This Sunday all attention will be on the celebrities and filmmakers at the big Oscar ceremony. But there’s one group of movie fans that often goes overlooked – truck drivers.
After a long day’s drive truckers need good entertainment. When the Hours of Service says you have to take an off-duty break there’s nothing like popping open your laptop and watching a good movie in the cab.
Truck drivers are also responsible for creating the Oscars just like the Super Bowl. They haul in the stages the props the cameras and all the production equipment. Even the red carpets.
But what if truck drivers wrote the movies themselves? What would they say about the challenging and rewarding career of driving? Would they convince others to #BecomeATruckDriver?
Let’s take a look at three Oscar-nominated films and see what would happen if truck drivers were behind the camera.
GET OUT
The Actual Plot:
A young black man is invited by his white girlfriend to stay at her parents’ home for a weekend getaway in the secluded woods. But when he meets the creepy parents he comes to realize a horrifying secret. And he may be trapped.
What If Truck Drivers Wrote GET OUT?
The Oscar-nominated GET OUT is a true horror film and there is no greater horror for a truck driver than being trapped at a shipper/receiver.
Truckers are paid to drive. They’re not paid to wait around at a shipping dock and sit in the truck after a delivery.
Hours of time waiting means hours of time not getting paid. When a consignee asks the driver to wait a couple hours to get their trailer unloaded that driver wants one thing – to get out!
One of biggest horror villains for truck drivers in 2018 is the ELD. This Electronic Logging Device forces drivers to use up valuable on-duty time while waiting around. Drivers around the country are giving an ultimatum “ELD or Me”.
In the truck driver’s version of GET OUT a truck driver is trapped by an evil consignee at a secluded shipping dock. At the last moment the driver manages to break free and he even overcomes the villainous ELD tracking device.
DUNKIRK
The Actual Plot:
During WWII the Allied troops were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk in France. It would take every civilian and naval ship to evacuate these soldiers and bring them to England. In a massive operation over 330000 soldiers were heroically rescued.
What If Truck Drivers Wrote DUNKIRK?
For a truck driver the DUNKIRK operation is a logistics problem. It’s about moving people from Point A to Point B. And because real human beings are the freight nothing can get damaged.
Transportation is no problem for a truck driver.
Trucking takes a proactive personality so truckers would want to handle the operation themselves. While many truckers in the United States deliver to ports (and need a TWIC card to do so) the problem of DUNKIRK is that there weren’t enough ships!
Fortunately truck drivers are used to hauling construction materials quickly so a bridge from France to England should be no problem! An entire army of proud truckers would then be able to take the troops from the beaches of Dunkirk to safety in England.
Although Commercial Driver’s Licenses in America were only created in 1986 truck drivers would write a script that required each driver to get a Passenger Endorsement… just to make sure all the passengers got back safety.
THE POST
The Actual Plot:
The United States is in the midst of the Vietnam War. Secret documents about the failing war known as the Pentagon Papers are leaked to The New York Times and The Washington Post. Will the papers get this information to the public?
What If Truck Drivers Wrote THE POST?
Just like the time period of THE POST the United States once again faces a major crisis – a shortage of long-haul truck drivers. The entire economy relies on truck drivers to deliver everything we buy but there aren’t enough drivers getting behind the wheel.
At the time of the Vietnam War the trucking industry was in a different place. The industry paid very well and many Americans found good work driving a truck. When deregulation hit in 1979 though wages collapsed and stayed that way for many years.
Now that there is a truck driver shortage long-haul driver wages are on the rise again. This is news that must reach the American public!
Trucker wages have been keeping pace with inflation. The job while challenging pays more than a lot of other jobs like security guards cooks and firefighters. And little training is required.
If truck drivers wrote THE POST the story would be all about getting this information out to the American public. The trucking industry would publish everything they could to get people to understand the rising wages of long-haul driving.
For today’s audience that would mean using the hashtag #BecomeATruckDriver to spread the news about trucking. The heroes of our story would be the fastest-growing YouTubers that do their part to share information about this lucrative career.
And while The Washington Post may not want to cover every aspect of the trucking industry well… that’s why you have Class A Drivers.
WHAT WOULD YOU WRITE?
Imagine the pen was in your hands. You hold the camera. What would you write about the trucking industry?
What movie would you tell about truck driving? What current Oscar movie would you turn into a trucking story?
Share with us your ideas on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #BecomeATruckDriver. We’ll retweet and share our favorites.