Up Front

The silver lining

Spring has officially sprung, and – despite the flood of bad news we keep hearing about the economy – it’s hard not to be positive when everything around you is renewing itself, including the trucking industry. We recently returned from the Mid-America Trucking Show in Louisville, where the number of exhibiting vendors was down significantly from previous years, but the number of truck drivers walking the aisles appeared to be as plentiful as ever.
     Sure, we heard horror stories from carriers and small fleet owners struggling to survive the “Perfect Storm,” but we also talked with dozens of truck drivers who were pragmatic – and in some cases, openly optimistic – about the state of the trucking industry and their future in it. That’s saying a lot considering some of the drivers we talked with had recently lost their jobs, and others, including many owner-operators, were cutting expenses and doing whatever it takes to ride out the storm.
     As a group, truckers are incredibly resourceful individuals. They have to be in order to survive the ups and downs and assorted curves that come their way in the best of times, let alone during the kind of battered economy we’re working our way through now. MATS reminded us again how important the trucking industry is to America, and why it will be the nation’s over-the-road professional drivers who ultimately – and literally – pull us out of this recession.