ever had in the history of maybe our, our country where I, I mean, I'm on lockdown starting tomorrow. If I'm outta my house, it is a misdemeanor, a crime, meaning that I could serve up to a year in prison and $2,000, right? So we're stripping off regulations on one hand, but we're also right re wrenching down. And, and it's,

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:08:33] And it's, it's a scary thought. You know, it's, it's, it's kind of creepy when you think about it because, you know, I, I, I'm, I'm not saying that I know you that well, but I'm sure you're probably gonna stay in your house and do as you're told, you know, as most of the country should given this whole virus thing. But at the same time, it plays a tricky spot as to what, what, what do you mean by forced to stay home and, and how long will this hand be over the top of us to tell us what to do? And so that's where, you know, coming from the truck driver's side, again, it gets a little scary too of when are they gonna tell us to stay home? Because, you know, on one hand you can't, like, it's just impossible. The, the whole country would fall apart. I mean, there

Vance Crowe [00:09:11] Chaos

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:09:11] Beyond anything. Yes, I'm sure you've seen the posts on Facebook, you know, of how long, how long certain areas can survive without a truck. You know, like grocery stores would be empty in, in three days. I think it was. Grocery stores would be empty. I think we've proven that fact wrong. I think most grocery stores are empty in 12 hours at this point. And,

Vance Crowe [00:09:28] And when those things were running around those memes about how much truckers are needed, and, and it all seems so passe, right? It always was like, oh yeah, right. Yeah. New York would run out of food, but when will this ever happen? Right? And then bang, here we are, even, even a week ago, if you had described this is the way we think the world is gonna go, most people be like, no, you're outta your mind. No way that happens. Right.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:09:51] I even, I argued that, you know, I, and, and I don't know, may, maybe I might seem a little hardheaded on the subject and maybe being out here in rural Nebraska and maybe I don't quite see it as much, but we've got plenty of cases here in Nebraska of this virus confirmed, you know, everything. But I don't, it hasn't hit me yet. I guess this is gonna be one of those things where it's gonna take affecting somebody I, I love or I care about in order to finally hit me in the face as to, wow, this is so real. But for right now, it's like I'm just trying to keep up with the rest of the world and, you know, do my job and, and you know, make the money I can make for now to make sure my bills are paid. Because right now, the biggest confusion that a lot of us have, especially us that are out on the road, we're, you know, we don't see it so much. You know, we, we shake hands with everybody we meet. I mean, I, is

Vance Crowe [00:10:38] That right? Bumped? You're still shaking hands.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:10:39] Oh, abso oh, absolutely. It's, it's crazy where we go. Like nobody even thinks twice about it. You know, it's just, I think it's, I think it's the, the industry that we're in. You know, you, you help a guy at a truck stop. I had just a few days ago, I had a guy, he ran his power inverter over the weekend. He had started the truck on Saturday, it ran, he ran his power inverter, he turned on his crock pot, made dinner, shut the truck down. 'cause it was beautiful. It was like 70 degrees outside. So he shut the truck down, there's no point in running it. He forgot to shut off his power inverter. Got up in the middle of the night, Sunday night into Monday because this cold front came through and it was about 35 degrees outside. Went to go start the truck and all he got was a bunch of clicks out of it. Well, I just pulled in bobtail and he came up to me to ask if I could jumpstart him and well, yeah, sure, no problem. I mean, I'm not gonna leave a guy freezing. So yeah, no problem. Went over, hooked up the jumper cables. We sat and talked for about half an hour while it charged up, truck fired, right up shook hands, said Thanks a lot, have a great day. You offered to buy me breakfast. Never thought anything of it. And honestly, I never, as soon as we got done, I didn't even go inside and run inside to go wash my hands right away. It was, I, a guy just doesn't think about it. You know, you, it's, it's kind of a brotherhood, sisterhood type of thing. And a guy just doesn't feel that, well, that guy's infected. I better go wash my hands. It's, it's, it hasn't hit us yet, is what I'm trying to say, you know? And I tell somebody I know I'm not gonna think twice about it. You know, I, I do wash my hands. Well, I, I wash 'em normally after I go to the bathroom because that's what a normal human being should do. I mean, that's common sense, but as far as like excessive washing and stuff like that, I would probably say that I fall in the, oops, I, I don't really do it anymore than I used to.

