I was realizing the other day how there is a whole different language for the trucking industry. We not only have general terms, but a unique trucking lingo. I especially know this when I get glazed looks from people when I talk about the road and what we do, which could be from boredom. It’s kind of like hearing someone’s vacation stories. I have to say, though, that a lot of the real colorful verbiage (I don’t mean cuss words here) has disappeared and only the “Ol’ Timers” remember the way it used to be.
I’ll start with the truck itself. Oh, this will be interesting, I’m sure. Pay attention – there will be a quiz.
First of all, you are either an owner-operator – one who owns, or is buying, the truck and either works for a company or for himself, or a company driver – one who drives whatever the company gives them and has no control over what you get or what you can do to the truck. We are company drivers, so we get what they give us.
Names of trucks: big rig, semi, 18-wheeler, tractor/ trailer.
Types of trucks: day cabs (no sleeper), condos (tall inside so you can stand up and usually has bunk beds), mid-roof (not as tall, no bunk beds), slope nose (how most of the new trucks are shaped), long nose or big hood ( the classic look)
What tractors pull: flat bed (what it says, a flat bed with no sides), dry van (what is mostly out there – carries anything that’s dry), reefer (refrigerated unit that hauls produce, frozen foods and anything that needs to stay cool), bull wagon (hauls those stinking cows that leave messes on the road), parking lots (hauls cars), covered wagons (hard sides with a tarp covering that usually hauls grain and dry bulk), tanker yankers (any tanker that hauls liquid products)
What’s on the truck: chicken lights (those lights on the truck and trailer that make some look like Christmas trees and they are usually owner-operators) marker lights (the yellow lights on the tractor and trailer that let others know that you are big and will be running over you if you don’t move out of the way), stacks (those big chrome things that belch out all that black smoke that makes California go absolutely apoplectic. Okay, you don’t see black smoke anymore because of California going apoplectic.)
Tires: steer (2 front ones) drive tandems(8 on the back of the tractor), trailer tandems (8 on trailer), which makes us a 5-axle-18 wheeler. Got that?
The trailer is hooked to a fifth wheel (if you pull an RV you know what this is) and is connected to the electrical and air system by glad hands. And that doesn’t mean happy hands. Actually, if they came undone we wouldn’t be too happy. The truck would come to an immediate halt in the middle of the road, and all unsecured objects inside the truck would become projectile missiles.
We have a jake brake that we set when going down hills so that we don’t have to push on the brakes as much. Most jake brakes are quiet and don’t send people jumping out of their seats or rushing to the nearest town hall for mandates on no engine braking allowed, but there are a few older trucks that do not have a good muffler system and thinks it’s macho to go barreling down a road, flat or hilly, with a full throttle jake brake on.
Bob-tail means that the tractor is travelling without a trailer hooked on behind. I don’t know the origin of that term but it may have something to do with the horse and buggy days.
Wasn’t that interesting? I thought so.