by JR Elrod

Ok folks, your Camp Soapbox counselor here.

Happy Driver Appreciation Week.

Now go download an app so somebody can appreciate you.

Yeah. That sentence sounds just as stupid to me as it probably does to you.

Pilot is giving professional drivers three free drinks and a free snack a week this month. You get them through the Pilot app.

RaceTrac has free pizza, fountain drinks and energy drinks all month. You get those by being a rewards member and setting your profile to semi-truck in the RaceTrac Rewards app.

Love’s has double points in store, triple points on drink refills and a bunch of buy-one-get-one deals. Through the Love’s Rewards app.

Kwik Trip is giving away fifty thousand Kwik Rewards Fleet points to thirty winners. Rewards members.

Circle K and Sheetz have their own fuel and beverage promotions running through their driver and rewards programs.

Now listen, I have most of those cards in my truck. Most of you probably do too. I use the apps. I take the points. If somebody wants to give me a free cup of coffee, I am damn sure going to drink it.

That is not what bothers me.

What bothers me is that somewhere in a marketing meeting, somebody decided the best way to thank a man or woman for keeping this country moving 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year was to make them hand over their phone number and purchase history first.

That is not a thank you.

That is customer acquisition with a thank-you sticker slapped on it.

And hell, we cannot even agree on when we are supposed to be appreciated.

National Truck Driver Appreciation Week is September 13 through 19 this year, according to the American Trucking Associations. TravelCenters of America ran theirs September 10 through 17.

Nobody is necessarily wrong.

That is actually my point.

If Driver Appreciation Week can slide around on the calendar depending on which company is running the promotion, then maybe we ought to admit that at least some of this has a hell of a lot more to do with marketing than drivers.

Credit where it is earned

Now before somebody says I am just sitting here bitching about everything, I am not.

There are companies doing some things I think are pretty damn good, and when somebody gets it right, I am going to say so.

Look at what TA actually put on the ground. Cookouts. Window washes. Mid-trip and tire inspections. Goodie bags. Corn hole tournaments. Thank-you cards.

I especially like the inspections.

A tire inspection is not some marketing gimmick. That is somebody putting eyes on your equipment for free. If they catch a bad tire, loose lug, or something else you missed, they may have just saved your ass, your CSA score, or maybe somebody’s life.

A window wash is not life changing either, but somebody is doing something for the driver instead of asking the driver to scan a damn QR code to enter a drawing.

You pull in and somebody helps you.

Dolly’s Tennessean Travel Stop in Tennessee did free coffee, free hand-dipped ice cream, a pulled pork or brisket combo, and reserved restaurant seating for CDL holders.

Reserved seating.

That one got my attention.

Somebody over there apparently understands that one of the hardest parts of being a truck driver anymore is not driving the damn truck. It is spending fourteen hours being treated like you are in everybody’s way.

That is appreciation.

When somebody gets it right, say so.

A lottery is not a raise

Pilot also brought back the Road Warrior Contest. One driver wins a customized Kenworth W990 and fifty thousand dollars.

And listen, I hope one of you wins the damn thing. Seriously. If you do, send your Camp Soapbox counselor a picture because I want to see it.

But let us call it what it is.

There are roughly three and a half million truck drivers in this country.

One truck.

One check.

That is a sweepstakes.

And from the company’s side, it is a hell of a marketing buy. One tractor and one check gets your name in trade publications, social media posts and trucking conversations all over America.

Nothing wrong with that.

Just quit calling everything appreciation.

What about the other fifty-one weeks?

Here is the part I really want somebody sitting in one of those marketing meetings to explain to me.

The same company that gives me a free cup of coffee in September will charge me to park in October.

Think about that for a minute.

A driver is out of hours. Federal law says he has to stop. He cannot legally move that truck another mile.

And somewhere along the way this industry figured out that a man who is legally required to park is also a man with damn few options.

So we put a price on the parking spot.

Then September comes around and we cook him a hamburger.

Come on, folks.

Same thing with the showers. The bathrooms. The parking lots that look like the surface of the moon. The driver lounge with two busted chairs and a television nobody can hear. The places where you buy hundreds of gallons of diesel and still feel like you ought to apologize for walking through the front door.

Those are not Driver Appreciation Week problems.

Those are the other fifty-one weeks.

