The trucker & the professor
Date: 2001-12-16
A few decades ago, truckers were the folk heroes of American culture - "the dotcommers of their day" says Wired Magazine writer David Diamond. But the independence of the trucker is giving way to a new role that is high-tech and high pressure.
The romance is gone, writes Diamond. In the freewheeling days, when CBs were the hot tech of the day and C.W. McCall's "Convoy" was top of the country and western charts, a driver would deliver his load and head for a truckstop. There, he'd pick up a payphone and start looking for his next load. Now, GPS tracks his truck, and his onboard satellite-based communication device hooks him up to a system that has already planned his next delivery. The science of logistics, once the esoteric domain of the military, is taking over in the trucking industry. The routing of trucks and loads on the America's 42,794-mile interstate highway network is increasingly handled systematically by satellites and software.
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