Shoulders on the track. Shoulder girdle: why you can not sympathize with Russian truckers. How truckers communicate with each other
Burnt alcoholization
Roads are the circulatory system of any country, and many Russian truckers do not hesitate to drive counterfeit and other illegal goods through it, including counterfeit alcohol and drugs.
The Union of Producers of Alcoholic Products believes that the share surrogate alcohol on store shelves reaches 50%. A significant part of this alcohol is transported by truckers on false documents, which they are well aware of.
The reason for the popularity of heavy trucks in the implementation of smuggling schemes is understandable. On the federal highways ah, there is no such enhanced control as at the loading stations of Russian Railways, but because of a large number trucks, law enforcement agencies simply do not have enough people and resources to check everyone (how exactly they check trucks, we will tell below). Truck drivers transport goods with fake excises worth billions of rubles, not much reflecting because of the mass deaths of their own compatriots from low-quality alcoholic beverages.
Truckers with hectoliters of singed whiskey, vodka and other spirits are caught so often that regional news feeds are full of relevant headlines. Hard drugs are transported in no less impressive volumes.
In New Moscow, 10 trucks with counterfeit alcohol were detained. The police found and seized over 200 thousand bottles of surrogate alcohol, with a capacity of 0.5 and 0.7 liters. >>>
A truck carrying 22,000 bottles of counterfeit vodka was detained on the Don. The inspectors stopped the DAF truck at the 856th kilometer of the M-4 Don federal highway. >>>
Kamyshinskaya police found 20 tons of counterfeit vodka in a truck with baby food. As experts have established, the excise stamps on the bottles turned out to be counterfeit. >>>
A trucker brought 60 kg of heroin from Kyrgyzstan to Russia through the Chelyabinsk region. The truck driver was convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to 19 years in prison. The defendant admitted his guilt in part, stating that he allegedly did not know about caches with heroin. >>>
In Novosibirsk, two truckers were detained - they transported about 80 kg of heroin and 27.5 kg of hashish in hidden cavities under the body of a KamAZ truck. According to the documents, drug couriers-truckers arrived in the Novosibirsk region to sell grapes. >>>
car killers
Drivers of large trucks cannot boast of discipline and compliance with the rules on the road. Any Russian motorist from Kamchatka to Kaliningrad can tell about dozens of accidents performed by truck drivers that could end sadly or lead to a tragic outcome for other road users.
According to the traffic police, over the past three years, the number of accidents involving heavy trucks has increased by 17.7%. In 2014, due to traffic violations committed by truck drivers, 10,256 accidents occurred. As a result, we are dealing with figures that are more like news from Syria - more than two thousand dead and 12 thousand injured drivers and passengers.
Due to the overwhelming number of cars on the highways, truck accident statistics are lost in the general mass and do not attract due attention. But due to the incomparable dimensions, accidents involving a heavy truck almost always end in the death of passengers in passenger cars.
In addition to reckless recklessness, drivers of heavy trucks often fall asleep at the wheel, ram cars with their trucks, knock down people on the roadsides and pedestrian crossings. The chronic problems of truckers are poor health, uncontrolled use of stimulants, excessive fatigue due to long flights, and a disregard for the safety and life of others. But for some reason, unbearable working conditions that threaten their own lives and the health of surrounding road users do not force drivers of heavy trucks to organize a protest action.
All of the above problems were radically solved in 2013 by obliging all drivers of heavy trucks to install tachographs (devices that record the time of work and rest of drivers). According to the State Traffic Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, in 2014 more than 170 thousand protocols were drawn up for the absence or incorrect use of tachographs.
According to Daimler, 90% of truck accidents are caused by drivers, and 12% of accidents involve trucker fatigue. Truck drivers violated the rules 2,910,077 times in 2014 traffic, of which 19,368 did not have the right to drive vehicles of this type at all.
