Celebrating National Truckers Day with Fun Facts about Trucks and the Transportation and Logistics Industry

Oct 4, 2022

Today is National Truckers Day! In the age of lighting-fast shipping, ubiquitous subscription services, and even grocery delivery, today’s Truck Drivers are more valuable than ever; in fact, the industry is expected to grow 21% in the next 10 years as a result! So let’s take a look at some of the neat fun facts about the trucking industry, and the ways that it’s evolving with our ever-changing world!

The first semi truck was invented in 1898 by Alexander Winton from Cleveland Ohio since he needed a way to transport his cars to buyers many miles away.

German-American blacksmith Charles Freuhauf is credited with inventing the first tractor trailer in 1914, devised as a way of conveniently transporting his boat!

There are over 15 million trucks in operation today across the United States, and if you lined them up end-to-end they would reach from Earth to the Moon!

Truck engines are engineered to drive more than one million miles before they’re retired, which is 800,000 more miles than the average car engine lasts. Talk about efficiency!

Since the trucking industry consumes about 50 billion gallons of fuel each year, with the average commercial truck consuming 20,500 gallons of gas annually. As a result, engineers are committed to producing cleaner fuel vehicles such as clean diesel, hybrid, and even electric models, and it’s come a long way already! Operating one diesel truck back in 1988 equates to the clean diesel emissions of sixty of today’s modern trucks, and emissions from large trucks have been cut over 95% in the past two decades.

1 in every 14 jobs in the United States is directly affected by the trucking industry, something we’ve all become heavily aware of during the ongoing Covid19 pandemic. The majority of trucking companies across the US are small business operations from everything like fresh food to medical supplies to livestock to construction supplies.

Have you ever ordered groceries online for delivery? Perhaps you have your favorite pantry items on autoship fulfillment? Or maybe you’ve dined out at a restaurant recently? Then you will find it less than surprising that 90% of Americans like you have eaten food that’s been delivered via refrigerated truck!

While we’re ordering overnight goods and groceries to our cozy homes, the truckers who deliver them are spending an average of 240 nights away from their homes and families each calendar year.

About 60% of Truck Drivers today own pets, and 40% of those drivers take their buddies on the road with them.

There are more than 3.5 million truck drivers in the United States, and on average the age of drivers is older than most other professions at 45 to 46 years old.