Missing the 'good ol' days' ? You gotta be kidding.
By Timothy Brady
Over the past few weeks, I have been discussing the advancements in mobile technology as they pertain to the trucking industry. Before we return to the newest advancements in trucking mobile technology, I’d like to put this in perspective. Join me for a trip down memory lane while I describe what it was like a mere 25 years ago to communicate from, and with, a truck in the course of doing business.

In 1985, the most common means of communication between a trucker, his dispatcher, shippers and receivers was the antiquated pay phone. Truck stops would have banks of them lining a wall in a drivers’ room. Back then, a few progressive truck stops actually got the notion to start putting pay phones at the tables in their restaurants. Truckers needed either a pocketful of change or a calling card to pay for their phone calls, although many trucking companies provided drivers with toll-free 800 numbers to call in. In that day, if a trucker was under a load he usually was required to make a daily check-in call to let dispatch know where he was and where he planned on being for the following day (and the next check-in call), and his PAD (Point of Anticipated Delivery) dates. If he had not been assigned a load while in transit with the current load, or he was empty and looking for a load, the trucker might be required to call in more often. Each call required him to pull off the highway, find a parking place where there was a pay phone, get out of the truck and usually stand in line with several other truckers needing to contact their dispatch or customers. This could easily take an hour or more each time a trucker stopped to call in. It was not at all unusual for the dispatcher to ask him to call back in twenty minutes after the driver had stood in line for 45 minutes. He would try to negotiate with the other waiting truckers so he wouldn’t have to go to the back of the line and wait another 45 minutes. Sometimes his negotiation skills worked, and other times they didn’t.

For the O/O with his own authority, there was only one load board called “DAT.” Displayed on a 14" TV monitor hung towards the ceiling at a slight downward angle (with control buttons on the bottom edge to scroll up, down or pause), it was located in the drivers’ room at most truck stops. Truckers could be lined up three or four deep watching the loads scroll down the screen. The trick was to be quick enough to read the information, copy it down along with the broker’s or shipper’s phone number and then be the first one to the pay phone on any good-paying load. Usually if the trucker hit pause, it meant anyone else looking for a similar load would have time to catch the same information and make the call. The amazing part is many truckers would stand there and help each other find the loads they needed.

When it came to communications in a rolling truck, there was but one electronic item available in 1985. That was the ‘CB’, the citizens’ band radio; although there were a few drivers who had a 10-meter radio or a Ham radio which both required a special FCC (Federal Communications Commission) license. This was the communication device for road conditions coming up, accident reports, closed roads, and getting road repair. (There were also more nefarious uses of this device which I won’t go into here.) But if you were broke down on the road, the CB was your means of communication for getting help. The process was lengthy: ask another trucker to either stop and assist you in a simple repair or provide temporary repair parts like a piece of  hose, a clamp and water or antifreeze to get you to the nearest truck stop. Or if the situation required a mechanic or tow truck, the assisting trucker would ferry the information (what kind of truck and engine, closest to which mile marker, on the shoulder, etc.) to the nearest truck stop and the truck stop crew would dispatch a repair truck or tow truck to the trucker needing help.

The only other ‘radio’ in a truck was the standard AM/FM model with, if you were lucky, a cassette tape player. A trucker either listened to what stations he could find as he rolled or to music and books on tape with the tape player. A very few truckers had TVs that depended upon getting a local TV station signal once the truck was pulled over.

The trusty road atlas was the trucker’s Global Positioning System. It was usually dog-eared and worn within a month of purchasing it.  A trucker used it to determine his route, estimate his miles for a load, find his way around a road obstruction, figure the best place to stop for rest breaks and maneuver around a large city. And it was the means by which he calculated his miles for his logbook. The road atlas was the most important  navigation tool a trucker had in 1985.

There were no ECMs connected to an engine to do diagnostics. It was done the old- fashioned way, by looking at it from the least expensive to the most costly repair. It was possible for a minimally mechanically-knowledgeable trucker to do simple maintenance and repairs as the engines didn’t have computers attached. They were also far less fuel efficient than today’s engines. 5mpg was considered excellent fuel mileage in 1985.

As you either remember or can see, trucking was a completely different animal in 1985, technologically speaking, than today. The advancements in this area of trucking are staggering when you think about it. The ease and swiftness with which a trucker communicates to his company today, between his truck and a mechanic, a trailer and dispatch is astounding compared to just a quarter of a century past. Where will we be by 2035 if we keep advancing at the speed we have in the past 25 years? ….. Will dispatch be saying, “Beam the truck load to Los Angeles, Scottie–Energize!” Only time will tell. If the past is any indicator of what technology has in store for the future, it will be held back only by our imaginations.

Good roads and good loads, everyone. And … oh, Scottie, beam me to Maui–Energize!”

Timothy Brady  ©2010  
www.timothybrady.com