Generally, when folks see a semi cruising down the interstate, many envision a lone driver piloting their big rig on their own day after day from state to state over thousands of miles.
While there is truth to the fact many semis are at the hands of a single professional driver, there is a steadily growing number of team drivers working across the county as well.
Like all truck drivers, team drivers are a tough and determined breed who work exceptionally hard and earn every penny they make.
What sets them apart from the single driver concept is their ability to make more pennies than the other guy.
In the trucking and transportation industry, the key to profitability is a basic concept - a truck is only making money for the company and driver when it's on the road hauling a load from point A to point B.
Simply put, a truck that is sitting still is not profitable.
Federal laws determine how many hours per day a trucker can drive their rig before being required to stop and rest for a certain length of time.
When driven by team drivers, a truck can keep going almost nonstop.
When one driver has maxed their driving hours they stop and switch which allows one to sleep while the other one drives.
This allows team drivers to cover more miles in a much shorter time than a single driver ever could.
Team drivers tend to take the long haul jobs across multiple states or across the entire country.
Quite often a driving team is a husband and wife who decided to hit the open road together.
They take pleasure and enjoy life as they travel across the country while also earning a living as professional drivers.
Other times it is like-minded individuals looking to make that extra buck.
There are even teams that don't actually ride together; one driver will begin the journey by driving the truck to a certain designated spot somewhere along the delivery route, and then hand off the truck to the next driver who will take it to the final delivery destination.
After off-loading the cargo that driver then picks-up another load heading back to the original starting point and hands off the truck to the first driver who then delivers that load and begins the cycle all over again.
The appeal to this system is that drivers can stay closer to home by working together while keeping the truck, and revenue, moving in a quick and timely manner.
The trucking industry is all about safety.
The goal is to not only keep drivers safe, but to ensure the safety of the general driving public as well.
Trucking companies follow strict guidelines to help ensure they operate within the established federal, state and local laws.
As transportation needs change the rules and regulations surrounding the trucking industry constantly adjust to meet new or updated business requirements.
When needed, industry regulators can check to see what does and does not work, and can add, dismiss, or modify the procedures that come with the changing needs of the transportation business.
One major issue has always been how many hours can one man realistically drive in a day before possibly becoming a danger behind the wheel.
The industry has set strict standards on this, and drivers are required by law to record their driving and sleeping schedule to prove they follow these rules.
This is one of the reasons team driving is such a smart and effective idea; teams can cut down on the amount of down time the truck has to be stopped and therefore deliver loads much further and faster in a given timeframe.
Team drivers are without a doubt the embodiment of safety and teamwork.