As the holidays approach and motor carriers go into overdrive, Class 8 trucks can be found on highways from coast to coast. But depending on the part of the country they’re traveling in, passing motorists will likely refer to those trucks by different names.
CloudTrucks, a Texas company that provides business management services for owner-operators, recently surveyed 2,000 Americans about the terminology they use and their perceptions of trucking and truck drivers. Not surprisingly, the study, “How America Thinks and Talks Trucks,” found wide variations in the vocabulary used in different regions. For instance, Southerners mostly prefer the term “18-wheeler,” Midwesterners use the terms “semi” and “semi-truck,” people in the Northeast favor “tractor-trailer,” and folks in the West are fairly evenly split among “semi-truck,” “18-wheeler,” and “big rig.”
The survey also found that respondents hold a largely positive view of truck drivers. Across all regions, Americans overwhelmingly said that truck drivers “play a crucial role in the economy” (80%), agree that truckers “frequently” have to deal with “aggressive or unsafe behaviors from other motorists” (43%), and believe truck drivers are not adequately compensated for their work (33%).
“Most freight in the U.S. is moved by trucks, so drivers and the trucking industry as a whole are absolutely essential to our daily existence,” Tobenna Arodiogbu, co-founder and CEO of CloudTrucks, wrote in a blog post on the company’s website. “Perhaps positive perceptions will continue to grow as consumer activities like e-commerce become more popular and the general public interacts more with the trucking industry via experiences like package tracking. We have to keep working to ensure this value translates monetarily to drivers.”