And nobody puts out a press release about cleaning the damn bathroom.

Now I want to be very clear about something because I know exactly where this can go.

The sixty-year-old woman standing behind the register at two in the morning did not make those policies. Do not give her shit about them. Half the time she is the reason we stop at the same place anyway, because she knows us, talks to us and treats us like human beings.

My complaint is not with her.

My complaint is upstairs, probably in a building where nobody has driven a truck.

Now let me point the same damn finger at my own side

Carriers are every bit as bad about this.

Probably worse.

And I include anybody in this business who puts up the yearly September graphic telling everybody how much they appreciate their drivers.

You have seen it.

The banner on the website.

The catered lunch.

The company hat.

The cooler bag with the company logo on it.

The social media picture of a truck driving into the sunset with HEROES written across it in giant letters.

Then Driver Appreciation Week ends and the same driver is sitting at a dock for six hours without detention pay, calling a dispatcher who will not answer the damn phone.

But hey.

He got a hat.

I am not going to sit here and pretend I know how to run a thousand-truck fleet. I do not. We have four drivers. Four. I am not going to tell somebody running an operation hundreds of times my size that I have all the answers.

I sure as hell do not.

But I can tell you what we do.

We do not give away something nobody can actually reach. No contest. No drawing. No points.

If one of my drivers earns something, he gets it. He gets it when he earns it, not because somebody in marketing circled a week in September.

And we do not stop doing it when the week is over.

Here is the only credential I have that matters

I could tell you all day long that we treat our drivers right.

So could every other carrier in America.

Those words are free.

And they are worth exactly what they cost.

So I will give you something that is not words.

Ron Miller retired from us this year after sixteen years.

Sixteen damn years.

A man does not stay with you for sixteen years because you bought him a hamburger every September.

He stays because when he calls, somebody answers the phone. He stays because his check is right. He stays because when he tells you the truck needs something, you fix the damn truck. He stays because when life kicks him in the teeth, the company remembers there is a human being sitting behind that steering wheel.

And he stays because nobody in the office treats him like he is beneath them.

Chad Davis moved into the lead seat when Ron retired. Wardell Ward started with us on the first of this month and took over truck 2023.

Drivers talk.

Always have.

You want to know which carriers actually treat their drivers right? Do not read their website.

Ask their drivers.

That network is the most accurate reporting system in trucking, and it does not give a damn what your recruiting department says.

That is my whole case.

One retirement. One promotion. One new hire. Four-driver fleet.

Small numbers.

But those numbers mean more to me than a thousand Driver Appreciation Week graphics.

So what am I actually asking for?

I am not asking anybody to cancel Driver Appreciation Week.

Hell no.

Have the week.

Have the cookout.

I will eat a hamburger with anybody.

Give drivers the coffee. Give them the pizza. Wash their windows. Check their tires. Hand out the goodie bags.

But if you really want to appreciate drivers, I have three ideas.

First, quit making every damn thank-you conditional on an app, a card, a scan, a purchase or a drawing. If you want to thank the driver, walk out into the parking lot and hand it to him.

No strings attached.

Second, take a look at the other fifty-one weeks.

Pick one thing.

One.

Fix the bathroom.

Fix the parking.

Fix the shower wait.

Quit treating drivers like an inconvenience when they walk through the door.

Do one thing permanently and you will have done more for drivers than ten years of September promotions.

And carriers, this last one is for us.

If the only week of the year your drivers feel appreciated is the week you scheduled it…

you already know what the problem is.

And you are hoping the damn hat covers it.

Drivers, take the free coffee.

Eat the hamburger.

Grab the pizza.

You earned every damn bit of it and a hell of a lot more.

Just do not ever let somebody convince you that a cup of coffee, a raffle ticket and a company hat are what you are worth.

You keep this country fed.

You keep it clothed.

You keep factories running, shelves stocked and damn near everything else moving.

Fifty-two weeks a year.

Not one.

So I have one question for the drivers before I sign off.

Forget Driver Appreciation Week. What is ONE thing a truck stop, shipper, receiver, broker, or carrier could change during the other fifty-one weeks that would actually make you feel appreciated?

Put it in the comments.

I have a feeling this industry needs to read the answers.

End of transmission.

JR Elrod
President, BAR Transportation LLC
U.S. Army Veteran
Camp Soapbox Counselor

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