The video recorder filmed how a truck crushed a pensioner in Kazan. >>>
A terrible accident was arranged by a trucker on the M-51 highway near Novosibirsk, killing three workers. >>>
AT Krasnodar Territory the driver who fell asleep at the wheel of a MAN rammed two passenger car resulting in the death of three people. >>>
A drunk trucker dragged and damaged five parked cars in Krasnoyarsk. The driver could not explain his actions - having opened the cab door, he fell to the ground and could not recover for a long time. >>>
A terrible accident in Tatarstan - on the M-7 highway, a truck driving over a bridge fell from a 30-meter height into the Vyatka River. As a result of the accident, the man died on the spot. >>>
On the M-10 highway near Tver, a truck drove into a crowd of striking truckers, one dead. >>>
The video recorder filmed how a truck crushed a pensioner in Kazan. >>>
A terrible accident was arranged by a trucker on the M-51 highway near Novosibirsk, killing three workers. >>>
In the Krasnodar Territory, a driver who fell asleep at the wheel of a MAN rammed two cars, killing three people. >>>
A drunk trucker dragged and damaged five parked cars in Krasnoyarsk. The driver could not explain his actions - having opened the cab door, he fell to the ground and could not recover for a long time. >>>
A terrible accident in Tatarstan - on the M-7 highway, a truck driving over a bridge fell from a 30-meter height into the Vyatka River. As a result of the accident, the man died on the spot. >>>
On the M-10 highway near Tver, a truck drove into a crowd of striking truckers, one dead. >>>
In the "brotherhood of truckers" there is a kind of code of honor. As the survey results show, support and mutual assistance are far from empty words for truck drivers.
More cargo - more bribes
A trucker on a flight is easy prey for unscrupulous traffic police officers. Since the technical condition of many heavy vehicles leaves much to be desired, the inspector always has something to complain about. The situation is aggravated by constant axle overloads and violations of speed limits, which truck drivers often sin.
Truck drivers do not hide the fact that they solve their problems on the track exclusively “on the spot”, preferring to give official a bribe than to draw up a protocol and do everything according to the law. This is how the system has worked and continues to work, which, apparently, suits everyone, in contrast to the new fees from truckers. Drivers of trucks treat regular requisitions on the roads very humbly.
In accordance with federal law, a driver's fine for overloading reaches 10 thousand rubles (with an overload of more than 50%), and for legal entities - from 350 to 400 thousand. Weight control points today are considered the main nightmare of truckers. It is almost impossible to pass such a point without a bribe. According to the new law, which entered into force in 2015, a protocol and a decision are issued at the place where a violation is detected - at the weight control point by the inspector of road supervision. Previously, the protocols were drawn up by the traffic police, and road supervision only revealed the facts of overload.
A bribe under the scheme "truck driver - traffic cop" remains a sad symbol of cargo transportation, despite the growing number of criminal cases on charges of corruption.
Alien track
The specifics of the work of a trucker involves a constant search for workarounds in order to bypass weight control points, since most trucks allow you to pass the route with a deliberate overload (up to 20-25 tons per car).
This leads to premature wear and destruction of the roadway, emergencies on the roads and illegal enrichment of law enforcement officers who receive bribes for tacit agreement with what is happening.
More than 40% of freight transport (almost every second truck) moves on the roads of Russia in violation of weight and size parameters. According to Rosavtodor, this is eight times higher than the average European level.
As practice shows, the main causes of accidents involving heavy vehicles are precisely overload (especially if the mass of the trailer is greater than the mass of the main heavy truck). Technically defective cars with a large mass pose a much greater threat on the road than other modes of transport.
The trucker earns on overloads and high speed. They willingly share with their colleagues the practice of violating the rules of transportation of goods to ensure profit.
“700, 1000 kilometers, when I go 30 hours without sleep. To be honest, I would drive 8 hours a day and carry 20 tons, not 40, and so that my work is valued fairly, but this is somewhere in another world, perhaps not with us. So we will continue to carry overloads and not observe the sleep and rest regimen. Accordingly, corruption will flourish because of this.” >>>
“If you work “cleanly”, you won’t earn money. It happens for 15 hours driving. As long as your health allows, you can sleep for 4 hours, and go ahead. I take into account the standard rate of 12 euro cents per kilometer and make my own work schedule. , unloading is not paid. Therefore, you have to make up for lost earnings by walking 1200-1400 kilometers a day. " >>>
To reduce the amount of the fine for overloading, truckers often forge bills of lading. Truck parking lots are run by companies that print documents, licenses and permits for transported goods for a moderate fee.
shoulder epidemic
Many truckers are away from home for months, which leads to a reassessment of life values and, as a result, problems with men's health. Instead of the courageous image of a workaholic-"getter" for his relatives (or a serial joker), the people for last years a fundamentally different image of a trucker has developed, who systematically destroys the ideals of the family, takes a mistress (preferably several along the entire route), multiplying prostitution and the number of venereal diseases in the vicinity of federal highways (there are worthy exceptions, but they are few).
