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Jul 31, 2015

TRUCKERS' STORY * Canada & USA: The grueling life of a long-haul trucker

* Manitoba - Logging 12,000 miles a month

(Video My Trucking Life - Trip 32 Day 23 - "Back to home", by Trucker Josh)

-- Long-haul trucker Josh Giesbrecht lives a strange and solitary life, spending weeks on the road at a time while hauling cargo from point A to point B, covering vast distances on seemingly endless stretches of pavement. The 27-year-old native of Manitoba, Canada documents his trials and tribulations on YouTube, showing off his adorable dogs (Diesel and Sergeant) and his long and lonely hours on the road... I have my own rig, but I'm contracted to a company in Canada. I pull their trailers... 

... Having your own truck gives you a bit more freedom with what you can do. If you have a good, reliable truck you can make more money. You get paid more per mile – as an owner/operator, you get $1 to $1.20 per mile versus between $.35 and $.45 per mile as a company employee – but you have to take care of all the expenses like fuel, maintenance, and anything else that pops up... There's a lot more responsibility having your own truck. Anything that goes wrong is your problem... The worst thing that's gone wrong with my truck? I've gelled up before. That happened to me in Saskatchewan, above western North Dakota. I was pretty much between the cities of Yorkton and Saskatoon. There's nothing up there... Furthermore, in northern Ontario, you can have complete whiteouts where there's absolutely zero visibility. You could be driving through the mountains with half-mile cliffs on one side of you and possible falling rocks on the other, while you're trying to navigate tight corners with other trucks coming at you. If your brakes go out, you're going over the side and there's no real stopping you... All the fuel in the United States is only good to about minus 20 Fahrenheit, whereas all the fuel that's sold in Canada will stay liquid down to about minus 40... I get between six and seven miles per gallon. I have two, 150-gallon tanks, so 300 gallons total... I do 600 to 700 miles a day. I decide when I'm going to stop based on how the day goes. I figure out when I have to be at my receiver, and as long as I can get there the next day, I'll pull over if I get tired... 
Winnipeg, Manitoba, CAN - Popular Mechanics, by Noah Davis - July 29, 2015

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