A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construction, with a cabin that is independent of the payload portion of the vehicle. Smaller varieties may be mechanically similar to some automobiles. Commercial trucks can be very large and powerful and may be configured to be mounted with specialized equipment, such as in the case of refuse trucks, fire trucks, concrete mixers, and suction excavators. In American English, a commercial vehicle without a trailer or other articulation is formally a "straight truck" while one designed specifically to pull a trailer is not a truck but a "tractor".
A commercial driver's license (CDL) is a driver's license required in the United States to operate large and heavy vehicles or a vehicle of any size that transports hazardous materials or more than 15 passengers.
Penske Truck Leasing Co., L.P. is a joint venture of Penske Corporation, Penske Automotive Group, and Mitsui & Co. Headquartered in Reading, Pennsylvania, the company was founded by Team Penske owner Roger Penske on December 1, 1969. It is Penske’s flagship and best known division. The firm serves customers in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia; among its services are full-service commercial truck leasing, truck fleet maintenance, truck rentals, and used truck sales. The company currently employs more than 40,000 workers worldwide and operates and maintains a fleet of more than 450,000 vehicles. Brian Hard is the president and CEO of the company.
A truck driver is a person who earns a living as the driver of a truck, which is commonly defined as a large goods vehicle (LGV) or heavy goods vehicle (HGV).
Consolidated Freightways (CF) was an American multinational less-than-truckload (LTL) freight service and logistics company founded on April 1, 1929, in Portland, Oregon, and later relocated to Vancouver, Washington. Affectionately known as "CornFlakes", Consolidated Freightways was also the founder of the Freightliner line of heavy trucks, now owned by Daimler Trucks. At its height, the company possessed over 350 terminals, employing more than 15,000 truck drivers, dock workers, dispatchers and management. Consolidated Freightways was once the nation's number one long-haul trucking company and the 3rd largest-ever US bankruptcy filing, ceasing business in 2002.
Dora Colvin is a pioneering woman in the trucking industry in the United States. In over four decade, Colvin has driven for 2 million miles without an accident, and blazed the path for women into another male-dominated occupation.
J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. is an American transportation and logistics company based in Lowell, Arkansas. It was founded by Johnnie Bryan Hunt and Johnelle Hunt in Arkansas on August 10, 1961. By 1983, J.B. Hunt had grown into the 80th largest trucking firm in the US, with $623.47 million in revenue. At that time J.B. Hunt operated 550 tractors, 1,049 trailers, and had roughly 1,050 employees. J.B. Hunt primarily operates semi-trailer trucks and provides transportation services throughout the continental US, Canada and Mexico. As of 2020 the company employs over 24,000 people and operates more than 12,000 trucks. The company's fleet consists of over 145,000 trailers and containers.
The Professional Truck Driver Institute (PTDI) is a non-profit organization that provides certification of training courses for drivers of commercial motor vehicles. It was formed in 1986 during the standardization of commercial driver's licensing by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in the United States. Its management was taken over by the TCA in 1996. PTDI is the first nonprofit organization to develop uniform skill performance, curriculum, and certification standards for the trucking industry and to award course certification to entry-level truck driver training courses and motor carrier driver-finishing programs.
Truck classifications are typically based upon the maximum loaded weight of the truck, typically using the gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) and sometimes also the gross trailer weight rating (GTWR), and can vary among jurisdictions.
Covenant Logistics Group, Inc. is an American company focused on truckload shipping. The company is headquartered in Chattanooga, Tennessee and is publicly traded on Nasdaq. The company provides temperature controlled trucking, regional delivery, and longhaul team driver delivery.
Commercial driver's license training is a specialized instructional program or course designed to prepare a student to obtain a commercial driver's license (CDL), which is required for a career as a truck driver in the United States. During training, students are taught the necessary knowledge and skills to pass a series of tests to obtain their CDL. Such a program generally begins with classroom instruction geared towards passing the written exams for a CDL permit, a learner's permit that allows a student to practice driving skills on public roads with a CDL licensed driver or instructor. Students graduate from CDL training upon receiving their CDLs and proving that they can comfortably and safely drive and maneuver a truck. Most CDL training schools train drivers for a class A CDL, which allows the holder to drive a tractor trailer weighing over 26,000 pounds. Some CDL training schools incorporate truck driving simulators into their curriculum to help student drivers learn the basics of driving a truck — including shifting gears, braking, and parking.
The trucking industry serves the American economy by transporting large quantities of raw materials, works in process, and finished goods over land—typically from manufacturing plants to retail distribution centers. Trucks are also used in the construction industry, two of which require dump trucks and portable concrete mixers to move the large amounts of rocks, dirt, concrete, and other building materials used in construction. Trucks in America are responsible for the majority of freight movement over land and are tools in the manufacturing, transportation, and warehousing industries.
A specialized set of jargon describe the tools, equipment, and employment sectors used in the trucking industry in the United States. Some terms may be used within other English-speaking countries, or within the freight industry in general. For example, shore power is a term borrowed from shipping terminology, in which electrical power is transferred from shore to ship, instead of the ship relying upon idling its engines. Drawing power from land lines is more efficient than engine idling and eliminates localized air pollution. Another borrowed term is "landing gear", which refers to the legs which support the front end of a semi-trailer when it is not connected to a semi-truck. Some nicknames are obvious wordplay, such as "portable parking lot", in reference to a truck that carries automobiles.
The American Trucking Associations (ATA), founded in 1933, is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. ATA represents more than 37,000 members covering every type of motor carrier in the United States through a federation of other trucking groups, industry-related conferences, and its 50 affiliated state trucking associations. Former Governor of Kansas Bill Graves was replaced by Chris Spear as the ATA's president and CEO in July 2016.
Contract Freighters, Inc. (CFI), a subsidiary of Heartland Express, is an American truckload freight carrier headquartered in Joplin, Missouri with operations in the continental US, Canada, and Mexico. Easily recognizable on the highway by their iconic bright red Kenworth trucks. CFI provides point-to-point, full truckload, dry van service, as well as refrigerated transport, and utilizes single drivers as well as two-person driver teams over long-haul routes—most commonly with each trailer containing only one customer's goods.
Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. (ODFL) is an American regional, inter-regional and national less than truckload shipping (LTL) company. In addition to its core LTL services, the company offers expedited, logistics and household moving services.
Roehl Transport, Inc. is an American trucking company based in Marshfield, Wisconsin. The company provides national transportation and logistics services. It ranked 73rd on the Transport Topics Top 100 For-Hire list of US and Canadian freight carriers by revenue for 2021 with an estimated $450 million in revenue for the previous year.
Daseke, Inc. ( DASS-kee; is the biggest owner and a leading consolidator of flatbed and specialized transportation in North America, comprising 16 operating companies with over 5,200 trucks and over 11,000 flatbed and specialized trailers.
WTI Transport, Inc. is a for-hire carrier based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama with terminals in Birmingham, Mobile and Whites Creek, TN. A flatbed company of approximately 370 tractors, WTI hauls freight throughout the Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and East Coast. WTI’s fleet is a mixture of company drivers and owner-operators. Shipments consist mainly of roofing, building materials, and all types of aluminum, iron and steel products. Currently, WTI is a subsidiary of Daseke
Torc Robotics (Torc), an independent subsidiary of Daimler Truck, is an American autonomous truck company headquartered in Blacksburg, Virginia, with operations in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Austin, Texas; and Stuttgart, Germany. Torc is testing autonomous trucks in Virginia, New Mexico, and Texas and is taking a pure play approach to commercialization – focusing at first on one platform in one region.
