Long-haul trucking is linked to almost every industry in America, yet somehow the working-class drivers behind big rigs remain largely hidden from public view. Gritty, inspiring, and often devastating oral histories of gay, transsexual, and minority truck drivers allow award-winning author Anne Balay to shed new light on the harsh realities of truckers' lives behind the wheel. A licensed commercial truck driver herself, Balay discovers that, for people routinely subjected to prejudice, hatred, and violence in their hometowns and in the job market, trucking can provide an opportunity for safety, welcome isolation, and a chance to be themselves--even as the low-wage work is fraught with tightening regulations, constant surveillance, danger, and exploitation. The narratives of minority and queer truckers underscore the working-class struggle to earn a living while preserving one's safety, dignity, and selfhood. Through the voices of drivers from marginalized communities who spend eleven- to fourteen-hour days hauling America's commodities in treacherous weather and across mountain passes, Semi Queer reveals the stark differences between the trucking industry's crushing labor practices and the perseverance of its most at-risk workers.

This is a book about truck driver's lives, risks, and views on safety. As "a "group, truckers represent a significant population of road users whose high-exposure driving creates a major challenge for safety. Research into the larger social, political, and economic forces that affect trucker's safety problems has been scarce. "The Trucker's World "comes to terms with the socioeconomic environment that contributes to breakdown in trucker safety and chronicles the lives and times of truckers as they try to make ends meet. It analyzes driver risk by exploring the reasons, reactions, and consequences of risk. The author approaches his task with a research question: Why is the average trucker continuously placed in conditions that, according to truckers, demand risky driving? As a result of direct experience with truckers and trucking, Rothe observes that truck drivers act as they do to gain autonomy over their work, freedom from control of others, and assurance of a reasonable livelihood. In order to maintain a sufficient income in the transportation market, even the most serious drivers perform tasks that often impinge on lethality and safety, not as blatant radicals or daredevils fighting the system, but as persons responding to the fear that they may lose their livelihood in trucking. The thrust in trucker safety has followed a victimization philosophy in which emphasis on interventions has been aimed directly at truckers. Rothe contends that safety programs would work better if they emphasized what influences, motivates, or encourages truckers to take chances on the road. With this in mind, he analyzes driver risk, vehicle maintenance, owner-operator, company driver, policing, home life, drugs and alcohol, government regulations, and hours of service as they are seen by truckers, industry officials, and others. Expanding our vision to encompass essential factors in the socioeconomic reality of the truck-driving culture. Rothe elucidates the far-reaching consequences that safety issues have for truckers, other road users, policymakers, and traffic safety educators.

On January 12, 2010, the deadliest earthquake in the history of the Western Hemisphere struck the nation least prepared to handle it. Jonathan M. Katz, the only full-time American news correspondent in Haiti, was inside his house when it buckled along with hundreds of thousands of others. In this visceral, authoritative first-hand account, Katz chronicles the terror of that day, the devastation visited on ordinary Haitians, and how the world reacted to a nation in need. More than half of American adults gave money for Haiti, part of a monumental response totaling $16.3 billion in pledges. But three years later the relief effort has foundered. It's most basic promises—to build safer housing for the homeless, alleviate severe poverty, and strengthen Haiti to face future disasters—remain unfulfilled. The Big Truck That Went By presents a sharp critique of international aid that defies today's conventional wisdom; that the way wealthy countries give aid makes poor countries seem irredeemably hopeless, while trapping millions in cycles of privation and catastrophe. Katz follows the money to uncover startling truths about how good intentions go wrong, and what can be done to make aid "smarter." With coverage of Bill Clinton, who came to help lead the reconstruction; movie-star aid worker Sean Penn; Wyclef Jean; Haiti's leaders and people alike, Katz weaves a complex, darkly funny, and unexpected portrait of one of the world's most fascinating countries. The Big Truck That Went By is not only a definitive account of Haiti's earthquake, but of the world we live in today.

Dump Truck Daisy and her construction vehicle crew are on a secret nighttime mission — build a playground before sunrise! Detailed endnotes provide additional information about construction vehicles and inclusive playgrounds. Vibrant artwork and a catchy disco tune and animation make this a stellar choice for any child who is fascinated by construction vehicles.

Short stories about truck drivers and the trucking industry as a whole. Each story being completely different from the others, having its own twist to it.

Toots Holzheimer, a hard working mother of eight, drove trucks for a living from the 1960's to 1990's across some of Australia's most inhospitable terrain, Cape York Peninsula. Toots delivered freight to the northern tip of Australia for over thirty years, servicing her own trucks, loading them by hand (without a forklift until the late 1980s) and then driving for days alone. Toots and her husband Ron constructed their own roads and built their own bridges, renewing them after each wet season. Without bitumen roads, Toots battled corrugation, melon holes, washouts and bull-dust. Flies and mosquitoes were her constant companions as she dug her way out of bogs or coaxed her 'Old Girl', a M.A.N. diesel truck, up and down the steep slopes of the Great Dividing Range. Nothing raised Toots' ire more quickly than someone telling her what she could or couldn't do. Attitude was what mattered to Toots, not gender. Toots attributed her success in life to her determination to 'Do what you want to do and do it well'.

A history of our time.