vLane Blog

My Perspective: Tales of Trucking

From Kirstie Parker, Featured Contributor
Posted on July 29, 2008

Tackling lot lizards, jerks and other stereotypes.

I was a truck driver for 2 years right after college, so when I saw this ABC News story claiming that “thousands of American girls are forced to have sex at truck stops,” I was a little bit interested. For two years, I spent most of my time in truck stops – from Bangor, Maine to Fontana, California. I spent two years eating, showering, and sleeping at truck stops all across the United States, and this dark underworld of the sex trade was definitely not a part of my experience.

Well – I take that back. I did have a lot lizard (truck stop prostitute) solicit me once. She stepped up on my cab and asked me if I wanted a cigarette, I think. I said no, she left, and I rolled up my window. Business must have been pretty damn bad if she was stopping by my truck to try to make some money. (And by the way she was not under age – looked closer to forty-five.)

Obviously the story itself is upsetting – but the coverage of the story bothers me, too. The title “Teen Trafficking at Truck Stops” makes the story sound like these child prostitutions rings are happening only at truck stops – or so often and in such great numbers that it makes sense to qualify them that way. The story focuses on the 2005 kidnapping of two teenage girls in the Toledo, Ohio area, who were held captive by a local pimp and forced to have sex with strangers in area hotels. The last stop of the girls’ nine day ordeal was a TA (Travel Centers of America) truck stop just outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan, where they found their savior, ironically. To make sure they wouldn’t escape, they were escorted to their “appointments” by an older woman who was working with the pimp. But one truck driver saw one of the girls at around 3 AM, noticed how young she looked, and called 911. The police arrived and the girls were eventually saved. The headline could also have been “Girls saved from kidnappers by driver at truck stop”.

Some people seem to thrive on the chilling tales of dirty old men behind the wheel of menacing eighteen-wheeled big rigs, looking for women to assault and mini-vans to plow over. Yeah, there are dirty old men on the road. But there’s also the fellow who just tells crude jokes over the CB radio, without really hurting anyone. There’s the old salts who will talk your ear off for hours if you let them, telling of their experiences over the years and their opinions of the industry these days. There’s the family man who spends most of his hours on the road talking to his wife and kids on his Bluetooth, or listening to “The Purpose Driven Life” on audio tape.

And then there’s the guy who walked by my table that night while I was eating dinner alone as I frequently did. I remember thinking Oh boy, here we go again, but he didn’t sit down, didn’t try to chat with me. He just asked quietly if I had paid my bill yet, and when I said no, he said he would like to take care of it for me. He took my bill, paid for it, and walked away. He didn’t pay for my dinner to see if he could get lucky with the cute little blonde. He didn’t even ask for my number. He just saw me eating alone and thought of his own daughter, and decided to do for me what he would want somebody to do for her in the same situation. So he paid for my dinner and left without another word.

I don’t want to minimize the problem of prostitution or child trafficking in America. I guess I just want to offer a different perspective. There is another side to the story that isn’t told by the headlines. Truck stops are getting better and safer as security becomes more of a priority for truck stop owners. As the number of team drivers (2 people in the same cab, switching off driving and sleeping shifts) and solo female drivers increases, the trucking industry is slowly making some needed changes from the inside out. Truck stops are the home away from home for thousands of truck drivers supporting our national economy by transporting consumer goods. The guys who are jerks at home are still jerks at truck stops. But there are quite a few gentlemen out there, too. So don’t assume that the truck stops are all dangerous, seedy operations full of pimps and perverts and predators…no more than your local neighbor bar, that is…

Kirstie Parker is a featured contributor for vLane.