Main Nikla, o Gaddi leke,
O raste par, wo sadak pe,
Ek mod aaya,
Mai utthe truck chhod aaya.
What? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?
Well, this is what most truckers go through quite often in
their life.
We all curse those laggards occupying the fast lane, crawling
along the tarmac at sub-zero speeds. We shout at them for slowing us down when
we are out on a leisurely drive in our air-conditioned cabins replete with
touch-screen systems playing the music of our taste through the iPods. We despise
them for ruining our triple-digit speeds as we sip on the Starbucks coffee that
we proudly shared over social media for the red cup!
Well, I am not making a white-collar uber-rich and largely liberal
and tolerant demon out of you. What I am going to bring to you is the plight of
those truckers that bring to you that red cup, that iPod, the fuel that you
tanked up in the morning. I am still one of you, albeit a little bit changed,
after my brother handed me over the keys of our brand new 40ft trailer truck,
the first one for our logistics start-up. Though I still curse them under my
breath, I feel their pain. The pain the tablet wielding generation would feel
when they are given a Nokia 3310 as their first phone instead of the iPhone 6S.
Truckers drive the economy yet are the people that have been
conveniently excluded from the benefits of a growing economy. They drive our
roads, bad roads, no roads or whatever to bring to you your daily supplies. Trucks,
almost till the last decade, were being built on the designs drawn before
independence. Even the driving seat was not any more comfortable than the most basic
bar-stool.
We need trucks that drive well. Yes, we do. They should have
better pulling power. While I am a crusader against over-loading, better
pulling power of the truck will improve the in-traffic behaviour of truckers.
Even the travel times may come down or at least offer more time for the poor
truckers to rest.
Which brings me to the in-cab convenience. These truckers travel
millions of miles an year, living in the cabin more often than not. A nice spacious
cabin that would take in their fatigued backs would be welcome. Bottle holders
to store their water, an entertainment system to keep them cheered up and a
fully functional dashboard that tells them much more than the speed they are
doing. The cabin has to be nice cozy home for them.
The law of averages is a bitch and catches up with you every
time. With the number of miles these truckers clock, they are much more prone
to mishaps and accidents. Though they are sitting high up there, with so much
of metal around them, they do get injured quite a bit. A lot of trucks do nto
even have a proper driving seat with a seat-belt! Driver safety has to be one
of the most important points for the Indian companies that build trucks.
When I drove that 40ft trailer truck within a yard for ten
minutes, I knew how difficult it was to get this thing around. Also, being
perched up so high, it is humanly impossible to keep an eye out for anything
that may come perilously close to these humongous machines. You need to have
mirrors or cameras around the truck to aid the manoeuvrability of the mammoth
in tight places especially with people ready sneak in right under your nose.
Maintenance! The sword that is always dangling in the truck
driver or the owner! With so many miles to churn out to make ends meet, you
cannot afford your machine to break down often or to be taken out of the churn
for service. Modernity in automobiles these days means more electronics and
gadgetry. The essence here is to keep your equipment as crude as possible while
making it as useful and modern as possible for the trucker or the road side
mechanic to mend it in case of a breakdown.
I think I just went overboard with my automobile engineering,
my frustrations of the ten-minute truck drive and the plight of the truckers. But
being the people whose opinions may count, it is our collective responsibility
to create a better tomorrow and we all know who is going to drive us into the
tomorrow – the greasy old trucks. Not.
