*Excerpt from my upcoming memoir covering my truck driving days in 2002
If you want to have a miserable experience in life try sleeping in a vehicle in the middle of the Texas summer. Even if you can find shade for a semi and the windows are down, you are still going to get cooked. Mostly it will be just your brain.
A lot of my trucking is in the southern United States such as Florida, Georgia, and Texas.
Unfortunately, in my inaugural summertime work in Texas, the air conditioner in my truck fails.
Driving the interstate with the windows down remedies some of the heat problem. However, when you are slowly driving through rush hour traffic or need to sleep during the midday since your log hours require you to stay put, you are going to feel the heat in Texas.
PAM does not offer to pay for a motel room, nor do they route me immediately to a shop to get this seemingly “minor problem” fixed. There are trailers that need to be delivered first before they can route me to one of their shops.
If I had the money to fix it, or even pay for a motel room, I would. But I don’t since I’m still just trying to buy essentials to do this new job.
With a rotating sleep schedule where sleeping is difficult to begin with, I find myself not in the best condition for driving. I am in a sleep-deprived zombie-state for 10-days. I drive in these conditions during the hottest part of the year. AC should be considered a safety issue instead of a “comfort” issue especially if a driver does not have options but to sleep in the truck.