Vance Crowe [00:12:15] I mean, the other day I was looking down at my hands and I was like, man, my, for whatever reason, my hands feel like I, I'm back living in Africa. 'cause they used to be a Peace Corps volunteer, right? Right. And then I realized, oh, it's 'cause I'm, I'm actually giving myself like burns on my hands, right? And when I was in Africa, I used to use lie soap, so it was chemical burns. Now it's just, and now I have to wonder like, am I washing my hands too much now or was I not washing my hands enough before? I don't know the answer to that.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:12:41] Right? And that's for what I do. You know, with with hauling hogs and stuff like that, I always said if I'm gonna catch something, it's gonna be from inside that trailer a heck of a lot sooner than it's gonna be from somebody. But, but for, for what I do and what I've always done, I mean, I grew up on a farm. I've been, I've done mechanics, farm work, you know, been around livestock all my life. To me it is almost like my hand, my hands have got almost a layer to 'em that don't allow stuff to penetrate. You know, it's, I'm not gonna get it from my hands. And I think the most important thing is as long as you keep your hands away from your mouth, you know, where you're your, or, you know, or a wound or a cut or something, I think you're gonna be a lot better off. By all means. I'm not a doctor and I'm not trying to say that's how it's gonna happen, but that's, that's kind of more of where my head is, you know? So

Vance Crowe [00:13:22] From what I'm

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:13:23] Doing,

Vance Crowe [00:13:24] Oh, where your head is, one of the questions I had about that I wanted to talk about was, rest areas are being shut down, right? And so this means that one, you don't have a place to go to the bathroom, get up and stretch, but then two sleeping arrangements are getting messed up. Tell tell me about that. 'cause that's gotta really mess with a truck driver's head

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:13:42] That it does. And especially, especially for Nebraska. I can, Pennsylvania was another one that shut down all of theirs. And after quite a bit of, I guess you could say online and phone call rioting, they opened theirs back up as well. But as far as Nebraska, going back to our log book situation where you've got 11 hours of drive time, it takes almost eight to drive across the state of Nebraska. So when you shut down every rest area in between, yes we do have truck stops in between then, but middle of the night they're packed. I mean, they're packed on a normal Tuesday evening. And so to take away those rest areas where you can still fit anywhere from 12 to, I think we've got a couple of the newer ones where they built in the backside of it, truck parking, I think you can get about 40 or 50 trucks back there. But for the most part, they're the old fashioned rest areas where you can probably fit about 10 to 12 trucks right there along the highway. But you take that away and try and cram us into truck stops even more and it doesn't work. And so then, you know, as a, as a trucker, you, you move to the next one. You know, I, I'll look for a spot at the next one. I, I got another hour left on my book. I I'll go to the next one, next rest area is closed, next truck stops crammed, fold you, you can't fit anywhere safely or without parking somebody else in, well I'll make it to the next one. We'll try that one. Well then you make it to the next one. Now you're over on your log book. Technically your red flag, technically you're out of hours. And that's, that's a huge no-no. That's, you get, you get caught with that. And DOT will put you 10 hours outta service. They'll, they'll make up your, your 10 hours of sleep time really fast. And so by not having a place to park, then guys start resorting to on and off ramps.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:15:14] Well, we all know that that's not safe. You know, somebody comes flying into an off ramp too fast, too hard. Well you're gonna be the one that's there to get hit. And so us drivers, we don't like doing it. I mean, there, you can't find a truck driver out there that enjoys sleeping on a, on a, on an off ramp plus the noise. You know, we sleep through a lot of noise. It's just part of the job. You get used to it, but it's a little different when you got another semi that comes blowing by you at 30 mile an hour on an off ramp coming to a stop sign, you, you kind of wake up to that. So you don't get good sleep there either. You, you're sitting crooked. That's gotta be my, about my biggest pet peeve, sitting at an angle on a, on a off ramp that you don't sleep well when

