Driver Lifestyles

A Long Hard Road

Jeff Mather was a truck driver-trainer living in Thurmont, Maryland when last summer his world was turned upside down - he lost his career due to a destructive, insidious disease. 

After he discovered he had developed diabetes and became insulin-dependent, Mather, 39, told his employers he would not be able to take a three-week long trip until he got his disease under control. 

It was then he says, that his Alabama-based company fired him.

"I don't know why it had to come to diabetes to get me to turn my life around, but it did," Mather says. "It might be a blessing in disguise because now I'm getting out the word about how wrong the trucking industry treats drivers with diabetes."

He also credits his travails for renewing his faith. Not a religious man before, he says, "When diabetes hit me, I had a walk with Christ and it's starting to make sense to me now."

‘‘The first service I went to at the Frederick Christian Fellowship was aimed at me, hands down,” he says.

Mather has turned his pain into a campaign of hope for others in his situation. Mather is speaking up for other truck drivers who have diabetes.

"This is now about helping others to get help, and to get the information that they need."

The federal government bars drivers who take insulin because the drug can cause episodes of low blood sugar, which can make a driver woozy or even pass out behind the wheel.

Insulin-dependent diabetics can apply for an exemption if they meet a number of safety standards, says Katie Hathaway, legal advocate for the American Diabetic Association.

While the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation in July 2005 that was intended to eliminate discrimination against people with diabetes who seek employment as commercial truck drivers, only about a dozen people in the nation have been able to receive the exemption, Hathaway says.

‘‘If you jump through 101 bureaucratic hurdles, it is possible to get an exemption,” she states.

Meet Jeff

The son of a truck driver, Mather says that becoming a commercial driver was all he ever wanted to do.  In his thirteen years behind the wheel, Mather has pulled  flat beds and dry vans, running dedicated routes and over the road, as well as being a driver trainer.

"Trucking is my life.  I grew up in this industry and I don't know anything else."

Mather admits that he wasn't a poster child for healthy living before his diagnosis.  "I would run into a truck stop and get three slices of pizza and high-carb drinks," he says. ‘I just wanted to keep my wheels turning because that’s how you get paid.”

Mather contacted the American Diabetes Association in November 2005 to tell the group about his situation.

"When this first started, I contacted the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to send me an information packet about how to get the diabetes exemption.  They shuffled me around to fifty different people, so I got ticked off and wrote the White House."

To be more precise, he wrote nearly 100 letters to the White House to call attention to the need for revision to federal trucking laws and, "to my surprise, I got a response from Dick Cheney's personal assistant who thanked me for bringing this to his attention.  They told me that they had forwarded the matter to the Department of Transportation for immediate review!" 

"Well, the day after I got the Vice President's letter, I got a phone call from the FMCSA.  They were upset that I had contacted the White House!"

Mather’s story has gotten national press coverage and has been covered by "The Trucker" and other publications. This past May he was featured in a radio interview on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered".

‘‘Jeffrey has been very active in trying to spread the word on two fronts, in terms of how the ADA can be a resource for drivers and in terms of how to educate truckers about diabetes,” says the ADA's Hathaway.

Mather has his own web site at www.myspace.com/jwm29. He says, ‘‘Just from MySpace alone, I’ve helped, like, 14 drivers."

He adds, "The response from ExpeditersOnline.com was unbelievable!  After you printed that news item about me, I got hits on my site at MySpace.com from a number of expediters.  A lot of them are my friends now.  I don't care what anyone says, the trucking community is a family."

An Update

At the invitation of the ADA, Mather visited Washington, D.C. this past June to tell his story to congressional lawmakers. 

"It was great," says Mather of the 2006 American Diabetes Assoc. National Leadership Meeting & Call To Congress.  "I met with advocacy groups that are opposing the FMCSA.  They honored me and another man because we were both fighting discrimination in the workplace."

He tells of meeting a number of high-level officials who expressed sincere interest in his cause.  "Senator Blanche Lambert-Lincoln is a U.S. Senator from Arkansas.  She gave me some advice in advocacy: 'don't take no for an answer!  When you go into these elected officials' offices, tell them what you want to see done.'"

Mather says that his wife recently found new employment and he now has health insurance.  He states that he's ready to take just about any kind of work, but he wants to be back in a truck before long.  He hopes that an upcoming visit to a new endocrinologist will result in being taken off of insulin and placed on oral medication. 

"As soon as they tell me I can go with oral medications, I'm headed right out to take a DOT physical," he says.

"At one time," says Mather, "I was going to get my own expedited truck.  At that time, I was still a single man and I wanted to be on the road.  Since then, my wife and I have talked about team expediting when the kids are grown and gone."

"If anyone thinks I’m going to be quiet or just lie down and die without a fight, they’re badly mistaken," Mather says. "What has happened to me and probably hundreds and hundreds of other truckers is an injustice that sorely needs correcting.

"And no one’s going to do anything about it if everyone keeps quiet."

Mather encourages other truckers with the disease to contact the American Diabetes Association, National Call Center, 1701 Beauregard St., Alexandria, VA, 22311.  Or call 800-DIABETES 800 342-2383.