Chronicles family life truckers from one of the women's forums are horrified.
The degree of moral decay of heavy truck drivers can be estimated from the news headlines.
In a den for truck drivers, a two-year-old girl was kept as a prostitute. Little Rita, abducted in Novorossiysk, ended up in a brothel for truck drivers, where the girl was repeatedly raped. >>>
"Live Goods" was detained at the border with Lithuania. In the truck, the border guards found a young prostitute from the Kaliningrad region, whom the driver hid in the luggage compartment. >>>
The driver died while having sex with a prostitute in one of the roadside trucker motels. >>>
Truckers themselves happily joke on the forums that "shoulder" (prostitutes working on the tracks) are the most faithful colleagues and fellow travelers on the road. Most truck drivers are not embarrassed that among the "roadside" priestesses of love, about 30-40% are infected with deadly diseases - hepatitis or HIV.
After the next flight, these people return to their wives, who have been waiting for them for months, and in addition to the money they talk about so often lately, they bring deadly infections home. But when truckers talk about profits and earnings, the argument about the family (a happy wife, well-fed children) comes in handy.
Next, you will find a story about the life and work of road prostitutes working on the M1 highway. One of the priestesses of love spoke about all the intricacies of her profession, about what made her do it, and, of course, about her earnings.
On one of the “long” weekends in May, roadside girls chose the M1 highway, popularly referred to as the “Olympic”. This transit highway - part of the European route E30, passes through Belarus from Poland to Russia. In addition to Belarusians, foreigners drive here: truckers, business people, tourists. And no matter which way you go from the capital along the M1, women are standing near gas stations and cafes.
40 kilometers from the capital, on both sides of the road, near two roadside cafes with large parking lots, truckers “defend”. We were ready to wait for the evening, assuming that girls offer intimate pleasures to clients under the cover of darkness, but ...
What are you, they work here in the morning, without weekends, checkpoints! - laughed the Russian driver of the heavy truck, with whom we managed to talk. - Look, there is a girl on the other side of the road.
Women standing on the sidelines waiting for customers are frankly bored, so they agree to tell about themselves - only so that their faces are not shown, "so that children and acquaintances do not know what we are doing."
I'm a drunkard, so I'm standing here, - the tipsy blonde Nadia declares, crunching chips. With these words, the woman waved her hand, turned around and walked towards the parking lot. We learn from her friend that Nadya not only loves to drink, but also indulges in drugs, “and owes money to everyone in the world,” so she agrees to everything that the client offers her.
What else is left? I am from a small town, there is no work, and if there is, then the salary is small, but I need to support myself and the children. I have two of them - 14 and 17 years old. Alimony for two from the former - one and a half million. Moreover, you have to pay for a rented apartment, - a woman who called herself Maya confesses. - I'm 39 years old, higher education, held positions for many years, but had to come here. If I had been told earlier that I would be prostituting… Aw.
According to Maya, she was scared to go out on the track for the first time. But, she says, she was lucky: the first two clients were adequate men who paid 700 thousand rubles for an hour of work, then the work went well.
Now I go out when I need to. I take breaks to rest whenever I feel like it. Sometimes I take a vacation. I don’t go to foreign lands to rest, I prefer Odessa.
For a road prostitute, Maya looks good: with a manicure and pedicure, a neat haircut, silver jewelry on her neck and arms. Only clothes hint at a profession: a T-shirt with a deep neckline, short shorts and shoes with a flirty bow, high heels.
Some look worse, some look better. Everything depends on the woman. Those who have been working for a long time take less care of themselves. I also take care of myself, and the diet, nutrition, because I have an incentive and a desire to work. My clients are quite wealthy people, so my appearance should be appropriate. Someone who wants to, brings spare clothes and several pairs of shoes with him - often the legs get tired, you can change shoes, so that the heel is lower.
Maya says that among the clients there are most of all “long-distance fighters”: Belarusians, Poles, Russians, Lithuanians, and come across in cars. And customers have different cars - from ancient Volkswagen Passats to new polished BMWs.
