Behavioral Change Of Truck Drivers

A win-win situation

- Raghuram Sharma

In this era of instant coffee and instant noodles, people have lost patience to wait and watch the unfolding of wonderful nature. Be it the metamorphosis of a larva into a beautiful butterfly or the transformation of a tiny seed into a huge tree, it requires the vital factor called time. So also the human behavior, especially so if the behavioral pattern has taken a crooked tilt over a period because of years of suppression by the society that they live in. Leave alone the impact. Even measurable change would be visible over a considerable period. And in the context of commercial truck drivers of highways, it fits very aptly.

Recently I spent three months in the company of drivers from a mining area to understand them and their attitude towards work, society and ethical practices. A community, engrossed in an aggressive attitude towards their profession, people and the mechanical beasts that they drive. That it is not going to be a child’s play was evident from the word ‘go’.

Yes, I am talking about the commercial truck drivers, and that too drivers of tipper trucks confined to the mining area. To add a proof to my conviction was the scene of zooming tipper trucks on the roads. The rattling noise of these rolling giants could be heard from the guest house at a distance of at least half a kilometer from the main road. Indeed, a sure shot truck race winner! One cannot miss to notice the hillock sized speed breakers on the roads. Such is the might of these tippers and their mahavuts that an ordinary speed breaker will look like a mole hill for them.