The World's Largest Truck Stop | (History and Future of Hauling Freight)

the rise of the interstate its impact on rural America a boom and female truckers self-driving freight rigs a secret lingo and an iconic American pitstop some know them as the kings of the road others called them Bubba anyone who spent any time on the highway is familiar with semi trucks and the respect they command each year rutgers across the u.s. drive 200 billion miles and transport over 720 billion dollars worth of goods this makes trucks the most significant mode of shipping in the freight industry without them shelves would run dry in our grocery stores we want to have next day deliveries and the life we've grown accustomed to would change forever basically to the general public we are invisible unless something goes wrong to keep drivers happy and comfortable on the road there are places like Iowa 80 the world's largest truck stop great thing about Iowa 80 is there's something for everyone and there's a lot of stuff [Music] there are more truckers in the United States than anywhere else on the planet with 3.6 million American truckers it makes sense that the world's largest truck stop is located right in the middle of the United States today Iowa 80 is an essential pit stop for truckers crossing the interior of the country but it wasn't always here it wasn't always needed before the 1900s the majority of America's Freight was transported via rail after the cargo was dropped off in central Depot's it was loaded onto horse-drawn carts and delivered to businesses and farms however when the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine met functional designs that allowed for significantly higher payloads modern trucks hit the ground at a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour things accelerated quickly with the introduction of diesel engines which were up to 40% more efficient than earlier models by 1912 there were over 10,000 trucks on the road in the United States but they were slow at that time it took 31 days to get from Seattle to New York City soon after the Great War took the world by storm railways became clogged with wartime cargo and the American people needed an alternative cross-country shipping method with the addition of technologies like power steering and pneumatic tires trucks were up to the task an industry in America was roaring [Music] until in an attempt to save his stricken country President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the New Deal a series of reforms meant to revive the economy and put Americans back to work America here is a record of a to judge for yourself vital to the communities which they serve are the thousands of miles of highways instructed and improved by the works program in the midst of this the American Trucking Association was formed 20 years later President Eisenhower enacted the federal aid Highway Act of 1956 which aimed to build 41,000 miles of Interstate Highways over a 10-year period with well-maintained roads and bridges now spanning the country you speed right past rural communities they were celebrating by bits and pieces the completion of the greatest network of highways ever built by man in effect the fragile economies of the bypass towns were squashed one of the interstates still under construction was i-80 stretching from New York City to Oakland California the route it took was direct but because it cut out these small towns they were next to zero places to rest refuel and relax between the large cities of Chicago and Des Moines in enterprising Iowan by the name of bill moon saw an opportunity he built the Iowa 80 truck stop and didn't have much success until 1976 the interstate was completed and at long last the coasts were connected by 2,900 miles of i-80 drivers flocked to Bill's truck stop by this time there were 20 million trucks on the road and the culture which had begun to grow in the industry hit the mainstream [Music] the trucking industry was booming and so was the truck stop after 28 expansions and remodels the Iowa 80 truck stop is now the largest in the world if you want something to eat we have eight different restaurants we have a fast food court and then we also have a 24-hour sit-down restaurant called the Iowa 80 kitchen we have a barber a dentist a chiropractor oh we have a chapel on Sundays we have a movie theater we have a TV room we have 24 private showers we also have the super truck showroom which has over 50,000 different items of chrome lights anything a driver could possibly need or want we have a gift store we also have a truck scale for drivers that need to know what they weigh we have a seven based service center for any repairs or oil changes that a driver might need we have a truck a Mack truck wash it's kind of like a full service car wash only for semis we have people that hand brush and scrub the trucks and we have a dog a mat pet wash that's a lot so how many truck drivers are there in the u.s. there are about 3 million professional drivers in the United States and we get about 5,000 customers a day and probably half of those are drivers so I would say in the course of a year we're probably seeing a million to a million and a half drivers and where are we standing what is this place this is the Iowa 80 trucking museum and this is a labor of love basically [Music] [Music] according to the Census Bureau the number is closer to 3.5 million truckers making up about 6% of all full-time jobs in America we met one of those drivers on the road he's known as Big Bear so as far as like life on the road goes what's the culture like with that I mean you know you have your CB radios and you have people that you're communicating with but what's the culture like in the cab and on the road the only with you it gets but it get boring some people like saying if you run them long distance a lot you know to me it's this peace peace of mind you know I tried the nine-to-five and they just don't work that whole I felt me to just drive and it's funny when I get back it's just a bunch of chaos when I go roll this piece it's peace so you know it's just peace of mind of me they do get hard out here when you buy yourself all the time because we get lonely and get bored you know you can't come a place like this you know to you know get your mind off other things as well one popular distraction here is shopping for the latest gadgets and accessories for their rigs really like how fluffy I got here goes there's a lot of stuff and they gave a lot of ideas what I'm doing the truck I need to get a deck of clutter but spending money but a big part of it is being here and seeing all the different vehicles and all the mods and personalizations at the other truck driver so yeah the whole lot of good ideas a whole lot of good ideas what you do to your truck is that a big part of the trucking culture nice what a good going down the road yeah you know make it feel good you know good nice and dry good you know yeah you want to be king of the road right we ought to king a rule but you won't look at the park yeah Big Bear may have said king of the road but six percent of all truckers in the US are women this might not seem like much but the number of female drivers has increased by 68 percent since 2010 and whoa and so how does the community built around places like this yeah I mean I'm sure you run into people that you've seen before at the same place yeah well if I do run into somebody I guess as they say like when I was in trucking school that's not too often but you know we try to s truck drivers make you know new friends while we're out here and stuff like that some are old some are young but yeah we try to be as they say friendly with one another drivers are required to follow many strict regulations to help keep the road safe they have to keep a driver's log they can't drive more than 11 hours straight every eight hours they must take a 30-minute break every 14 hours they have to take a full 10 hours rest with all of this mandatory downtime places like this are essential and what do you do to your rig to set it apart from the others don't look it's a mess oh baby so this is your humble abode yeah do you mind if we take a look go ahead well I don't is messy I've never been annoyed in a rig before oh man yeah no this is Oh it's roomy got the microwave got the food stores yeah TV right here in the bed that's crazy that is wild I can definitely see how people are living out of their rigs I can't picture myself doing it but it's away the road I guess another feature often found in the cab is a citizens band radio aka the CB radio with these truckers can communicate with fellow drivers nearby on the road unsurprisingly a complicated lingo has developed over the years how do I tell others about an accident ahead you go say something like a westbound you got your ears owned you got a 1040 tuned in the comedian you're on yardstick 222 so that means westbound if you're listening there's an accident near the median around mile marker 222 yeah you're learning they're a green pea others include black eye bear in the bushes Bambi bumper sticker cash register convoy Evel Knievel flip flop greasy side up gumball machine go Jack with a Kodak quad wizard meat wagon road pizza salt shaker sandbox skateboard roller skate and toothpicks trucks are still evolving look at all that has changed since the advancements we mentioned earlier in the episode amazing new brakes improved aerodynamics greatly increased hauling capacity and the advancements show no signs of stopping well automated driving is becoming a huge thing and I think they're really trying to target the trucking industry because that's a big employer and that would be a huge money saver which would kind of like eliminate truck drivers how would this place what's the future of this place well there's a lot of talk about autonomous vehicles but autonomous doesn't mean driverless those are two different things and autonomous means that some of the things would be automated but I truly believe that you're still going to need a driver in that cab much like you need a pilot in an airplane everybody knows airplanes can fly themselves do you really want to get on the plane when there's nobody flying it there's nobody that can react in an emergency same thing with an 80,000 pound truck driving down the road do you really want to not have somebody in there that can take over if something goes wrong because as we all know computers glitch I mean it just happens think about your phone when it freaks out or your laptop doesn't load right or needs to be rebooted you know things are going to happen so the best plan is to have somebody there that is trained to recover that and be able to drive that truck over the long history of trucking in America a rich and colorful culture has developed the rig's their language the people they all come together right here amidst the cornfields of Iowa at the world's largest truck stop when we started off the cuff' we thought it was a good idea but we didn't know why it wasn't until we released the show and started hearing from you that we found the answer whether you've dedicated your life to reenacting a medieval society have a lawless enthusiasm for cars or you seek transcendence in a cornfield we are all strange in our own ways Paris and I commit a lot of our lives to making this show through this we've realized that everyone is equally dedicated to something and chances are it's something that others may consider strange if we can recognize that then maybe we can break the divides we have with one another and fully embrace who we are so as we embark on season two of off-the-cuff we simply ask that along with us you explore something new

