Born to Drive
What does it take to drive four million safe miles? What kind of person can travel the equivalent of 160 trips around the world during a 30-year career without a preventable accident or injury?
To answer those questions, meet David Hooker, domiciled in White Pine, Tennessee.
David Hooker is a comedian, joking around with everyone he meets. An outgoing person, he's more than happy to talk about his personal accomplishment of driving 4 million miles and loves driving his tractor emblazoned with his name and the 4-million-mile logo. It attracts a great deal of attention, both for Roadway and for David. He tells the story of walking into a diner a few years ago wearing his 3-million-mile jacket. Another truck driver obviously misread it and said to him, "You mean you've driven 300,000 miles?" David laughs as he recalls shocking the driver by saying, "No, this stands for 3 million miles." And, in December of 2000, he achieved 4-million-mile status.
Ask David how he's achieved four million miles and he gives God all the credit. "God did all the driving," says David. "I just filled out the log books."
"When you get in that truck, you've got to put everything aside and just focus on driving," says David. Easier said than done. What if your mind starts to wander?
What's the key to keeping your mind focused? "I remember that I'm not out there by myself," says David. "There are cars full of people and families all around me. I don't want anything to happen to them."
As with any successful person, he gives credit to his support team at home and at work.
"We all work together," says Bill. "The drivers, dispatchers, and management. We're a team."
The staff at White Pine regularly receives phone calls from David letting them know about weather conditions, road construction, or anything else that might create a hazard for another driver. The staff knows that David, running bids to Harrisburg, is looking out for all the other drivers.
The team atmosphere is one that relay manager Mike Woody tries hard to foster. "We want to make everybody feel like without them the puzzle would be incomplete," he says. "We see a linehaul driver as little as any Roadway employee. So we promote an environment of friendliness, cooperation, and teamwork so when that driver leaves on a trip, he can say 'even though my team is back there at the relay, they really are with me throughout my whole trip.'"
Having achieved four million safe miles, David is approaching his 35th anniversary with Roadway. After all those years of driving, he says he still enjoys it. David says driving is all he's ever known.
If he could be 18 years old again and start his career over, would he still choose to be a professional truck driver?
"Some things just come naturally to you," says David. "That's how I feel about driving. It feels comfortable."
