etruck.com.au

The cable TV show ‘Ice Road Truckers’ is due back on our screens soon and it will be a chance to get ourselves reaquainted with the disparate characters taking the risks and reaping the rewards hauling equipment and supplies into the diamond mines in Canada’s frozen far north.

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The show’s success is not the over-hyping of the dangers involved or the excellent cinematography. it is its realism. No TV show has shown the realities of the life of the truckie in such a way and recorded the hum-drum of life on the road.

Preivious attempts at ‘truckie life’ shows tend to either portray the drivers as heroes doing something extra special or villains going all out to break the rules. On ‘Ice Road Truckers’ one driver, Alex, spends one journey worrying about a sticking bleed valve on the air tanks and Rick sits in the bar whingeing about his boss while doing nothing to improve things. Rick’s boss, an owner/driver, doesn’t give a monkey’s about Rick’s problems and tells him to get on with it. Sound familiar? Typical truckies!