Service - in the cab or inside the car. With a trucker - in the parking lot, in a passenger car we drive off into the forest. If the car is “rich”, this does not mean that you will take more money from the client - on the contrary, they are clamping down, demanding a discount. Very greedy Russians and Poles, someone even asks for change. And somehow I drove off with one to the forest, everything ended quickly for him, so he tells me: “Well, wow, you earn money - in just 2 minutes, one and a half thousand [Russian] rubles!”.
From the fact that guests from Russia came to the country for the May holidays, the girls, they say, are neither hot nor cold: there is no profit.
What's the use of them - out, rushing past, - Maya waved after the cars with Russian numbers. - There are good truckers, but now it has become difficult for them to work - strictly for every euro they have to report according to the documents. I know, because many drivers pour out their souls to us, especially older people. They complain that it is hard for them to work, they pour out all their negativity on us. Have to listen.
However, despite the financial difficulties of clients, the woman is convinced that prostitution will always exist: "As long as there are men, this work will continue."
You know, this money is very easy, - Maya quickly switched to “you”. - Well, morally, maybe a little hard, but then you get used to it. It's very hard to get out of here. First, the clientele is developed. If you have served well, they ask for a phone number, and then they call, come, pay good money. Get used to big money. But as they come, so quickly they leave.
Maya does not undertake to single out any one type or age category of men who use the services of girls.
Men are different, from 20 to 50 years. Of course, there are older ones, but this is rare. There are clients with interesting deviations or special desires. In general, you can earn a lot if you really work for days. I'll tell you that I usually get 20 million a month. They pay in Russian rubles, and in dollars, and in euros, but you don’t need hryvnias, - the woman laughs. - Now there is enough earnings, and if I worked at the factory, then there would be money - only to rent an apartment and pay utilities, for everything else there would be a million and a half. It's impossible to live on that kind of money. But I don’t call anyone to the track: such work is out of desperation.
The cost of services of all road prostitutes is approximately the same: for oral sex - from 15 to 20 dollars, traditional - from 25 to 50 dollars.
Of course, the prices are very flexible, and we can make a discount. For example, if the client immediately wants the complex. Someone prefers anal sex - about the same cost as for regular sex, although, looking at a specific person, I can throw a little.
While we are talking, cars periodically slow down nearby - drivers are interested in the cost of services. Maya bends down so that the man can look into the deep neckline, and voices the prices: "350 thousand - yelled, 500 - sex."
Why so expensive? Come on 200! - the driver is traded. Maya disagrees and the car drives off.
I will not work for 200 thousand. Maybe when there is no money, and I will agree, but now I am not broke.
Maya assures that during sex, even oral, she always uses a condom.
Here, I carry a condom with me, a lubricant for anal sex, - a woman demonstrates the contents of a small handbag. - There are clients who do not want a condom, but I do not mess with them. I also try not to get into the car if there are more than two people, you never know what.
From the side of the parking lot, a trucker client is heading towards the woman. Two minutes of negotiations - and Maya disappears for an hour in the cab of a tractor with Russian numbers. His colleague, expelled from the car for a while, is trampling near the truck.
Do not look at me, I do not use the services, - the man was embarrassed. - And that colleagues of girls remove - I do not condemn. A man has such a warehouse - nature demands its own. But women need to earn money. Girls work everywhere - both in Russia and in Europe. And even from different countries they appearance do not differ from each other, even ours are prettier and more cultured somewhere.
At this time, new girls appeared on the side of the road. One looks bright: long hair with a reddish tinge, a black low-cut dress and ballet shoes.
It is easier to stand in such shoes than in heels. Legs get tired. I have been here for a long time, the first time I went to the track when I was 22 years old. And now - 36, but I look younger, - the woman smiles with dark spoiled teeth. - I am divorced from my husband, mother-heroine - six children. The eldest is 14 years old, the youngest will be three. I receive 2,400,000 for a small allowance. Is this money? I need at least 400 thousand a day. In general, I have my own house, they gave it as a large house. Repairs did, too, money was needed very much. I have no relatives, my mother was deprived of parental rights, and then she died.
The woman says that it is difficult to work on the road: “The police are constantly raiding the roads, even pulling them out of cars in the forest.”
