Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 11, 1994 TAG: 9403110081
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Today it's rush, rush, rush; go, go, go. Tempers flare and people take chances they shouldn't," said Cecil Wolfe, a tanker-truck driver for DSI Transports Inc. in Roanoke.
"A little bit of courtesy goes a long way," he said.
The American Trucking Association, one of the trucking industry's largest trade groups, has picked Wolfe, 37, as a member of its America's Road Team - a group of 11 drivers who travel around the country speaking about issues facing the industry.
Wolfe was nominated for the team by Howard Stump, his boss in Roanoke, and by a vice president of safety at DSI's Houston headquarters.
DSI is a safety-conscious company, Stump said. The ATA rated it first in safety last year among companies whose drivers travel more than 60 million miles a year. It also received the U.S. Department of Transportation's top safety rating, he said.
Wolfe "is a dedicated employee . . . straightforward with all he does," Stump said. Wolfe is needed to address the negative image the trucking industry has with some people, he said.
Wolfe said all he ever wanted to do is drive a truck. "This is just a boyhood dream to me."
As a child, he sometimes rode with his father, who drove a truck for 42 years, logging more than 3 million miles. Wolfe has been driving since he finished William Fleming High School and has more than 1 million safe-driving miles to his credit.
In his spare time, he works with a youth group at New Life Temple Pentecostal Holiness Church and conducts church services once a month at the Rescue Mission in Roanoke.
His wife, Elizabeth Ann, is a secretary at Monterey Elementary School. The couple has a son, 12, and a daughter, 6.
Wolfe competed with 1,000 other top truck drivers from around the country to be a trucking industry ambassador. After he was picked, the ATA trained him for his new role.
He will make personal appearances about five times a month, primarily in the mid-Atlantic region. The ATA pays his travel expenses and his company pays his regular wage while he's on these trips.
Next month he'll speak at a national tank-trunk convention in St. Petersburg, Fla.
The selection to the ATA team is just Wolfe's latest honor.
Last year, he won both the five-axle tank-truck class and the overall Virginia truck-driving championship at a competition in Danville. He then went to Denver, where he won the national driving championship in the tank-truck class and missed becoming the national overall champion by 16 points.
At these competitions, drivers take a written test covering knowledge of their trucks, first aid, firefighting and safety. They undergo personal interviews and are tested behind the wheel on a road course.
For the most part, Wolfe drives his 18-wheeler no further than two to three hours from Roanoke. He said he respects the long-haul drivers who sacrifice time with their families to go cross-country.
Driving a truck is a job that can provide a good salary for someone who doesn't have a college education, Wolfe said. The average hourly wage of the 7.8 million people, including 2.6 million drivers, working in the U.S. trucking industry is $11.70, according to the ATA.
But it's harder to become a driver nowadays, with the requirement for a national commercial driver's license. The commercial-license law helps get the bad drivers off the road because they will no longer be able to carry licenses from several different states, Wolfe said.
"The first truck I drove, you froze to death inside of it," Wolfe said. Today's trucks are much safer than they used to be and more comfortable - with such innovations as air-cushion suspension, he said.
In years past, truckers were perceived as the traveling public's best friends, stopping to help a motorist change a flat or fix a faulty engine. Now truckers are more hesitant to stop and offer that kind of help because of the potential for violence that exists on the highways, Wolfe said.
He recalled how a few years back he was broken down on I-81 and couldn't get anyone to stop and help, despite his raised engine hood. A Virginia state trooper who finally came along told him the drivers were just reacting to the very real dangers of stopping for a stranger on the highway.
Three days later, that trooper was killed when he stopped to check a disabled car, Wolfe said.
Most of the truckers on the road still are the good people the public remembers from a different, safer time, Wolfe said.
"They are still those knights of the highway."
by CNB