Why do so many truckers drive at night? Find out here.
When beginning a career in trucking, you’ll have many considerations to contend with right off the bat. One of which is when you’re going to do your driving. You may be wondering why truckers drive at night if you’ve seen them out on the road after hours, and there are plenty of reasons, like preference and the specific jobs available.
If you’re curious about why truckers drive at night, remember that driving at night means less traffic, so you can get where you’re going quicker. However, there are other challenges, like decreased visibility and higher chances of encountering wildlife.
Less Traffic Overall
A big reason why truckers drive at night is because they prefer to miss out on all that traffic. For most people, traffic is already a headache to deal with. For truckers, traffic is an absolute nightmare—it gets to be incredibly frustrating when it hinders you from doing your job and can even impact your bottom line. Driving at night means you don’t have to stop or slow down for others as often, which is great, particularly if you do city driving and want to keep moving. This can help you take advantage of the 11-hour driving limit in a way that’s both safe and legal.
Better Parking Options
Perhaps just as frustrating as dealing with traffic is struggling to find a parking spot. Overnight drivers tend to end their routes in the morning, when other drivers are just starting their days out, so you may have an easier time finding a place to leave your truck while you’re asleep or doing something else.
Emptier Truck Stops
While there are truck drivers who drive at night, it’s certainly less common than drivers who drive during the day. That’s why overnight drivers get priority at truck stops—there are fewer crowds and shorter wait times when they’re on the road. That makes refueling so much quicker, which means you can get back to driving quicker. The only caveat here is that it might be difficult to find a place to park at truck stops during the night because there are so many sleeping day drivers.
Less Construction Happening
Driving at night also means that you’re going to deal with less construction, especially in cities. Construction delays are a huge hassle for truck drivers, and this means that overnight drivers get to get more miles out of their time driving. A slight exception is that in very hot places, like Texas or Arizona, construction jobs actually go overnight because of how extreme the heat is during the day. Still, you can generally expect to see fewer construction delays.
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