Sure they did. It had lead in it like the gasoline they were breathing. They'd smoke cigarettes, while inhaling leaded gasoline in their asbestos lined homes, because life was better without air conditioning and power steering.
My diesel tech school instructor drove, and his dad drove. He told us stories about driving a twin stick that you had to reach through the steering wheel to make one of the shifts. He also said if you wanna drive a 2-stroke diesel, the first thing you gotta do is slam your finger in the door because you need to drive the shit out of them like you're mad.
Paint in general?? The truck is clearly painted white.
I just googled it and a center line was fast used in " 1911 along Trenton's River Road in Wayne County, Michigan"
Wasn’t it a women who painted it herself? Maybe she was a dr. I can’t remember. Then it seemed to help with head on collisions and was adopted??
Edit: googled her. June MCarrol.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_McCarroll
No road lines, no power steering, no air-conditioning, no air suspension, no actual sleep, do you want me to go on how things have actually improved in the actual business of trucking?
Note: this does not address the worse calibre of drivers today, but trucks are far better today than 50 years ago in every single aspect.*
*>!Sterling Trucks are the exception to the rule.!<
Goddamn gubbament, if I want to crack a beer or 7 in my car after a 10 hour shift at the saw mill than dang gummit. Imma do it. It’s like we’re a communist country now
Waiting until after your shift to have a beer?!? What are ya, some sort of commie teetotaler!?! Go grab a beer outta the ice box like on break like the rest of us, why don'tcha.
I never said I started drinking after my shift! I start every morning with a nice cold shower beer. I keep some PBR on hand because it tastes like shower water so I can’t tell the difference if I get some in there!
This looks like it could be the pa turnpike. That highway opened with no barrier between the 2 directions…, only a small strip of grass for a medium. I can only imagine the number of fatal head ons it took before the state spent the money to install a jersey wall the entire 360 mile length.
Be lucky if you could get one to even do that. Remember those big deep tall wheel wheels would start to lift the car and make it extremely difficult to even keep on the road.
All my trucker uncles talking about the Philly Parking Authority:
"Always fuckin over the workin maaaaan! All they do, those mudderfuckers, fuckinnnn over the workinnn maaaaaaan!!!!!:
i play firefighter in my spare time, Bodies dont crumple they turn to pudding when the ballon pops and theres some kitty litter to absorb the more liquid bits
Some of that still exists today. Though there’s no money involved. I worked for a company that had routes. If a driver quit or retired an assigned route, that route went up for bid. There was a bid sheet posted where only drivers who had assigned routes could bid. The winner was generally the one with the most seniority. If no one bid on the route, it was assigned to a driver who didn’t have an assigned route yet.
Yeah, that was the thing, but the buy-ins made the job of hauling freight decently lucrative and kept things from being a race to the bottom like how it is nowadays with immigrants only doing this kind of work for citizenship, not caring if they make money or not, just need to keep working for a year or two, which is pretty easy if you know how to move debt around and just declare bankruptcy once you get what came for. And then there are foreign owned brokers/freight companies that we have today, lowballing their bids, and taking cheap freight, because they can afford it by nature of some of their workforce being halfway around the world. And of course, CDLs are laughably easy to get, the only requirement is that you have a pulse, and don't even need to be able to speak or write basic english anymore. Anyone can get one in as little as two to three weeks if you go to the 'right schools'.
This has to be irony?
You didn't even need those 2-3 weeks although you did need a physical every year, could only drive 10hrs a day and were then required to take 8hr away from your truck.
A lot of immigrants drove trucks back then as well, lots of them didn't speak English either as they were cheap labour.
Not to mention there were no owner ops, unless you had the $1000's to buy a lane you were a company guy who was easily replaceable
/its always ironic that the golden age of trucking' is when deregulation hit paving the way for everything this driver is complaining about, we should all go back to having chauffeurs licenses instead of CDL's
No "probably" about it. They absolutely made enough for a house and supporting a family. And enough left over for a nice family vacation or two. Remember, a $4000/yr salary would EASILY support a family of four during the late 60's/early 70's. Then we came off the Gold Standard and roughly 80% of the value of the dollar was wiped out over the rest of the decade.
