Fuel for Thought

Invisible Truck

You would think that as large as trucks are compared to cars, everyone on the road would see them. While many might see you in a truck, a lot of the other motorists seem to be blind to trucks. For the most part, no one wants to be behind a truck on the road and will do most anything to keep from being trapped behind a truck lumbering along.
To help alleviate some of your frustration with traffic on the road, a good way to think of your vehicle is to consider it invisible. This may seem odd given the size of your truck, but if you consider yourself invisible to other motorists, then you can plan to be a defensive driver rather than being angry at the lack of courtesy many cars and trucks on the road today seemed to have lost in recent years.
It is easy to get caught up in your own world while you spend so many hours behind the wheel. Truck drivers tend to feel a bit of entitlement to the road after a while. You may see the road as your workplace, and it is, but it is also a public space. Sure, you may contribute more road taxes to pay for that highway or interstate, but you do not own or control it. You are just another motorist using the roads just like everyone else.
Everyone these days are in a rush, all day long, not just at rush hour. Like you, all those other cars and trucks have a destination to which they are heading, or they would not be on the road with you. Maybe their reason is personal and yours is business but it doesn't matter. Just as you might see countless cars in any given day and not give them a second thought later, those cars also have drivers that are not necessarily concerned with your schedule.
Drive defensive. Consider yourself invisible to the other cars and trucks in the road. You will more than likely end your driving shift each day with a lot less stress and anger. When you think of yourself as invisible, you will begin to anticipate the movements of the traffic around you better and you will also be better able to react to any erratic maneuvers they will make.
You are no more entitled to a piece of road than any other car or truck, but as a professional driver, one of your responsibilities is to operate safely regardless of the behaviors of other cars and trucks that you encounter on the road.

What you see is not what others see. We inhabit parallel worlds of perception, bounded by our interests and experience. What is obvious to some is invisible to others.
-George Monbiot

See you down the road,
Greg