Truck Driving Job News

If “home is where the heart is,” then professional drivers Stephen Asgar and Charlene Dougan are right at home wherever they are. That said, “home” might be pushing a stroller holding the couple’s three dachshund dogs through Disney World while they aren’t working. “Home” could just as easily be sitting side by side, riding down the road in their Boyle Transportation tractor. Whether “home” is on the road, on vacation or actually at their place of residence, the two agree that they are always at home when they’re together. “Boyle has gotten us home a lot,” Charlene said. “They always want to know a home time. I’m like, I don’t want to go home but I’ll give you a date.” “We usually try for like a month and a half out, minimum,” Stephen added. “But there’s been times — maybe not with Boyle — but in the past that we’ve stayed on (the road) for six months straight.” The couple is approaching their first anniversary with Boyle, a Billerica, Massachusetts-based carrier that specializes in life sciences (pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and biologic) products and government and defense transportation. Prior to Boyle, they worked for another carrier hauling similar products. While the two have found a home in trucking, trucking was not the first career choice for either. “We met in college,” Charlene explained. “I guess we became a couple in like July of 2017. We started trucking together in July of 2018.” Before striking out on the road, Charlene worked from home as a coder-biller for hospitals and physicians. “After working from home for a half a decade, I was a bit bored,” she said. “I was just rotting in my house.” Because she enjoyed driving, Charlene said, she started working on the side as a driver for Lyft, a company that uses independent contractors to provide ride-sharing services and business delivery. She discovered that she loved driving so much that she thought she might enjoy working on the road full time as a truck driver — so she enrolled in a CDL school in Jacksonville, Florida. Upon graduation she ran solo loads at a Walmart distribution center for six months. Stephen has his own trucking story. “I was in Pennsylvania and going through a rough time in my life. I moved back home to Florida,” he shared. Once back home, he said, his thoughts kept returning to the job he had been laid off from before moving. “I’d worked at a warehouse facility for CVS,” he said. “I always talked to the truck drivers, and I thought, ‘This might be something interesting.’” He chose to enter a training program sponsored by a motor carrier; after earning his CDL, he became a driver for the company. “As soon as I was free of my contract, I bought my own truck and did the owner thing for seven years — and it was good when it was good.” In mid-2018, Stephen and Charlene began driving together. When the freight recession hit in 2022, they decided to become company drivers. After checking out their options, they chose to drive for Boyle. Because of the nature of the freight, they said, drivers’ schedules are monitored — and good communication skills are essential. “We have apps where we can message, and they answer right away,” Charlene said. “And if you call, they answer within seconds. I worked at another company where you’d be on hold for 45 minutes — but not with Boyle.” The couple generally runs from the Midwest to Northeast, as far South as Tennessee and the Carolinas, and occasionally to Canada. “We park our truck in Ohio near where my mom lives,” Charlene said, adding that they also rent a parking space for their trailer, with Boyle paying half the cost. “We’d probably park in Florida, but parking is so expensive in Florida that it’s much cheaper to park in Ohio and get cheap flights to Miami,” she said. “We can’t bring the truck home in Florida because our neighborhood is ‘no Class 8 vehicles,’” Stephen added. The couple works hard while out on the road, and they say they also like to stay busy during their “off” time. While off the road, the couple’s itinerary might include snorkeling in the waters off of Southern Florida or driving to Orlando to spend a week at Disney World. Both on and off the road, both Stephen and Charlene are avid gamers, and they carry gaming equipment in the truck for use during down time. “We game a lot, like Fortnight and World of Warcraft, that kind of thing,” Charlene explained, adding that she also enjoys painting. Her favorite subject is nature scenes, which often include animals, or abstract works. And, of course, it wouldn’t be home for Stephen and Charlene without the dogs. The couple travels with a trio of dachshunds, ages 20, 4 and 2 years. “When we first started dating, I had a pit bull and she had a dachshund,” Stephen said. “We decided that when our relationship was really starting to take off, so, ‘Hey! Let’s get a dog together.’ That’s as close as you can get to having a kid.” Of course, traveling with one pet, let alone three (one a “senior citizen”) brings unique challenges. But the couple says they wouldn’t have it any other way. Even when the family travels hundreds of miles between breaks, the dogs are well behaved. “They’re good at ‘holding it,’ and they’re pee-pad trained,” Charlene remarked about stopping to walk the dogs. “We usually have a stroller that we pop them in to go for a walk or to take them to the mall.” Charlene says the only bad thing about having three dogs in the truck is the hair. “I have to vacuum every day, or there are fur piles,” she said. While on the road, the team tries to eat well. In fact, they do much of their own cooking and meal prep in the truck. In addition, whenever possible, they stop at farmers markets to pick up fresh fruit and vegetables. “We’ve got a Foreman (grill) and an air fryer/microwave combo,” Charlene said. “Boyle gives you a big area for the fridge, so we have a 5 1/2 cubic-foot fridge. And there’s a lot of cabinets.” In short, whether they’re together on vacation or earning a living on the road, Stephen and Charlene do their best to make wherever they are feel like home. Photos courtesy of Stephen Asgar and Charlene Dougan.