Drivers actively react to the bright appearance of a prostitute, so in ten minutes she leaves with another client.
I’ll go home, I’ve worked, I’ve already called a taxi, ”says her friend. - Well, yes, we always take a taxi to the track and back. In one direction, 160 thousand taxi drivers take. Actually, I've been working here for a long time. Many have been here for several years. After all, some have loans, children. What are we, window sills to gnaw? Why do men come to us, it is known: wives are lazy, their head hurts. One of my clients once said: "My wife's eyebrows did not hurt for a month."
After a while, Maya appears on the road with lipstick smeared on her face.
Everything worked out, - the woman says, chewing gum and at the same time picking her teeth with a toothpick. - Hard work, sometimes thankless. Sometimes you get so much work in a day ... No matter how good a condom is, there is still friction. You work with several clients - everything hurts.
Some motorists passing by us honked and waved their hands. Maya smiles back and blows kisses.
When there are no women in the car, the men greet us. And if women are driving, they are ready to turn their heads out of cars, looking at us - as if we were some kind of special. And you look (this is already for us) - if a Volkswagen Touareg appears, we will run away with you. The morality police ride it. And you stand with me, so you will be noticed too. Although you do not look like a prostitute and your mood is not like that - people from afar feel, you see: no matter how much we stand, no one stops. You can't work with this approach.
Already evening. Maya takes a long Velcro flicker from her small bag and hooks it onto this very bag.
Have you heard a joke that Belarusian prostitutes can be distinguished from others by the obligatory flicker? Wow, no joke. And then it will get dark now, and I won’t be seen, and the traffic police can fine me. Now I’ll work it out and go home, only Nadya will be left here drunk, and they will take her ...
It has been standing on the Grodno-Baranovichi highway (in the Zelva region) for so long that the locals mistake it for a road post. Of course, Tatyana wants to become something more than a street prostitute, but, she says, feelings of fatigue and hopelessness interfere. Weakness. And a society that likes to hide from people like her.
A worker in the "service sector" on the highway Zelva - Slonim Tatyana
Now Tatyana* 39. Twenty of them she is in the service sector. A trucker doll, if you will. Although it is difficult to call road prostitutes “dolls”. As a rule, they do not shine with beauty. Most often these are unwashed, drunken women. Their faces are sad, and there are more scars on their bodies than a combat officer of the SAS. Every morning she leaves her house in the agricultural town of the Zelvensky district, takes a ride and drives to Zelva. Its working platform is the P99 highway.
— Everything is simple. I stop the car. Please give me a lift to Slonim. I rate the driver. I ask the question: “Do you want to rest?” An hour of traditional sex costs 300 thousand rubles. Additional services- 400-500 thousand, but I rarely provide these services. A working day brings about 10-15 USD. It's minimum.
I remember once I earned 780 euros in half an hour. But it happens that you can barely scrape together 50 thousand rubles. Income(laughs) I do not cry: there is no one. If they could give me a checking account, I would be happy to. There are discounts, but only for regular customers. Clients are mostly Belarusians. On passenger cars. Polish and Russian truckers also stop, but less frequently. The most depraved are the inhabitants of Poland, sometimes their sexual fantasies go beyond the reasonable. Although there are often individuals among Belarusians. From the innocent: "Take off your clothes and dance while I drive"- says Tatyana.
Now she works only for herself. And only in the direction of Slonim. In the direction of Volkovysk - 6-8 prostitutes per kilometer, competition. Yes, and the local police are no longer particularly touching. Unless sometimes a civilian will drive up in a passenger car and ask: “Are you working?” He pokes a certificate in the face and draws up a protocol. For the lack of flicker on the sleeve.
How would you survive?
Everything went wrong for Tatyana since childhood. Born in the village of Kovalevshchina (Logoisk district, Minsk region). She studied well at school and was even the chairman of the pioneer squad. But things didn’t work out in the family: his own father drank and left his family. Mom died when Tatyana was 9 years old. Stepfather raped. Next is the boarding school. She worked on collective farms from the age of 14. At 15 she got a job at a match factory in Borisov. Lived in a hostel. Vasily served nearby - a citizen Russian Federation from the city of Karachev, Bryansk region. A casual acquaintance, pregnancy, moving to Russia is the traditional path of a child from a dysfunctional family who independently seeks well-being.