Channel: Off the Cuff

Views: 30,495

Rating: 4.9049034 out of 5

Keywords: Iowa 80, Donut media, female truck driver, Semi trucks, Peterbilt, Truck Driver, Logistics, Volvo, Self driving, heavy hauler, rig, truckstop, trucking, trucker, tesla semi, semitruck, freight, CB radio, trucker lingo, lot lizard, i80, truck museum, iowa 80 ta

Id: 1pBHyJaGIZs

Length: 15min 35sec (935 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 11 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/betterworldbiker]

Lol that's not what a lot lizard is bru

[u/canada432]

Man, at the end there she's trying really really hard to convince herself that driverless trucks aren't going to put a ton of truckers out of business, but it doesn't look like she even believes it. I feel really bad for her, looking at something that has a good potential to destroy your way of life.

[u/MessyRoom]

While explaining the trucker lingo he said lot lizards with a picture of an actual lizard. Fucking byeeeeeee 😂😂

[u/dickcheesephilosophy]

Just found this channel through my recommended, and I'd urge everyone to check out their other stuff. It is all like this and really amazing.

[u/TheXanderp]

Would you really feel safe with no truck driver behind the wheel of a semi? ... yeah. Human error around semi-trucks already kills about 5000+ people a year in the US, once the technology becomes good enough, they'll get rid of truckers - and it'll probably be safer.

[u/drylube]

it wont be long before these truckers are teaching AI to replace their job

[u/zerbey]

Was interesting, my FIL used to be a trucker and has talked about Iowa 80 before.