pulp truck driver

[foundationsedge]

ok, loved the book, great story, liked the end, and loved the charactors,
BUT!!!!!
does the pulp truck driver have to be overloaded, speeding and probably on drugs, isnt that just a stereotype?
love the king but hate truck drivers being put down all the time like this, yes i know i,m probably being over sensative about this, but as a proffesional driver i hear this kind of thing all the time, and i,ve never taken drugs, never been overloaded and hardley ever been speeding and that opretty much goes for my fellow proffesionals, yes there arew bad apples, but it would be refreshing to hear a truck driver mentioned in a story (even as a means to an end type charector) who didnt speed on drugs when overloaded, or mow down any ones kid (pet cemetery)
so whilst i love the king, and respect his job, how about a little respect back.
thanks for reading my little rant
a proffesional truck driver.:wink2:

[Doc Wilson]

Gotta be a cool truckdriving man somewhere in the King cannon, but I'm damned if I can recall one.

[wally wonder]

seems like there was a truck driver in a short story, gave the guy a ride, gave the guy his jacket, as i recall...course, he may have died shortly thereafter. :dunno: the short story exists, the driver was a nice guy, don't recall the name of the story. anyone?

[boogerb53]

I moved from a small town in South Central Arkansas because of drugs and most of our friends were truckdrivers....on drugs...my husband included....so sometimes the sterotype is true....that's why it's a sterotype!

[somnicide]

I feel the same way about conservatives or Christians in King stories. It is just part and parcel and I accept it, though sometimes I have to take a deep breath.

[wally wonder]

hey, foundationsedge, i goofed up, big time. check out tommyknockers is what i meant to say, earlier. dawned on me a bit ago. not exactly a short story. but check out a character name of moss. :y: as that guy, randy i think is his name, from alabama, this is for the one who drives the big rig, up and down the line!...anyway, seems like there's something for everyone in sk if they keep looking. and i'll try to remember to flash my brites after you pass so you know when you can cut back in. :y:

[foundationsedge]

I moved from a small town in South Central Arkansas because of drugs and most of our friends were truckdrivers....on drugs...my husband included....so sometimes the sterotype is true....that's why it's a sterotype!

i,m sorry , but i dont think your experiance means that all truck drivers take drugs, just because the drivers you have met take drugs, its kind of like saying all police officers a racists because all the ones i,ve met are racist, when that is certanley not the case,
what becomes acceptable amongst a small group of drivers may cause you to judge all drivers the same, and whilst i am a driver in the UK, and as such do not fully appreciate the working conditions faced by my counterparts in the USA , i would guess that a greater proportion take drugs and speed simply because the USA is such a huge country and has a larger trucking industry, like i said in my original post, there are always going to be bad apples and if all the experiance you have of truck drivers is the bad apples, then you may think theyre behavior is the norm, when it is not.
but , my point was to ask why in the story does the truck driver have to be a bad one?, the only other mention of a trucker is a 17 year old single mother who was made pregnant by a passing trucker whom she hadnt seen for dust since, again another negative image.
i know its just a story, and i,m sure no offence was meant, but for a change wouldnt it be nice to read about a trucker who wasnt a drug addict or left 17 year old girls pregnant and high and dry, or ran down somebody, a good , safe, morrally responcible fellow, just like the millions of REAL truckdrivers out there, who try to do a difficult job as safely as possible, so that they can provide for there fammily.
ok, a bit of an extreme thought but, if an alien culture had to make judgements on humanity based on the charectors in the book, well they would have a very dim view of truckers.
thanks for reading

[Quixotic]

but , my point was to ask why in the story does the truck driver have to be a bad one?

I hitchhiked with lots of truckdrivers, met nice ones and bad ones. But that's not the point. And yours is irrelevant as well.

If every reader who relates to a certain wrongdoer was to complain about it... writers would shut down their businesses or write fiction as nice and clean as a chilldren's book. Some may object to the use of a villain because he's White/Black/overweight/male/female/mexican/chinese etc. Nonsense !

I admit S.K sometimes lacks subtelty when he draws lines between good and evil, though.

[~Ally~]

i,m sorry , but i dont think your experiance means that all truck drivers take drugs, just because the drivers you have met take drugs, its kind of like saying all police officers a racists because all the ones i,ve met are racist, when that is certanley not the case,

It's my understanding that booger53 was not saying ALL truck drivers take drugs. She said in HER experience she has found this to sometimes be the case which reinforces the stereotype. The key word being "sometimes".

As for if the aliens really observed and judged humanity based on the little town of Chesters Mill, I'm sure the stoned speeding trucker wouldn't concern them too much. After all, there would be much bigger and tastier fish to fry! The town was awash with murderers, rapists, drug lords and necrophiliacs running around trying to establish order...the trucker probably wouldn't even cause a blip on their radar! Chillax dude. ;)

[Bryan James]

seems like there was a truck driver in a short story, gave the guy a ride, gave the guy his jacket, as i recall...course, he may have died shortly thereafter. :dunno: the short story exists, the driver was a nice guy, don't recall the name of the story. anyone?

Hundreds of stories like that exist. Many of them are true. Somewhere, somehow, in somewhen. "The Dark Half" comes to mind.

(Pardon the pun :biggrin2: )

[wally wonder]

and mike hanlon's old man had a truck, (It) albeit, not a big rig, old jalopy. they made the birds run for cover.

[foundationsedge]

the whole point of that scene is to show us the reader that the dome is indestructable, the driver has got the hammer down , driving a straight road on a clear morning, for the story to make sence , he has to completely ignore the burning plane wreckage ahead, he has to ignore the fact that there is a car slewed across the road ahead and a guy waving his arms in an attempt to get the pulp truck drivers attention and get him to stop, so its convieniant to say the trucker is on drugs and therefore ,not got his full attention on the job, you would have to be blind stupid or on drugs to miss the signs , and convieniantly, the truck driver is, and so goes barreling into the dome and destroys his big heavy speeding truck against the wall of the dome therefore proving to us the reader, that the dome is indestructable.
and just why did the other guy move his car out of the path of the speeding truck anyway?, if he had left the car where it was, perhaps it would have forced the trucker to stop, by moving his car he is clearing the road for the trucker, when he knows the road ahead is certainly not clear!!
the same effect could have been achieved by a railway line running through the dome.
i,m not trying to make mountains out of molehills here, i am a huge stephen king fan, he is by far and away my favourette writer, and i,ve been very gratefull for the many hours he has entertained me, i just think the speeding trucker on drugs stereotype is just a bit lazy. and for me personaly, it just dosnt make sense.
i enjoyed the book imensely, and i tore through it in a week, because i loved it so much, but i thought i would raise this point on this forum, because afterall, isnt this the whole point of a forum?, to discuss the things we like or dislike about the author with like minded people.
thanks for reading