kr79:
Just skimed through this and as newmercman and pat hasler know I spent a lot of time in freightliner dealers.
From what I can see most us based truckers roam round and round a bit like the flip flops do here.
Many will be away for 4-6 weeks and seem content with a couple of days home.
I know people rattle on about the states but from what I saw life for most working class folks was way worse than the UK.Canada is very different and seems a good compromise to the good bits of the states but a bit of more liberal European thinking.
Also as it’s still a dominion you can still get a lot of British goodies and the people are great.
A lot of them big fleet wallah’s in the US spend weeks and months away from home but are bumming around from one short run to the next with tons of waiting time and if the ‘truckersreport’ forum is anything to go by, 2000 miles a week (over 7 days!) is good for a lot of them and I’ve seen figures as low as 1200 miles a week. We’ve all noticed that as Canadian trucks we’re often the last to park in a US truckstop at night and the first to leave in the morning. There are obviously lots of small outfits in the US that don’t work that way but life behind the wheel of one of the several tens of thousands of big fleets must be quite grim for a driver just wanting to crack on with the job, make money and go home. But then, when you look at the typical example of American truck driver you come across, they’re bottom dwelling pond life anyway.
Definitely glad Canada had the open door rather than the US. There’s stuff I like about America but after travelling to every corner of the country, I can honestly say I’m well and truly glad I don’t live there and apart from not liking the Canadian winters and the southern US appealing at that time of year, if there was an open door or a green card with my name on it, I’d probably just throw it in the bin and stay put in New Brunswick.
I miss the hourly pay/day rate of the UK and the financial certainty that came with it but apart from that I like living in Canada and as you say, with Canada you get a lot of the good bits about North America, without much of the crud of the US.