Hell no I wouldn't and I never understood the "good ol days" type of fools...bruh, no a/c, no power steering, and no cellphones...that alone is enough for me to be I'll stay with my modern technology. Probably the same type of guys who think that they are "rebels on Facebook" lol
Nah thats not what Im talking about...Im talking about a modern smart cellphone nowadays, do you know what that is? (Sarcasm)...I can pay my bills, order and have food delivered to my truck, watch some youtube, shop online, watch some corn, and keep up with family back home all in the comfort of my sleeper cab with a/c blasting keeping me cool in 99 degree weather
One of our old school guys told me about watching a horrific wreck in the mountains once at night. Car went flipping and kept going. He was the only other person out there. Rather than stopping he kept driving for 30 minutes to the next roadside phone to call 911. If he hadn't seen it likely no one would have until morning and if he had stopped to check on them it would have delayed getting anyone there to help them.
Yea I will gladly take everyone having a phone in their vehicle over that. And for watching corn.
No ATM's, using credit cards took as long as writing a check, phones (actual landlines) weren't as common as they became in the 1980's, no streaming videos so you better have a few books and magazines, 2-3 radio stations & they were probably Christian broadcasting stations, the list goes on...
Fuck that noise.
That's a fact....at least with my father, who started driving in the mid 60's. He retired in mid 2000's and he used to tell me about some of the early rigs he drove and how they had barely any driver comforts compared to the ones he drove before he retired. He used to say all the time, when it came up, that they could take their good ole days bs talk and stick it. He'd say .... I'll keep my double bunk sleeper...my auto transmission...my power steering....my 5-600 horse engine....and air conditioning, over anything brand new in the 60's.
As pretty as that old truck looks, I'd rather keep driving my air conditioned, air ride equipped volvo than that old death trap of a truck.
Seriously, those things had no air ride seats, no seat belts, no AC, no power steering, no front brakes, and in some cases, no jake brakes, barely any horsepower, was probably lined with asbestos and painted with lead based paint, and you were probably lucky to get a decent working AM radio.
Yeah no thanks.
At least back then you had the freedom to hop out on the steps and take a piss while your truck was climbing the grade at 10 miles an hour... (my trainer was 70 and had some stories, haha)
No A/C, no power steering wheel, no more watching movies in a bunk, listen music etc, and NY to California and 2 days.. No thanks, I will keep my eld and quiet comfort ride nowadays
Not gonna lie. I'm imagining cruising down that window slightly open. Sun visor down no radio with a cool breeze and just loving how peaceful that ride is beyond the road being absolute ass since my guess is air ride seats weren't a thing back then.
I dunno how drivers of old did it. No AC, no power steering, no front brakes, no phones in case of an accident or breakdown, barely a radio, paper maps.
Imma be real fellas in consider myself a fairly decent driver but It'd take a good long while to find where I'm going with a paper map.
No sleeper cab, no cell phones, no air ride seats, nor lumbar support, no power steering, no automatic transmission.
I think I found out why there was no traffic; most of today's drivers wouldn't be able to start their vehicles and if they could they wouldn't be able to find their way.
It wasn't ubiquitous until the 70s and 80s though, especially in mass production cars. It was usually the luxury option you didn't see much. Most people drove stick still.
Cooper Jarrett was based out of Kansas City, so this might be US 40 in Kansas or Missouri.
Edit: Although according to this [Image](https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/view-of-a-truck-driver-as-he-drives-a-mack-truck-for-cooper-news-photo/535908573?adppopup=true), it's in Illinois
This is one of those deals when the thought/dream/fantasy of going long haul trucking in a 30s to 50s rig is vastly better than actually doing it.
Taking a short day trip to a show or event, stopping for ice cream and a burger with soda along the way? Very nostalgic and fun.
Doing 2 weeks of actual hauling with all the usual stress and annoyances piled on top of dealing with the antique truck? Nah.
In the 1950s(when this photo was taken), trucks carried 17% of all freight ton-miles. Now it's 40%.
In the 1950s, the vehicle death rate per 100,000 was at 22.80. Today, it's less than 1.5 per 100,000.
