Thanks for the kind words.
I freely admit that truck drivers cover the spectrum from A-J Squared Away to total scumbag...the same as with any group of folks.
Driving a truck is no casual thing for me. Every time I push the "start button" I pause and think to myself..."OK, nobody gets hurt today because of me." I am acutely aware of the potential for disaster, and do everything I can to prevent it. My Dad drove a truck locally when I was a kid, and I remember him frequently saying "You gotta be more careful than everybody else out there."
If I see another truck driver behaving badly, I've been known to key-up the CB and say something to them about it. Never had a positive response, but that was to be expected from the behavior I saw. If I were to witness an accident involving a truck, I'd tell the objective truth...no slant in favor of the truck driver.
The orientation of my instructors in driving school was "You're the professional driver, it's your responsibility to look out for the amatuers and make allowances for their lapses in attention/judgement." BTW, 4 weeks of driving school cost $5,500 in '99. Then I spent 8 weeks with a trainer before I was allowed to drive solo. After that, it was about 2 years until I really felt like I knew what I was doing. If you've never been a 48 state truck driver, you can't imagine the myriad rules/regs we have to comply with.
I consider the responsibility of driving a truck to be very similar to CCW. It's not a casual thing and should never be taken for granted.