Vance Crowe [00:15:52] You

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:15:53] Lay downhill. It just doesn't work so well. But it, it's, it's created a lot of mess for guys that are used to, you know, traveling across Nebraska, across I 80. Well I know I can get to, you know, three 14 is Grand Island and I know that there's a truck stop there, but it's usually full at, you know, I say two o'clock in the morning, but I know that there's a rest stop, you know, 20 minutes after that. My logbooks got plenty of time to get there. And then that driver gets there and it ain't available. Gates are closed, cones are across it. Next rest area isn't for another hour and a half. Well, you only got 20 minutes left on your book because you had planned on it. There was no announcement by NO there was nothing on their digital reader boards on the interstate about rest areas closed. Y they just closed. But then you drive past 'em in the day and they were open. Well, if you're traveling east and you're headed towards Omaha and you see all these rest areas open, great, okay, you get done in Omaha and you're ready to head west back across Nebraska and now all of a sudden they're closed. It, it created a little bit of panic for guys. A lot of uncertainty for, for drivers. And most certainly, it was one of those of, well, what's gonna happen to me if I get caught? You know? And, and that's, that's the worst thing, the worst thing that could, can put a truck driver can blow a motor. You can blow a transmission, you can drop a rear end. It's all fixable to us, the worst thing that can possibly happen is DOT catching us and putting us 10 hours outta service, one that goes on your record. Two, you're stuck right where you're at for 10 hours for really no reason at all besides you went over your log book trying to find a rest stop.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:17:23] And so it's, it's a, it's a fear, you know, it really is. And then that looks bad on us as a driver too. And so, so not having these rest areas not only creates uncertainty for us and unsafe or an unsecure stop for us. But it also over packs, I guess you could say, the truck stops that we do have, that leads to arguments, fights, everything else you can think of when two guys, you know, park each other in,

Vance Crowe [00:17:49] What's, what's the mood among truckers around coronavirus? Is this like exciting opportunity, there's money to be made or is it scary? Hey, we might get sick, things might get shut down

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:18:00] From the guys that I talk to. And like I said, I've got guys that that run flatbed, reefer, dry van, bulk Hopper, and then myself pulling, you know, pot. Everybody is like 50 50. It seems there's a lot of guys that are excited about this. And, and when I, just to clarify, when I say guys, I mean girls too. There's a lot of guys that are excited about this that, you know, the opportunity that's there, especially with these hours of service lifted, you know, a lot of us, you know, I'll admit I've, I've run two and a half, three days nonstop just because that's, that's how it works out. You know, you get stuck in a line, but you had a dock time, you gotta shoot time, you gotta go. I sleep when I get tired. That's, and that, that's, that's the fun of trucking. That's, that's the way it used to be. You know, you sleep when you get tired and you run when you run. And so for a lot of these guys that are, that have that mentality and that can do that, we're loving it because the money's there. You can run as many miles as you want. I'm particularly paid by the load, but most, most guys are paid by the mile. And so to be able to cram more miles into a day, well that's awesome. That's great. You know, I don't have to stop like I used to. And so a lot of guys are really excited and enjoying the moment that we have. And, and at the same time there's a little bit of, of a morale boost with trucks. We need you, you know, we're, we're lifting these.

Vance Crowe [00:19:18] Yeah. America knows that right now. Right,

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:19:20] Right. You know, and, and so, so kind of for a little bit, we kind of, we kind of throw on our little, you know, not all heroes wear capes, chucker hat and hammer down in the fast lane and, and let the coal roll and we enjoy it. You know, the other half of us is, or the other half of our moral mentality is how long is this gonna last before they tell us to go home and park it? And at that point, that's where, that's where the scary part really comes in. And not so much scary because we're out of a job, but scary because we know what's gonna happen to this country when those trucks do stop.