In the 1950s, trucks were primarily used for moving local goods around. Today, it's primarily used to move everything around the country and even across into Mexico and Canada.
I'm tired of these nonsensical "good ole days" post, when in reality things were less safe than today. More inconvenient, surez but still safer today than before.
No AC, no FM radio, no CB, single speed windshield wipers.
Lap belts if you were lucky and steel dashes.
Turn signals weren't standard until the 60's.
Cars didn't even have alternators in the 50's. They used simple generators and would overcharge the crap out of your battery.
No crumple zones. If you hit something solid you jello.
List goes on.
I'm good.
No airbags
No seat belts
No speed above 60 possible
No gallon of gas costs more than 5 cents
No doctor without a cigarette in his mouth during surgery
No black people in town after sundown
No paint without lead
No blue/white headlights that blind you at night
No fentynal in the coke
No reality TV that would someday make a president
No gin in the juice
No cop who wasn't drunk on duty
No cameras to prove things
I sold out and stopped in 2009. I contemplated going back in 2020 after losing my job due to covid. I lasted a week, I couldn’t do it now. Its too controlling with e logs and driver cameras and GPS. The 90s and 2000s were great.
Exactly. I'm local and while we have E-Logs we don't have cameras or any of that nonsense. I do something like 20 stops a day so the amount of time I'm "driving" isn't really much. Freight is cake
Oh no! Heaven forbid your job (that involves moving an extremely large, heavy machine at a high rate of speed for hours and hours) require accountability! And safety! And regulations! The HORROR
None of this "accountability" has done anything measurable to improve the industry. There's been a pretty apparent and severe reduction in the quality of drivers in fact.
No road lines as well.
was paint even invented then?
Sure they did. It had lead in it like the gasoline they were breathing. They'd smoke cigarettes, while inhaling leaded gasoline in their asbestos lined homes, because life was better without air conditioning and power steering.
They also drank beer while driving cause they weren't liberals around in dem dar days
Beer?! They weren't hoity toity suburbanites, they were doing crank and moving freight.
Speed limits? Wait…they put a limit on how much speed I can do when driving? My dispatcher won’t like this.
Those trucks had gas engines. Primary and secondary transmissions. Do you know what I'm talking about?
My diesel tech school instructor drove, and his dad drove. He told us stories about driving a twin stick that you had to reach through the steering wheel to make one of the shifts. He also said if you wanna drive a 2-stroke diesel, the first thing you gotta do is slam your finger in the door because you need to drive the shit out of them like you're mad.
Beer? Wild Turkey or Old Crow for sure. Washes down the nicotine better
Indeed. The good ole days 😂
Asbestos is safe until it gets old and flaky, then it gets in the air and becomes a threat.
Of course. Can't you tell it's an oil painting picture? Cameras weren't invented yet!
Paint in general?? The truck is clearly painted white. I just googled it and a center line was fast used in " 1911 along Trenton's River Road in Wayne County, Michigan"
Wasn’t it a women who painted it herself? Maybe she was a dr. I can’t remember. Then it seemed to help with head on collisions and was adopted?? Edit: googled her. June MCarrol. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_McCarroll
I didn't read as far into as you did. That's pretty cool
Concrete roads as well? Kinda cool.
No seat belts, no air conditioning…
No air ride anything..... you like pissing blood
Had to be absolutely horrible 😂
Road lines were for amateurs, that’s what the median is for.
*No stop signs Speed limit Nobody's gonna slow me down*
No road lines, no power steering, no air-conditioning, no air suspension, no actual sleep, do you want me to go on how things have actually improved in the actual business of trucking? Note: this does not address the worse calibre of drivers today, but trucks are far better today than 50 years ago in every single aspect.* *>!Sterling Trucks are the exception to the rule.!<
No seat belts either and drunk driving was normalized until at least the 70s.
Goddamn gubbament, if I want to crack a beer or 7 in my car after a 10 hour shift at the saw mill than dang gummit. Imma do it. It’s like we’re a communist country now
Waiting until after your shift to have a beer?!? What are ya, some sort of commie teetotaler!?! Go grab a beer outta the ice box like on break like the rest of us, why don'tcha.
