5 Terrifying Things Only Truckers Know About the Highway

*Dear younger readers: Howard Cosell was a baseball commentator.**
**Dear nerdier readers: Baseball was something like Quidditch, but much more homoerotic and played while secretly on drugs.

"The primary reason trucking companies want us using GPS is because they plot the absolute shortest route possible, regardless of how efficient or safe," Quis told us. "But believe me, shorter does not equal quicker." His GPS once led him down a street that "a pickup would have trouble turning around in," and he ended up knocking over a streetlamp without even realizing it. Trucks aren't supposed to go into residential areas, but at the same time, they often have to make deliveries to residential areas.

Spline ended up in a worse situation. Near where she lives in Oregon, there's a road called the 242, which (on paper) is the shortest route between Sisters and Eugene -- but in reality, it's not a route you can take with a truck. But your GPS doesn't know that, and if you don't do your own research, you'll be slaloming a metal whale across a winding highway that even sport bikes have trouble taking at speed.

If you've ever been to a truck stop, you've probably interacted with a prostitute and not known it. Or absolutely, unquestionably known all about it. It really depends on the subtlety of the prostitute. "Lot lizards" are a permanent fixture at most depots, and will work in conjunction with drug dealers and pimps to keep professional rambling men buried in their chosen vice. Spline told us this story:

"The dude I was driving with -- he and I were, well, you know -- and there was a knock on the door. Turned out to be a prostitute who wanted to know if we wanted extra company."

That's how bold the lot lizards are: They see you right in the middle of boning, and they still try to sell you some boning.

The dealers use the CB radio waves -- that's the thing you use to holler "10-4, good buddy" and sing "Convoy" and then say "I'm sorry, I'll stop now and never use it again" -- to advertise "white smoke" (meth). When the cops show up, truckers repay the favor by telling the lot lizards where they are, sometimes letting them hide out in their truck until the heat dies down.

Which makes sense, because the cops are way more interested in nailing the women than the johns. That's something they've got in common with the johns, actually.

"In an attempt to buck the trend of underqualified drivers, I became a trainer," Quis told us. "The worst student I had happened to be my first. His first problem was a total inability to drive and read signs at the same time. I finally decided I had enough and forced him to navigate from Memphis, Tennessee, to Dallas, Texas, all by himself, and went to bed, only to wake up in freaking Mississippi!" The driver got his CDL (trucker's license) anyway, and then "called me a few days after that completely lost in California asking for my help. That was when I decided I'd had enough: I told him to call his dispatcher, then blocked his number."

It seems like putting drivers like that on the road would be more trouble than it's worth, but that's not how the higher-ups see it. "Truck companies need to keep costs low enough so they can keep dipping their cigars in the tears of starving Ethiopian children before smoking them, but they have almost no control over one expense: fuel," Quis explained. The solution is to make the CDL super easy to attain so that "there's never a shortage of new, naive drivers willing to work for practically nothing, keeping wages for experienced drivers deflated." The numbers back that up: In 2013, the large carriers showed a 97 percent turnover rate -- and that was after the numbers dropped. That means that, statistically speaking, every driver you see is both new to the job and about to quit. They're more preoccupied with thinking about their next career move than with whether you're currently inside their wheel well.

So what accounts for that turnover? Well ...

"There is the trip to plan," says Spline, "as well as calculating where to get fuel (some states like California have VERY high road taxes, and so you are limited in how much fuel you can buy -- the companies I worked for generally capped it at 50 gallons), as well as calculating how many miles you can travel."

Plus, there's a logbook to keep, and regulations that demand that truckers don't drive for longer than 11 hours a day and spend at least 10 hours sleeping. So another big part of trucking is, of course, lying about all that shit. Anyone who follows those rules isn't going to make enough money to keep themselves rolling in microwave burritos and truck stop whores. Most truckers ditch the sleep and choose the work. Coffee, Red Bull, and upbeat K-pop just isn't enough sometimes.

"One company I worked for used to hand out uppers to their solo drivers along with their paycheck," says Spline. "I can remember being so damn tired and hopped up on ephedrine that the center line would sprout wings and fly away as I drove past."

Not all truckers indulge: Quis, for example, is always sober behind the wheel. But he's the exception, not the rule. That's the price you pay for a nice crisp tomato or an unwilted head of lettuce: drugged out, stressed-out, overworked, frantic, and lost land-boat pilots screaming their way across the country while the road signs berate them with the voices of their mothers.

That salad better be amazing. Maybe put some cheese on that shit, in honor of those who got it to you.

JF Sargent is an editor and columnist for Cracked that you can contact on Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook. Donec Quis and Mallory Spline are truckers.

Related Reading: For more insight into careers that we know little about, then check out life as a drug dealer or a ghost hunter. Or see why being a dude in porn isn't all it cracked up to be. Have a story to share with Cracked? Email us here.

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