In 1992, in Karachev, Tatyana received a passport (at that time, residents of Russia were still issued Soviet-style documents) and registered with Vasily. A son was born, who became the "reason" for marriage. There was no love anymore, because the husband cheated. And like any forced marriage, Tatiana's marriage turned out to be short-lived. The family only existed for a year.
— Divorce forced me to return to Belarus. I left my husband's house. She left him a son. It can be said that I abandoned the child, but in Russia my husband had a roof over his head and a job. I just wanted my son to have at least some sort of arrangement. Because she herself was returning to the unknown, albeit to her homeland. I decided to go to my sister, who lives near Molodechno. But I didn’t know how she would accept me and whether she would accept me at all ... I went from Russia to Belarus alone, in winter, hitchhiking.
Best offer
On the Moscow-Brest highway, Tatyana is picked up by a truck. There are two drivers and a teenage girl in the cab. Her name is Natalya, two years younger than Tatyana, but she feels quite comfortable in the company of adult men. She is from Slonim. Having learned about the problems of our heroine, Natalya invites her to work with her on the track. The incentive is her apartment in Slonim. A warm corner was at that time the most important desire in Tatyana's life, and she agreed. But quickly regretted...
— My new friend gave me a place to live, but demanded too much in return. I was looking for clients on the track on my own, she took the proceeds. My friend drank heavily. There was no other way but to leave her...
For a long time, Tatyana lived wherever she could, doing odd jobs, including street prostitution. A street prostitute, as you know, is always accompanied by a swarm of serious diseases. Tatyana was no exception. Pleurisy of the lungs, tuberculosis, multiple hematomas on the head and on the body, deafness ... Only on one arm from the wrist to the elbow there are 38 stitches: the hallmarks of a lost person who has the thought “I can’t change my world, so I’m changing it to another” is already becoming motto. The peak of moral decay - addiction to alcohol, physical - cirrhosis of the liver. The legs are lifted. And in the wanderings, the passport of the USSR was lost.
During this minor period, at the bus stop, Tatyana meets Alexander, who lives in one of the agricultural towns in the Zelvensky district. The girl goes to him. Because there is nowhere else to go.
I would like to be a human...
— Now I live with Sasha on bird's rights. He is interrupted by occasional and rare earnings, and my track is a constant source of income. In fact, I have been trying to quit prostitution for a long time. Now more than ever I need independence, I want to get a normal job on the same collective farm, get my own corner and become a full-fledged member of society. But they don't take me anywhere. I do not have a passport of a citizen of Belarus, which I am, and the Soviet passport is lost. Of all the documents on hand - a birth certificate, a marriage certificate and a certificate of employment at a match factory in Borisov.
For a long time I have been trying to get a passport for myself, but local services do not want to deal with my problem, since they generally consider me a Russian citizen. Because in 1992 I was married to a citizen of the Russian Federation and registered in the Bryansk region. In Russia, where they send me, I am nobody. I lived there for only a year, I was discharged and have no reason to obtain a Russian passport. But I don't need him. I'm Belorussian. But the Belarusian services are of little interest in this: from Slonim they are sent to their place of residence, to Zelva. From Zelva back to Slonim. And so in a circle. They would give at least some kind of temporary identity card, according to which it would be possible to get a job.
In a confidential conversation, the police officers told us:
— The woman has problems not only with her passport, but also with alcohol. Both the authorities and ordinary residents of the agricultural town where she now lives tried to help her. They got a job at a local factory. But for a long time she did not last there precisely for this reason. The police no longer touch her only out of pity, she is very ill. Otherwise, they would have been hidden in LTP for a long time and for a long time. Now, first of all, she needs to stop drinking, get medical treatment and restore her passport. She has money for this, she earns not only by prostitution. According to the decision of the court, which at one time recognized her as a victim of the actions of pimps, the Red Cross pays her an allowance. Do you want to become a full member of society? Much, if not all, depends on her.
Head of the Department for Migration and Citizenship of the Logoisk District Department of Internal Affairs of the Minsk Region Alexander Germanov:
— She was born and raised in the Logoisk region. Let him collect all the documents that he has on hand: a birth certificate, a certificate of education, divorce, certificates from the place of work, and go to our department. We will try to help her.