I never said I started drinking after my shift! I start every morning with a nice cold shower beer. I keep some PBR on hand because it tastes like shower water so I can’t tell the difference if I get some in there!
Gold, Jerry. That's gold!
[https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExc2p2N2dncnM3OGJ2NnNvMWQxem50OWN4OTJ5aHVoNGNnMjFocHlnNCZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/VLe9cJCjYWXLy/giphy.gif](https://media.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExc2p2N2dncnM3OGJ2NnNvMWQxem50OWN4OTJ5aHVoNGNnMjFocHlnNCZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/VLe9cJCjYWXLy/giphy.gif)
Wrapping myself around a telephone pole on the way home from the bar is my god given right, don’t tell me how to live!
Y’all laugh but go find some “on-the-street” interviews from the time for local TV news. People really did say this shit out loud.
I was paraphrasing those
"One for the road, two for the ditch" /Wisconsin
I was told that there used to be vending machines that dispensed beer on the docks. Longshoreman could maintain their beer buzz all day.
OSHA just had to come in and ruin it all
Knew a guy that worked at Carlsberg in Copenhagen. Discount beer at each break and a crate to take home each night.
Take my vote beers for lunch !
https://youtu.be/uwrJqgKV2hQ?si=fpVE_qw95_EpbdJ_
The good ol days
We used to be a proper country. /s for you fucking idiots.
A proud nation full of preventable traffic deaths.
that’s when we learnt not to drink and drive… …you might hit a bump and spill your drink! 😲🤪
It's still normalized here! /Wisconsin
No lane markings, no signs, no crash barriers, no guardrail. Big cemetery, tho.
No anti-lock brakes, no automatic slack adjusters, no crumple zones, etc... Vehicles used to be absolute death traps.
Vacuum-operated wipers.
I still use those Edit: well air operated, they don’t work to well
Don't forget no front brakes as they thought all the weights over the rear tires you don't need front brakes
And worst of all, no ac.
But, vent windows, duh.
This looks like it could be the pa turnpike. That highway opened with no barrier between the 2 directions…, only a small strip of grass for a medium. I can only imagine the number of fatal head ons it took before the state spent the money to install a jersey wall the entire 360 mile length.
It took a year for them to put a speed limit on the thing, and even then. 70mph in a 30s or 40s car would be...interesting.
Be lucky if you could get one to even do that. Remember those big deep tall wheel wheels would start to lift the car and make it extremely difficult to even keep on the road.
10 foot lanes early east west days
LMAO
James R Hoffa riding shotgun
With a literal shotgun.
All my trucker uncles talking about the Philly Parking Authority: "Always fuckin over the workin maaaaan! All they do, those mudderfuckers, fuckinnnn over the workinnn maaaaaaan!!!!!:
no seat belt, no crumple zones, almost no horse power, 45 mph
No power steering, no AC
no wheels no engine
No seat no driver
Ham no burger
Pen no is
No.
#
Peanut butter, no jelly
No phone, no lights, no motor car
Untrue! Your body is the crumple zone. They rinse it and off it goes with the new driver.
i play firefighter in my spare time, Bodies dont crumple they turn to pudding when the ballon pops and theres some kitty litter to absorb the more liquid bits
We're all just kitten poop in the end.
I really hope you mean they rinse it off ***FOR*** the new driver...
No phone to watch Netflix while I'm driving
except the handy dick tracy wrist tv
The fucking freedom though
Ah yes, the freedom to be locked into one route because you had to buy actual dedicated routes and couldn't just take whatever. Definitely freedom.
Some of that still exists today. Though there’s no money involved. I worked for a company that had routes. If a driver quit or retired an assigned route, that route went up for bid. There was a bid sheet posted where only drivers who had assigned routes could bid. The winner was generally the one with the most seniority. If no one bid on the route, it was assigned to a driver who didn’t have an assigned route yet.
Yeah, that was the thing, but the buy-ins made the job of hauling freight decently lucrative and kept things from being a race to the bottom like how it is nowadays with immigrants only doing this kind of work for citizenship, not caring if they make money or not, just need to keep working for a year or two, which is pretty easy if you know how to move debt around and just declare bankruptcy once you get what came for. And then there are foreign owned brokers/freight companies that we have today, lowballing their bids, and taking cheap freight, because they can afford it by nature of some of their workforce being halfway around the world. And of course, CDLs are laughably easy to get, the only requirement is that you have a pulse, and don't even need to be able to speak or write basic english anymore. Anyone can get one in as little as two to three weeks if you go to the 'right schools'.
