It's National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, and we're joining people across the country in honoring the professional truck drivers who keep our communities and economy moving.
Truck drivers do essential work. The food on our shelves, the medicine in our pharmacies, the packages at our doors — all of it gets there because someone drove it. Drivers deserve our thanks. They also deserve an industry that's investing in their future, and so do the communities living along the routes they drive.
For generations, diesel exhaust has been treated as part of the job, and a fact of life in the neighborhoods closest to freight corridors, ports, and warehouses. Diesel exhaust is a Class 1 carcinogen, and exposure to it carries serious, well-documented health consequences.
This isn't just about the neighborhoods trucks pass through; it's about who's behind the wheel. Latinos are one of the fastest-growing groups in the trucking industry, now making up nearly 1 in 4 of the nation's truck drivers, up from less than 1 in 6 about a decade ago, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means our comunidad isn't just breathing the exhaust — we're also the ones sitting in the cab, absorbing that same diesel exposure, mile after mile, as part of the job.
And it's a hard job. Long-haul drivers routinely spend weeks away from home. Pay tied to miles rather than hours pushes drivers to stay on the road longer than is safe, and chronic truck stop and safe parking shortages leave many stopping to rest wherever they can, sometimes on highway shoulders. The physical toll adds up too: long stretches behind the wheel are linked to higher rates of obesity, sleep apnea, and cardiovascular disease, while diesel exhaust fills the cab for hours a day. Add in isolation from family and notoriously high turnover, and "essential worker" starts to look like a job nobody's built to actually sustain.
We have the technology to start changing that, which is exactly why it's so frustrating to watch the EPA move in the opposite direction. Instead of building on that progress, the agency is rolling back the truck pollution standards designed to protect drivers and communities alike: shortening emissions warranties, delaying useful-life requirements, and letting manufacturers pay a token penalty instead of actually cleaning up their engines.
The transition to cleaner, zero-emission trucks can cut diesel pollution for drivers and the comunidades they drive through, while building a trucking industry ready to compete globally.
But that requires leadership. The American Trucking Association claims to represent the drivers who make this industry run, so it should be fighting for their health and well-being, not lobbying against the standards designed to protect them from the pollution they breathe every day on the job. The companies that manufacture America's trucks have a responsibility to deliver on their clean-vehicle commitments and put cleaner, safer trucks on the road, for drivers and communities alike.
Investing in cleaner trucks, healthier working conditions, and cleaner air is one of the most meaningful ways we can recognize the invaluable work that truck drivers do.
This week, we thank America's truck drivers. For the years ahead, let's invest in our shared future and put cleaner trucks on the road.
