Many years ago (1970s) while I was in school, I drove gas and diesel conventional and cab-over Whites, Macks, IHs and even one old Diamond Rio. We hauled swinging meat from meat packing houses in eastern New Mexico and west Texas to a NM Santa Fe Piggyback rail yard where we then had to load them (backed them) onto SF train flat cars. It was a tough job even for a young man but it was especially difficult in the cold of winter. The old trucks back then did not have power steering and my wife recalls that I developed shoulders that Arnold Schwarzenegger would have envied. Also, although I did this only for several years some 40 years ago, I can still back a trailer with the best of them.
Regarding driving a modern truck over-the-road for long-distances, I used to ponder this possibility for my life but I decided that I liked my family too much to be away from home for such long periods of time. The new trucks today are so much better than what I had to drive but the work can still be dangerous especially since small car drivers will buzz around a fully loaded Peterbilt travelling at 75 mph as carelessly as flies buzz around a rhinos' rear end. That was what always scared me the most.
At any rate, trucking is a very honorable profession. American cannot function without someone moving the goods. Should you decide to try it, I wish you the best of luck.
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