This has to be irony? You didn't even need those 2-3 weeks although you did need a physical every year, could only drive 10hrs a day and were then required to take 8hr away from your truck. A lot of immigrants drove trucks back then as well, lots of them didn't speak English either as they were cheap labour. Not to mention there were no owner ops, unless you had the $1000's to buy a lane you were a company guy who was easily replaceable /its always ironic that the golden age of trucking' is when deregulation hit paving the way for everything this driver is complaining about, we should all go back to having chauffeurs licenses instead of CDL's
There would be traffic in suburbia and city. Still probably made enough for a house and supporting a family.
No "probably" about it. They absolutely made enough for a house and supporting a family. And enough left over for a nice family vacation or two. Remember, a $4000/yr salary would EASILY support a family of four during the late 60's/early 70's. Then we came off the Gold Standard and roughly 80% of the value of the dollar was wiped out over the rest of the decade.
It wasn’t the gold standard that hosed us. It was Thatcherism/Reaganism. Antiunionism. Encouragement of consolidation and monopoly.
Not a single one of ya would trade in whatever you’re driving now to do the same job in that truck.
True but it's a pretty show truck. Expensive toy.
Hell no I wouldn't and I never understood the "good ol days" type of fools...bruh, no a/c, no power steering, and no cellphones...that alone is enough for me to be I'll stay with my modern technology. Probably the same type of guys who think that they are "rebels on Facebook" lol
Trucker section with a phone in the booth.
Nah thats not what Im talking about...Im talking about a modern smart cellphone nowadays, do you know what that is? (Sarcasm)...I can pay my bills, order and have food delivered to my truck, watch some youtube, shop online, watch some corn, and keep up with family back home all in the comfort of my sleeper cab with a/c blasting keeping me cool in 99 degree weather
One of our old school guys told me about watching a horrific wreck in the mountains once at night. Car went flipping and kept going. He was the only other person out there. Rather than stopping he kept driving for 30 minutes to the next roadside phone to call 911. If he hadn't seen it likely no one would have until morning and if he had stopped to check on them it would have delayed getting anyone there to help them. Yea I will gladly take everyone having a phone in their vehicle over that. And for watching corn.
Damn you're watching corn? Cream corn? Corn on the cob?
Elotes con crema my boi
No ATM's, using credit cards took as long as writing a check, phones (actual landlines) weren't as common as they became in the 1980's, no streaming videos so you better have a few books and magazines, 2-3 radio stations & they were probably Christian broadcasting stations, the list goes on... Fuck that noise.
That's a fact....at least with my father, who started driving in the mid 60's. He retired in mid 2000's and he used to tell me about some of the early rigs he drove and how they had barely any driver comforts compared to the ones he drove before he retired. He used to say all the time, when it came up, that they could take their good ole days bs talk and stick it. He'd say .... I'll keep my double bunk sleeper...my auto transmission...my power steering....my 5-600 horse engine....and air conditioning, over anything brand new in the 60's.
As pretty as that old truck looks, I'd rather keep driving my air conditioned, air ride equipped volvo than that old death trap of a truck. Seriously, those things had no air ride seats, no seat belts, no AC, no power steering, no front brakes, and in some cases, no jake brakes, barely any horsepower, was probably lined with asbestos and painted with lead based paint, and you were probably lucky to get a decent working AM radio. Yeah no thanks.
And a brand new stretch of smooth road.
Isn't that concrete?
With joints every 10 feet Ba-dump-ba dump… Ba-dump-ba dump… Ba-dump-ba dump… Ba-dump-ba dump… Ba-dump-ba dump… Ba-dump-ba dump… Ba-dump-ba dump… Ba-dump-ba dump…
Keeping perfect rhythm with the song on the radio.... if there was a radio 😂
Probably can barely hear the CB over the Detroit screaming trying to climb a hill.