Vance Crowe [00:19:50] Yeah. Man, I cannot imagine, I can't imagine that they're gonna tell you guys to shut off. But a week ago I wouldn't have have said that either. Either ride, yeah.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:19:57] Yes. Yeah, yeah. Week ago I wouldn't have thought that they're gonna tell you to stay home in your house and don't do nothing, you know, so it's, it's a 50 50. It's, it's scary, but we're excited. And so just, I guess, you know, there a lot of people say that there's two different types of truck drivers. And we say it too, you got your steering wheel holders that drive your big plastic trucks and we like to pick on them guys 'cause they drive Volvos and freight liners and we like to pick on them. And then you got, you got guys that run, you know, the, the, the heart of the country, you know, the livestock, the flatbed, you know, the, the manly work that, that the door slammers can't do. And so it's, it's, it's a lot of fun now when we're more, we're more grouped together than we ever have been because we're all after the same mission to try and keep everybody alive. And, you know, we, we, we try not to to put too big of a ego around us, but at the same time we like to kind of kind of walk around and start our stuff a little bit. You know, you don't get your toilet paper unless we show up, you know, you don't get your food unless we show up. So it's, it's nice to see that for once the country is starting to recognize, I don't wanna say that they hardly recognize at all the potential and the impact the trucks have, but I think they're starting to, it, it's slowly coming around that, you know, that truck needs to get there or, you know, we got no toilet paper, which I think everybody's got a hundred rolls of toilet paper sitting around right now. But it's, it's kind of, it's

Vance Crowe [00:21:19] Of fun. Not everybody, I can tell you, not everybody, so I mean, I

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:21:22] Fell, I fell in the don't, don't worry about it for now. We'll get it later thing. And now I'm going, man, maybe we should have done it. I,

Vance Crowe [00:21:29] I, I had made a mistake like maybe, I don't know, a year ago that I accidentally bought cases of toilet paper instead of just individual roll. So I, I just happened to be stocked up. But it won't last forever. It

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:21:43] Won't last. Yes.

Vance Crowe [00:21:44] So my last question and, and I've been asking everybody this because I'm very interested to kinda get it written down in a way, what do you think the world looks like in two weeks from today?

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:21:54] You're asking that far away? Yeah. Holy cow. Usually, usually I'd say let's talk about years from now, but two weeks is a long ways out. Is this a, is this an open-ended question? Anything you

Vance Crowe [00:22:06] Wanna talk about? Yeah, yeah. For you, your family, for your industry, whatever.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:22:11] Well, I, I guess, I guess we can kind of skip around through that. I think industry wise, I think we'll still be moving. I think, I think rates are gonna fluctuate so much that guys are gonna start changing what they do. You know, flatbed guys that thought that's all they're ever gonna pull aren't gonna pull flatbed anymore because trying to move steel roll steel coils around ain't gonna be as productive as hook it up to a dry van or a reefer to move normal goods. I think a lot of guys are gonna, are gonna pull the fifth wheel on a lot of trailers. They've been hauling for years and they're gonna switch to a drive van and a reefer just for the fact of they need to get it moved and that they're gonna pay a premium for it. Personally, I I, I see myself, I'll stay on, on the pot and keep hauling livestock because the drive vans and the reefers aren't gonna get filled with, with air. You know, you, you gotta have animals to fill 'em. So I think that's how the industry side of things are gonna go and there's gonna be an opportunity for a lot of guys to make some really good money coming up. The, as far as family goes with us being out here, rural Nebraska, it's, it's, I don't know, we're kind of secluded the way that it is and so

Vance Crowe [00:23:17] As long as you don't keep shaking people's hands

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:23:19] Well yeah, as long as I don't shake people's hands and keep coming home with it, you know, but, but I think we're, we're, I I wanna say we're, we're mentally okay. We're physically set up to handle a couple of weeks of not going to the store at all. And you know, if we got a baby crock at it for a while, I guess we'll grab the 22 and go shoot squirrels and raccoons for a while and live off of that if it comes down to it. But I, I think as long as countrywide across the nation, I think as long as we keep our infrastructure solid, keep our, keep our power, I think keep our power grid and our telecommunications, our networking alive, I think everybody will come out of it just fine.

