Also in January
| 1977 | FHWA News reports that Associate Administrator for Safety Howard L. Anderson accepted a trucker's challenge by taking a test ride in a Yellow Freight truck. Anderson, whose responsibilities include overseeing the Bureau of Motor Carrier Safety but had never experienced a trucker's life, was attending a symposium sponsored by the Professional Drivers' Council (PROD); during a question and answer session, one of the drivers asked him to test ride "one of the notoriously rough riding, hard to control trucks that are equipped with rubber block suspension systems, to learn first-hand of the conditions that drivers live under." With PROD member Bud Mayer driving, Anderson traveled from Ann Arbor, MI, to Effingham, IL, on I-94, I-69, and I-70, leaving him feeling "mentally alert but sore and battered physically." He noted "a great variation" in the quality of highway construction and maintenance, camaraderie among the truckers, and the "utter frustration" of the drivers. Anderson summed up his experience of the trucker's life: "Anything but an easy life!" |
