| We see trucks on the freeway everyday, but | | | | revolutionary development that brought the truck to |
| discount their importance to our way of life. Here is | | | | the forefront. Highways of asphalt began to connect |
| an overview of the history of the trucking industry | | | | every part of the country, and development no |
| and its importance. | | | | longer depended on the rivers and railroads. Today it |
| The word truck comes from the Greek word | | | | is estimated that 81% of the value of the nation's |
| "trochos" which means wheel. This is interesting | | | | freight moves by truck, and over 60% of its |
| because it reflects the idea that the earliest use of | | | | tonnage. This fact is evident to any traveler who is |
| the invention that was to alter the world was the | | | | used to seeing the endless procession of tractor |
| transportation of goods. It was always possible for | | | | trailer haulers moving day and night over the |
| humans to transport themselves rather easily by | | | | Interstate highways, or lined up in rest areas and |
| jumping on the back of a horse, but it was not | | | | truck stops. |
| possible to pack everything they owned on the | | | | The importance of the trucking industry to the |
| animal's back. It was carts and wagons that were the | | | | nation's economy is best illustrated by the amount of |
| first wheeled vehicles. | | | | government regulation that it endures. The thought |
| This is the purpose of the modern trucking industry. | | | | of a trucking strike has haunted the nation's leaders |
| It moves material goods from one place to another. | | | | for many years. Trucks are truly the lifeline of the |
| In the United States, goods have been moved long | | | | nation moving the food, fuel, and goods that are |
| distances over a variety of highways. The first | | | | necessary to keep our world operating. There are |
| highways were the rivers, and barges and | | | | large trucking companies with thousands of individual |
| steamboats were the carriers. Next came the | | | | trucks, and small companies with only a hand full. |
| railroads and goods were moved over the iron rails | | | | There are independent haulers with only a single |
| that eventually ran from coast to coast. Wagons and | | | | truck sometimes driven by a husband and wife team. |
| carts continued to doing the hauling, and the first | | | | They haul every thing that you could possibly |
| freight companies took on the task of transporting | | | | imagine, and our world could not long survive without |
| the goods from the river ports and railheads and | | | | them. It has been a long way from that first two |
| distributing them to the surrounding areas. | | | | wheeled cart pulled by an ox to the eighteen wheel |
| The invention of the combustion engine was the | | | | diesel driven giants that ply our highways today. |