Ron Millman, a driver for Georgia-based East-West Express, is one of only a handful of people on the planet who can say he’s covered 7 million miles in his driving career — and he’s one of a precious few who have covered that much ground without a single at-fault accident. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, in an era of distracted driving and unprecedented highway congestion, Millman says he’d never had an altercation with another vehicle of any kind at work until about a year ago. That’s when a driver with outstanding warrants clipped him before fleeing the scene. The memory of the event is equal parts amusing and frustrating to the Boston-born Millman. “I was eight minutes from my delivery when that kid hit me,” he said, still incredulous. “I could look at my stop. That’s how close I was — I could see it from the interstate. This guy comes up the ramp, comes around the curve, and I looked at him and thought, ‘Buddy, you better get over. You’re going to hit me.’ And he did — he hit me.” The ultimate irony of being hit by someone fleeing the law is that Millman is something of a “criminal” himself. After all, he’s repeatedly the broken statistical law of averages for many years. A journey of 7 million miles would circle the globe 280 times. That’s equal to about 15 round trips to the moon. To cover all those miles with just one highway incident, which wasn’t even his fault, defies every actuarial table known to humanity. For Millman, however, the formula is simple: “Don’t bring your problems from your house to your job when you’re driving,” he said matter-of-factly. “And the biggest thing is, drive like you’re in a coloring book — always stay between the two lines.” As mind-boggling as Millman’s safe-driving streak is, it’s only one chapter of a unique life that, had he not lived it, he says he might not believe himself. Landing in the foster care system as a boy, Millman ran away at 13 with no more of a plan than to hitchhike “to wherever.” A trucker picked him up and asked where he was headed. “Wherever this truck lands,” he remembers saying. The truck was going to Deland, Florida. Once there, the driver asked the lad’s next move. Hearing none, the man recommended Millman hit up the wintering circuses for a job. He did, and spent the next five years traveling as a roustabout. During that time, he learned how to drive a truck. Millman left that gig with the intention of joining the military, but health problems disqualified him for active duty. He held a few miscellaneous jobs before deciding to become a professional truck driver, earning his license at age 20. “I was still under restriction, though, because you have to be 21 to run other states,” he said. “So, until then, all I did was drive around Massachusetts.” Except for one short departure from the industry, Millman has been driving ever since. At 77, he’s driven doubles and triples, pulled dry vans, reefer and even hazmat. His never-ending journey has taken him throughout Canada, into Mexico and touched all 49 of the continental U.S. states. “And if you built a bridge over to Hawaii, I might drive over there, too,” he said with a laugh. During his career, he’s driven team and he’s driven solo. He prefers the latter, particularly as he’s gotten older. Reaching across the generation gap has become increasingly frustrating, he says, so he’d rather make his runs alone, doing things the way he knows they should be done. “These young people, when they get in the bunk, they’re watching movies or playing games, and when they come back out, they’re not ready to drive after a 10-hour break,” he said. “I just got to the point where this ain’t worth it. I can’t do double work. “I’ve been running basically between Georgia and Florida for almost the last three years,” he continued. “I like it because I’m by myself. I come and go as I please. They hand me an envelope and I go do my job. I may not talk to dispatch for two days, maybe three days, because I know what I’ve got to do and they’re very well aware I know what I’ve got to do. They don’t really bother me.” Waiting for Millman at home for most of his driving years has been his second wife, Deborah, who, despite being in a potentially dangerous profession herself — that of a meat cutter — doesn’t like to ride with him. That’s more a comment on other drivers than on Ron’s skills. In fact, she might be the only person on the planet who was unsurprised when he turned over 7 million safe miles in June 2023. “It’s just another day on the job for him,” she said. Asked when he’ll park it for good, Millman shrugs. “To be truthful with you, as long as I can pass the DOT physical, I guess I’ll be there,” he said. “It’s the only thing I really know how to do. My wife has asked me a number of times, ‘Why don’t you get a local job, like in a grocery store?’” “But I’m with a good company,” he continued. “East-West Express is a very good company, and I told her, ‘If I’m going to continue to work at my age, I’m going to do what I enjoy and what I like doing.’” Until his day arrives, Millman will be out there, running his route, keeping his head on a swivel and exercising common sense. There’s one other thing he does every trip. “I’m not a real religious guy, but I do believe that the ‘Man Upstairs’ has looked after me all these years,” he said. “Back in 2010, I had two heart attacks, back-to-back. He could have taken me, and he didn’t take me. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the one that’s been watching over me. “Every time I come off the road and into the yard, the very first thing that I do, I make sure and look up and say, ‘Thank you, God, for another safe trip.’ God is my follower. He watches over me on all these trips. He always has. That’s why I feel I’ve done so well at it — because he’s guiding me down the highway,” Millman concluded.