Vance Crowe [00:24:00] Amen.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:24:01] You start dropping power grids or internet service and people are gonna lose their mind and it will, I like, I, I don't ever, I don't, I never got into the whole, you know, zombie apocalypse thing. Maybe I should a little bit more after this, but I, I think you, you start dropping power grids and internet connections and I think it's gonna turn into something like that, you know, like you see in the movies, you know, it's just the zombies are gonna be the people without power or internet because they're gonna lose their minds of what to do with life. 'cause nobody knows what board games are or, or you know, candlelight or anything anymore. Everything's internet, you know, I mean, even what we're doing right now, internet, you know, it's,

Vance Crowe [00:24:37] That's it's the life blood. Yeah.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:24:39] It's, it really is. And I, and I hate feeling that. I hate feeling that that way of like that, that it needs to be, you know, but you know, let's be honest, that's the way that everybody got their information about the virus. Even, you know, if, if everybody wouldn't have had a, a national TV source and Facebook and the internet and Twitter, 90% of this country wouldn't have a clue what what's going on, you

Vance Crowe [00:25:02] Know, would Yeah, that's fair. If you had to only would know, get your news at by, by either radio or newspaper, it would be a lot slower moving. Yes. So we should probably give a shout out to our mutual friend Kent Blumer and Absolutely. And, and just real quick, if people wanted to follow along with what you're doing, what you're seeing out in the world, what's the best way for them to, to, to understand what the world of a trucker is right now?

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:25:27] Well, I think, like for me personally, I don't really have like a, you know, like a trucker page per se that I, that I really post to myself. I mean, it's just, just my personal one, but I, there's, there's a lot of trucker pages out there. Truck life is, is one of 'em. Honestly, if you typed in the search on Facebook just for truckers, they'd come up with probably about 30 pages, pick three of the ones that have the highest, the highest volume on 'em and, and follow along. And, and that would be about the easiest way to see not only the stuff we laugh at, but the stuff we, we kind of beat our head against the wall about and stuff that we gripe at. And I think just following some of them pages would, would kind of change a lot of people's aspect on what a truck driver goes through. Not just dock time and wait time and trying to find a place to eat and sleep, but traffic, the, the mentality that, that is one thing I guess I could touch on just real quick that I could say I kind of appreciate from most traffic out there right now, people driving four, we call 'em four wheelers, not the a TV, but just a simple car. We call 'em four wheelers for some reason. And I, I think it's pretty obvious why, but for some reason we've been getting flipped off a little bit less, we've been getting honked at a little bit less, whether they like it or not, we are not entitled to have room to merge onto an interstate, but all of a sudden magically we're having room to merge onto an interstate.

Vance Crowe [00:26:54] Good man.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:26:55] That's

Vance Crowe [00:26:55] Great to hear. That's great

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:26:56] To hear. So it's, it's, it's, it's seeing the rest of the country come around and even just in our small little area here where I run from Nebraska to Minnesota to Iowa, just in our area, seeing the people come, come out and support us and then, and then being able to hear and see all these posts and tags that I get tagged in on Facebook and stuff of, like I said, you know, the Mon Paul restaurants willing to deliver to the edge of town where they know we can get to that they don't normally do. People inviting trucks, you know, hey, we've got this co-op and we can't come into work for the next two weeks. There's room to park a hundred trucks, by all means it's open. You guys pull in and park there please. You know, sleep there, it's safe, it's secure. There's plenty of lighting park there. Stuff that places like that wouldn't allow us to park. I mean there, there's signs everywhere that say no truck parking, I mean left and right. Everywhere you turn and you see a nice big parking lot and you think, great, I can sleep there. Big old sign out on the edge, no truck parking.

Vance Crowe [00:27:51] So a

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:27:52] Lot of those are coming down and it, it's kind of nice to see.

Vance Crowe [00:27:54] Chris, we're gonna wrap up here, but I, I want you to know that I am very interested in how things go with you, so I hope we can stay in touch and I'll keep writing people and then when all this coronavirus is done, when you make a trip to St. Louis, I want you sitting right across the table, let's do a long interview, talk about what you see in the world.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:28:13] No problem. I might, might even make a special trip out of it when they, when they say you can come out of the house maybe. Maybe we can let people in and I'll come down and visit.

Vance Crowe [00:28:20] That'd be great brother. I'd love it. Stay safe out there man.

Coronavirus Perspectives [00:28:23] Alright man. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. I appreciate it. You have

Vance Crowe [00:28:25] Absolutely.