IC1118

“I’m a standard [shift] guy,” he said, although
“automatic transmissions do spoil you.”
And he said the strides technology has made in
helping truck drivers stay connected to their families
is heaven-sent.
At first, he said, trucking was like “solitary confinement,”
with the driver a prisoner in his or her
cab without much contact with the outside world.
Now, he enjoys “face time” with his 3-yearold
son (Marcus Jr.) and staying connected with
his wife, Takia, whose father was in the trucking
industry. Consequently she understands the business
and has been out on the road with him a few
times.
When The Trucker caught up with him, Stevenson
was at a Petro Stopping Center in North Little
Rock, Arkansas, where he was meeting his son
and wife to share a pizza before he went on down
the road to the next stop and they headed home
in the family car.
He said he loves the independence of being his
own boss.
“You can use the restroom without raising your
hand. There’s an independence about driving a
truck,” he said. “I wouldn’t take a million dollars
for this job. I love truck driving; I couldn’t do nothing
else.”
The hardest thing about driving OTR, he said,
are “the breakdowns,” which can get “real pricey.”
He worries that self-driving trucks will eventually
take his job, saying that it’s inevitable with
technology advancing as fast as it is.
He pointed out that there are certain McDonald’s
restaurants, now, where people give their orders
to a machine. “That’s what big business does.”
And, he said, there was a time when it was rare
for someone to have a car phone and if they did,
they were “the talk of the town.”
Now, he said, people can’t live without their cell
phones and that self-driving
cars and CMVs are not too far
away, maybe as soon as 10
years from now.
Of course, he said, there
are still “some bugs and kinks”
to be worked out, but they’re
coming.
“There’s nothing we can
do,” he said. “They’re going to
knock us out of work.”
But until they do, he said,
“I’m getting while the getting’s
good.”
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