*Name main character changed for ethical reasons.
For most of us, the idea of truckers was formed by the series of the same name. And someone knows about the profession from the inside thanks to the stories of hitchhikers, who are often picked up by truckers. How do truckers live in Russia and why did they go on strike because of Plato? We tried to figure it out.
1. Choice of profession
Truckers are either romantics or pragmatists. The former like to be on the road, while the latter hope to earn. Most often, truckers are people from regions who want to earn money and “travel”.
2. Mastering the profession of "truck driver"
To become a trucker, you need to get a category C (truck) and CE (truck with a trailer) license. Then get a job in a transportation company. Or buy your own company and do private transport. The cost of the main tractor varies around three million rubles, and the trailer will cost another one and a half million.
A self-employed driver is either respectfully or ironically called "master" among colleagues. But in fact, working without a boss is even worse in some ways: usually such truckers have less rest and take any job in order to “recapture” the cost of the car faster. Finding clients on your own is not easy either.
By the way, there are almost no women in the profession. This is due not only to the way of life, but also to the fact that in the event of an accident, sometimes you have to change the wheels yourself or repair a huge car. Not all women can do it.
3. Salaries of truckers
You can earn from 40 to 70 thousand rubles a month, but it all depends on the company. Worst of all, according to the stories of drivers, is the drivers of Magnit. They have the lowest salary, and the products must be delivered exactly on time.
Working for yourself and not sitting still, you can get 70-80 thousand per month. But every 50 thousand kilometers you need to undergo maintenance, which costs from 50 to 100 thousand rubles. And also gasoline. Force majeure also happens when, for example, a wheel breaks. The driver, working as an individual entrepreneur, takes all these costs on himself.
4. Forced rest
By law, the driver must have a tachograph installed in the cab. This is a device for recording speed, mode of work and rest. Depending on the time spent behind the wheel, the trucker must rest a certain amount of time. This is by law. But in reality, on the territory of the Russian Federation, many of these rules are neglected in order to quickly reach their destination.
5. Sleep and food
Drivers sleep most often right in the car. In modern trucks, behind the driver's seat there is a full-fledged bed with a mattress - a “sleeping bag”. Sometimes the truck is even equipped with two such sleeping bags, if truckers are traveling together in a truck. Drivers spend the night most often in special parking lots, and not on the roadsides. There, another driver may enter the truck, or the trucker will become a victim of robbers. The driver will be solely responsible for the lost or damaged cargo.
Sometimes the company pays for an overnight stay at a roadside hotel. But here the drivers are ready to go to the trick: you can sleep in the cab and provide a fake receipt for an overnight stay at the hotel, and take the money for yourself. Fake receipts and checks are sold by special people working near the highways.
You can also safely spend the night in areas where truckers stop in a “bunch”. There can be 10-20 trucks at a time. True, there is a risk that while the driver is sleeping, his diesel fuel will be drained. It will be impossible to prove anything.
As for food, most eat in roadside cafes. Good information is shared between colleagues. Some take food with them (canned food, tea, pasta), especially if the car has a stove and a mini-fridge.
6. Do drivers sleep with prostitutes?
It depends on the trucker himself. By the way, truckers call girls of easy virtue "shoulder" or "shoulder". A shoulder is a few tens of kilometers of the track - the distance from gas station to gas station.
7. Communication with colleagues
All trucks are set to a special 15th communication channel. There, drivers warn each other about traffic jams, traffic police officers and accidents. Here you can specify the road, find out where to buy diesel fuel and other useful information. Chatting on other frequencies. By the way, the passenger of the truck is unlikely to understand what the truckers are talking about - the radio has a very specific sound.
8. Why don't truckers like cars?
Any truck has a so-called blind zone - a part of the road that is inaccessible to the driver's view. Dalnoboev is very annoyed that the drivers of "small" cars do not understand this and create the risk of an accident.
9. "Plato"
"Platon" is a Russian system for collecting fees from trucks weighing over 12 tons. It is believed that trucks cause damage to federal roads, destroying them. The additional tax should help support the transport infrastructure. The introduction of "Platon" caused dissatisfaction among the carriers and marked the beginning of mass protests. Strikes by disgruntled drivers and demands to abolish the tax only led to a reduction in the tariff.