LITTLE AMERICA, Wyo. – James Rodgers settles a little deeper into his comfy seat, his steel-toed boot planted firmly on the accelerator as his Freightliner truck roars at 75 mph across Interstate 80.
"There's nothing like that view out of the windshield," he says, looking out the bug-spattered glass. "I'm happiest when I'm looking out it."
Rodgers, the owner of a small trucking firm, is one of the 3.5 million truck drivers helping keep America running during the coronavirus outbreak that has already sickened one of his drivers and has kept him from returning home for more than two months straight.
Today, he's hauling 42,000 pounds of cleaning supplies from a Proctor & Gamble plant in St. Louis to a Costco distribution center in Salt Lake City. Tomorrow, he'll drive tortilla chips from Salt Lake back to St. Louis.
Over the past two months he's transported bleach to Seattle and chicken across the Midwest, operating under relaxed rest standards approved by the Trump administration during the pandemic to allow drivers to work longer between mandatory breaks.
"There's nothing like that view out of the windshield," he says, looking out the bug-spattered glass. "I'm happiest when I'm looking out it."
Rodgers, the owner of a small trucking firm, is one of the 3.5 million truck drivers helping keep America running during the coronavirus outbreak that has already sickened one of his drivers and has kept him from returning home for more than two months straight.
Today, he's hauling 42,000 pounds of cleaning supplies from a Proctor & Gamble plant in St. Louis to a Costco distribution center in Salt Lake City. Tomorrow, he'll drive tortilla chips from Salt Lake back to St. Louis.
Over the past two months he's transported bleach to Seattle and chicken across the Midwest, operating under relaxed rest standards approved by the Trump administration during the pandemic to allow drivers to work longer between mandatory breaks.
When businesses shut down, truckers lost work, risked their health to keep America open
Even as American truckers risk their lives to deliver goods, their livelihood has been threatened by the coronavirus pandemic.
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