You are the experts in what affects you – that’s why YOU are being invited to come up with research questions we can use in this study! I have three questions – we need FOUR MORE.
During our screening talks, you brought up many topics related to your collision experiences that would make great questions for this project. Share your ideas. Together, we can turn them into a question. If you already HAVE a question, toss it out!
A lot of truck stops have chapels and I wonder how hard it would be to set up council groups via network with them once a month or a couple months with a supervised therapist or grief councilor, psychiatrist?
How many of you have been back to revisit the crash site? Did it help to see it or make things worse? Its been 5 years almost since my wreck and I just realized I’m going to be in the area for the first time since it happened later this week.
For me, because I almost lost my partner, we got married. It brought us closer and we see our accident day as a rebirth. I’m still alive so his he. We appreciate life more we do what we want to do and when we want to.
I was never able to go back. I don’t know if I’m ready yet. It’s been almost 2 years and still afraid sometimes. Since I live in Canada and my accident occurred in the U.S. I’m happy that’s not a road I will take soon
As I lay in bed just thinking as sleep is sometimes hard to come by. I wonder in our lives with the trauma we have gone though is there someone (human/animal) that has crossed to the other side that has been there for us no matter what we done or chosen in our lives right or wrong. I know for me it’s my dad I think about him a lot he was a driver to the end bless him as he put up with me and all my shit when I was younger. I also think a lot about fur babies that have crossed over the rainbow bridge and how they always had a wag a flick of the tail even kisses when you arrived home. I know that always helps me to unwind even though my fur babies can and do drive me nuts.
A friend of mine passed last year and not only was he a wealth of knowledge but an absolute rock and an example of what a man should strive to be every day, all while battling cancer for nearly 20 years. Thinking of things he said and how he lived helps me a lot even with him gone.
Also, the power of a four legged companion should never be underestimated. They have no judgements and just love that you’re in their lives. I enjoyed taking my pup with me. Having him to care for on the road helped me a lot with my mood(when he wasnt stealing a fresh pizza) and routine as well as getting exercise from walking him regularly.
I found Sir Kramers one answer about how the therapist brushes him off when he talked about how he felt about his truck interesting. That is something a non trucker will never understand is the relationship we have with our trucks. I spend more time with my truck than ANYTHING else in my life. More time than my car, house, dog, partner, kid…anything. It is only a hunk of metal but I rely on it. There is probably a question in there about it somewhere Sir Merlin but not sure how to word it.
You know what?! Sir Kramer DID refer to it but so far how truckers feel about their truck is NOT a question yet! But what a cool question that would be!!! *high five*
I think this is a very cool topic because, as you point out in your Week 2 post, non-truckers don’t know much about truckers role, pressures, or day to day life. More than that, they don’t know about the relationship you have with the truck itself – and what the truck means to you. Could be a means to an end (job, income, travel) or far more.
AWESOME ideas here…. thank you Sir Jesse!
I would like to know how people feel about roadside memorials ????? You know the crosses that are usually put up near a crash site with fatalities.
I would like to ask if anybody was able to take a positive out of what happen them and help other drivers with what we have been through. I would like medical people and people in trucking industry to know that even that my accident happened in 1997 I still have problems that I have deal with to this day and that’s to my family I am surviving
For me, because I almost lost my partner, we got married. It brought us closer and we see our accident day as a rebirth. I’m still alive so his he. We appreciate life more we do what we want to do and when we want to.
I’m curious to know how many of us are still in the profession and what did it take to stay in it? I haul logs and after my accident I worked a couple more seasons. My nerves couldn’t take it. I had to leave so I found other jobs for a couple of years but couldn’t stay away. I went back. The break was the best thing for me. Almost like a reset and I am comfortable in a truck again.
I’m out I miss it but I know that I would be on edge when out on the road I still have the odd moments when in a four wheeler. I wish I was like my dad over 50 years on the road.
I’m sort of out. Left the road to help other driver as dispatch. Eventually I wish I could go back on
Its been 6 months since my accident and think about getting out of trucking at least once a day…..
I would ask to what we have seen and gone thru in our lives and career what would we change if we went back to the beginning before we decided to drive rigs. Would we change anything or do we love it that much. Also wondering how many of us are 2nd 3rd 4th or more generation of drivers. For me I am the 2nd generation of driver
Im 3rd generation of trucker in my family. My dad my uncle started in the army and my grandad opened a business and he need trucks and didn’t knew any trucker. So here hired my dad and my uncle and he was also a driver. That’s how it all started.
I am a second generation driver as well. It gets in your blood.
I am 4th generation, took me 6 months to recover and got right back it, more out of necessity than anything. Now, years later thinking back I still can’t imagine being happy doing anything else even though some days truly suck
The positives for me is that I came to accept that we have to enjoy our life as it plays out also I found my wonderful partner after my accident but it took time. I wish I could go back to driving rigs I miss it but I still even as passenger have my moments. I am also became a more cautious driver and more aware off what is wrong with the vehicle that I’m driving as with my accident it was all beyond my control.
Sir Josy, the most important thing about surviving an accident is surviving it. No one who has not been there will understand the horror we know when it all goes south and there is nothing to be done, it is a feeling so visceral that no one who has not traveled there can know it. All we can do is pick it up and carry on, bearing the wounds we received. Here at least you are among the company of those who felt their guts turn to water and you don’t have to explain.
It is hard for me because I’m jealous of those who can ride and pissed at those who complains about trucking every single day. I never understood why some “truckers” just do it for the pay check.
We have freedom, sight seeing and all. Some just don’t enjoy the beauty of it.
Sometimes I just tell myself what could I do to explain it to those “truckers” but they never seem to understand.
Driving a truck is a passion not a job!
I am more thoughtful and less likely to make rash decisions, whether in my daily life or in my life as a truck driver. I believe I am more conscious of my surroundings and people are around me, taking time to think more of others as opposed to getting to were I am going. It’s not about the trip it’s about enjoying the getting there.
I wish I would still be able to drive rigs again like you do. Sadly that part of me is gone and it’s not because I didn’t try. 2 complete months with panic attack every day I was driving.
Everytime I hear my driver saying that I don’t know what is the truckers life, I just tell them that I actually miss that life. I know some of them will never understand what it is to survive an accident.
Seems ridiculous for some of you but what about:
What positive thing(s) happened due to your accident?
Oooooh…. not ridiculous AT ALL. Negative events can trigger positive responses and do, all the time. A Trucker in QUE started a foundation to draw attention to trucker trauma; a truck parade in Alberta in support of a truckers whose step son died tragically in a vehicle accident brought a community together; a Regina man had a 75-tonne custom pink commercial vehicle tow truck made for his wife who survived breast cancer. Good outcomes and negative outcomes can result from traumatic events. 100 % valid, Sir Josy!!!
1 positive I have to think of often is that the family of 6 in the van behind me was not involved. In that sense I am glad he hit me because there would have been nothing left of the mini van.
The other thing is that in a way being in each other’s space 24/7 instigated the fight that saved our marriage. It got real ugly. I was in a horrible place. My wife wasn’t doing much better. One day it all snapped, I rented my own place and when I came to pack my things I just couldn’t do it. We sat and talked for hours; hit rock bottom. We tore our relationship completely apart and rebuilt it from the ground up.