Truck Drivers... Open Discussion

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I am a truck driver and have some issues with how the rest of the population views us. I have only been a driver for 2 years now, but the things that we have to put up with and how we can actually do our jobs. You know, every where you go you see us working. We work for you, honestly we do. Everything you own, everything you consume, everything you see, we deliver. There isn't anything that we don't touch first before you buy, eat, drink, read, sell, use, or even drive we deliver it. Even if you think that you buy everything locally, and think that you can survive with out us on the road, you aren't looking hard enough. We deliver the paper and the ink for your newspaper, and we deliver that nice comfortable chair you sit in, the television you turn on every night to catch the latest truck crashes on. The world relies on us, to deliver in a safe, timely manner all the goods that the world consumes. Now to the heart of things, we drive around 10 hours a day, our work day consist of about 14 hours. We are dictated as to how long we can work, when we can work, where we can work, and how we work. We follow such a tight scrutiny of rules that are developed by people that have never set foot into a truck, a government agency. If we violate any rules, we can be put out of service (which is a 1 day supsension to the rest of you, but in our trucks), or we can be fined, or both. We have to deliver your food on time, so we try to make the most of every day and every hour that we possibly can squeeze. We don't get paid if our trucks don't move. We get paid by the miles and it isn't a great deal per mile. The average is around .40 cents per mile for company drivers that have at least 2-3 years experience. Now the rest of the world gets paid by the hour, and can go home and see the wife/husband and kids everynight, or you can sit back and have a beer at the end of every shift, or hang out with friends, what ever the case may be. When we get through with our shifts we settle into the back of our trucks, think of our family and friends, sip on coffee (no alcoholic beverages are allowed in trucks), and we may turn a movie on, or like me catch up the internet, but we are in our trucks, and there isn't a whole lot we can do. So we sleep. We get 10 hours in between shifts of driving, or our work periods. We don't get a whole lot of time to do much of any thing if we wanted to. There are some drivers out there that are home every night, these drivers are local drivers only. I am talking about the Long Haul drivers, or OTR's, Over The Road drivers. We get home roughly once a month. The rest of the time we are out here trying to make an earning. We deal with the accidents, the Four Wheelers (the cars), and the Police, as well as our companies pushing us, the Dept. Of Transportation, and all the negative that we recieve. We aren't coming in to your work place and trying to mess you up, we don't come and tell you how to do things, and we don't dictate any of your life. But there are entities on your behalf doing just that. I really am just asking for the public to be aware of us out there, let us do our job, we will try to do our job to the best of our ability. I know that there seem to be alot of us out there, but we really do all work together. One more thing, we aren't to blame for everything, I know the expression one bad apple spoils the barrel, but remember this, for every 1 bad truck driver there are 1000 good ones, trully there are.. We want to work with you...Work with us please.