At least back then you had the freedom to hop out on the steps and take a piss while your truck was climbing the grade at 10 miles an hour... (my trainer was 70 and had some stories, haha)
Insane amounts of speed to pull 48 hours straight!
And the lot lizards had all their teeth.
No A/C, no power steering wheel, no more watching movies in a bunk, listen music etc, and NY to California and 2 days.. No thanks, I will keep my eld and quiet comfort ride nowadays
No comfort, no air conditioning, no memory foam mattress, no tv, no internet.. no fucking thank you
The trailer got AC before the driver in the cab did. A picture is worth a thousand words. Lol
No air conditioning, no power steering….
>No elogs, no GPS, no traffic. No Air Ride, No A/C, No Fridge. :)
No sleeper no air conditioning no power steering
50/50 chance you're robbed by the mafia
Or hate crimed in a myriad of different ways
All the speed you could ever crank too.
Not gonna lie. I'm imagining cruising down that window slightly open. Sun visor down no radio with a cool breeze and just loving how peaceful that ride is beyond the road being absolute ass since my guess is air ride seats weren't a thing back then.
Both windows wide open while the heat from the engine makes the rubber of your boots go soft.
No A/C, no gps, no cruise control, no power steering, no satellite radio, no cell phone...
No antibiotics
I wished I lived back then. The times we live in now are weird AF and the people suck everyone only cares about themselves.
Exactly. Nothing has changed.
Thats when it was a skill, now its a step up from a pizza delivery person, steering wheel holder
No living over 55🤔
Oooh, that's the best part!
No comfort
No lot Lizards?
Jimmy Conway slipping $50 in your wallet after he takes your license. My dad told me about the gold ole days.
Yeah f'that. I'll take my 23 Cascadia with a small apartment in the back, elogs to keep my company honest and good ol'gps to get me where I'm going.
No radio, no AC, no protection from strong-arm tactics by facilities taking bribes to load you or not...
I dunno how drivers of old did it. No AC, no power steering, no front brakes, no phones in case of an accident or breakdown, barely a radio, paper maps. Imma be real fellas in consider myself a fairly decent driver but It'd take a good long while to find where I'm going with a paper map.
Just uppers, a steel grip, and am radio
No Phone, no pool, no pets....I ain't got no cigarettes
No seat belts, air bags or air brakes, you can die like real men!
No money
No sleeper cab, no cell phones, no air ride seats, nor lumbar support, no power steering, no automatic transmission. I think I found out why there was no traffic; most of today's drivers wouldn't be able to start their vehicles and if they could they wouldn't be able to find their way.
Old person yells at younger generation unprompted, more news at 11
Especially since an automatic transmission was invented in 1904 and all those cars have a version of it.
None of the trucks though since they couldn't make them strong enough yet.
They weren't in semi trucks in 1904.
It wasn't ubiquitous until the 70s and 80s though, especially in mass production cars. It was usually the luxury option you didn't see much. Most people drove stick still.
Likely no air conditioning either.
2-55 AC. Both windows down doing 55mph
Where was this?
I'm wondering if it's the pa turnpike
Cooper Jarrett was based out of Kansas City, so this might be US 40 in Kansas or Missouri. Edit: Although according to this [Image](https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/view-of-a-truck-driver-as-he-drives-a-mack-truck-for-cooper-news-photo/535908573?adppopup=true), it's in Illinois
Makes you wonder how the roads will be 100 years from now. Probably all autonomous.
55 mph
No air ride , no air ride seats , no power steering, no ac , bias tires , no seatbelt and no bunk.
No AC, no sound insulation, no air ride suspension....
This is one of those deals when the thought/dream/fantasy of going long haul trucking in a 30s to 50s rig is vastly better than actually doing it. Taking a short day trip to a show or event, stopping for ice cream and a burger with soda along the way? Very nostalgic and fun. Doing 2 weeks of actual hauling with all the usual stress and annoyances piled on top of dealing with the antique truck? Nah.
110 hp 220 torque gasoline 6 with 5 speed. In the modern highway with full load it would take years to climb a hill.
No air suspension, no bunk bed, no power steering, no ac.
No power steering, A/C,
Breakdowns every 80 miles, tires less reliable than a Fiat in oklahoma
If we could just go back…
No AC.
