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The following are a selection of reviews and comments from people who have seen Trucking USA.
Trucking International March 1999
Stateside scene
It's not often you can say a video about trucking is refreshingly different, but Trucking USA certainly is.
Most trucking films are made with a voyeuristic view of the business - aimed more at the anorak and wannabe trucker - looking in from the outside.
Trucking USA is different in that we reckon many truckers, who may not ordinarily be interested in trucking films, could watch this, enjoy it and identify with their US counterparts.
This professionally-produced 90 minute DVD or Video doesn't follow the usual inane question and answer format, rather people talk on camera about their lives.
A husband and wife team are featured who sold up their possessions and bought a truck which is now their workplace and home. And an old character who's been trucking all his life tells of how he went back to trucking after retiring when he found he'd given up doing the thing he loved the best - trucking.
Many problems us truckers are experiencing and talk about during the film are similar to those affecting the UK transport industry; poor pay; long hours and a general lack of understanding from members of the public. But strangely, there is one trucker who owns and drives a Ferrari when he's not trucking, and there is another who is an owner-driver who kisses his wife and family goodbye and climbs aboard his new, customised tractor unit in the driveway and pulls away from what seems to be a pretty substantial house. So maybe some are making good money out of it.
The old boy mentioned earlier, while driving his daycabbed artic across the mountain in a snowstorm, talks of the 'old days' when he used to drive an REO Speedwagon. He also says, what many experienced drivers will know, about driving artics in blizzard conditions and the feeling you get in your stomach when the outfit starts to slide - it isn't panic and do your best to do the right thing to get yourself out of trouble, whatever that might be under the circumstances - but you do get that lurch in your gut.
A lady owner-driver works hard to gain recognition at truck shows - and bursts into tears when she wins a prize!
Scenes of truckers and their partners talking on camera are interspersed with scenes of trucks out on the highway - and they aren't all the 'lone truck out on the empty freeway' type of shots. You'd be surprised at how many trucks and how much traffic there is out there at any given time.
This film is more a lifestyle feature than a film full of shiny trucks going about their work.
Truck & Driver - April 1999
T&D CHOICE OF THE MONTH
TRUCKING USA
This film's a pleasant surprise for, unlike most specialist videos on the market, it's of a decent length (90 minutes) and is a proper professional production.
Neither is it's focus merely on shiny metal and truck shows; instead, the video gives a fascinating insight into the America trucking experience and the cowboy spirit that lives on in your counterparts across the pond.
Recommended. ****