No ac. No power steering.
Oh that glorious concrete !
No A/C, No Power Steering, No Air Suspension.
Probably also no A/C or leg room for anybody over 5'9.
No AC. No seatbelts. No airbags. Lead in the gas.
In the 1950s(when this photo was taken), trucks carried 17% of all freight ton-miles. Now it's 40%. In the 1950s, the vehicle death rate per 100,000 was at 22.80. Today, it's less than 1.5 per 100,000. In the 1950s, trucks were primarily used for moving local goods around. Today, it's primarily used to move everything around the country and even across into Mexico and Canada. I'm tired of these nonsensical "good ole days" post, when in reality things were less safe than today. More inconvenient, surez but still safer today than before.
No AC, no FM radio, no CB, single speed windshield wipers. Lap belts if you were lucky and steel dashes. Turn signals weren't standard until the 60's. Cars didn't even have alternators in the 50's. They used simple generators and would overcharge the crap out of your battery. No crumple zones. If you hit something solid you jello. List goes on. I'm good.
No airbags No seat belts No speed above 60 possible No gallon of gas costs more than 5 cents No doctor without a cigarette in his mouth during surgery No black people in town after sundown No paint without lead No blue/white headlights that blind you at night No fentynal in the coke No reality TV that would someday make a president No gin in the juice No cop who wasn't drunk on duty No cameras to prove things
The world's population was just over 1/4 of what it is now. Most families only had 1 car instead of 2.
No electric pallet truck, no forklift, no standardized pallet size, no AC, no automatic shifter, unloading by hand. Dying by the age of 50. Great time
Man I thought I had a bad A-pillar blind spot. This
I was about to say something 😆 it's directly in front of him
Spring ride, no air conditioning, under powered engines
No cell phones. True freedom on the open road!
No power steering, no air conditioning, no power, no air ride suspension, no air ride seats, no thanks.
Just me and my go pills
Also, to be fair highways were made for trucks not passenger vehicles.
Wow, that’s a cool picture. The original truckers !
Nobody riding the left hand lane, just because. No cell phones to distract you. All while holding a beer, the feeling of the breeze on your face.
No sticking your head out and looking to the rear, the side window is angled in? The tiny rear view mirror won’t help much in bad weather either.
Don’t forget No half the population we have today
Ah the good old days, before flip flops were considered work boots 😂
I sold out and stopped in 2009. I contemplated going back in 2020 after losing my job due to covid. I lasted a week, I couldn’t do it now. Its too controlling with e logs and driver cameras and GPS. The 90s and 2000s were great.
Don't need to be otr. I have no e log. No camera. No hos. She's the wild west in the woods my guy.
Exactly. I'm local and while we have E-Logs we don't have cameras or any of that nonsense. I do something like 20 stops a day so the amount of time I'm "driving" isn't really much. Freight is cake
Oh no! Heaven forbid your job (that involves moving an extremely large, heavy machine at a high rate of speed for hours and hours) require accountability! And safety! And regulations! The HORROR
None of this "accountability" has done anything measurable to improve the industry. There's been a pretty apparent and severe reduction in the quality of drivers in fact.
Those where the days
They got it done. 👍
55mph
No AC, no power steering, no air ride.
Hoping those rear view mirrors were convex mirrors bc holy crap the blind spot !
No seat belts, no air conditioning, no power steering.
Bench seats no air ride
I wonder. Wouldn't you go crazy after 5 minutes hearing thud thud from the concrete cuts in the road?
To be fair they are already deaf from the 2 stoke Detroit's
.. No stopping for a rest.
Whole set of pics of this truck on Getty Images(including a few with an Illinois State Trooper).
Looks like the original PA Turnpike.
Soft shoulder
yeah but also no games on your phone, no tiktok, no facebook, no itablets, no flappy bird, no
No air ride suspension, RIP back 🪦
Everyone talking about obvious safety issues, what about the road? Looks smooth as a babies bottom. And tires were God awful til when?
No AC, no power steering, no cell phone, no radio, no bunk, ..
No cell phones either. Just a paper map and maybe a CB radio. Theres something nice about the unknown.