I just finished reading the "Ask me about all the dirty little secrets of the trucking industry" thread at Something Awful. The insider knowledge of the forum's main contributor, Truckin A man, is pretty interesting, but I was also struck by his heavy use of trucker slang.

So here's the good stuff. Spelling has been corrected and censored epithets have been restored.

4-wheeler - "what we call any vehicle not a truck" (3)

albino deer - "a slang term we use to refer to the odd shit you see at night when driving too damn tired" (2)

bear - law enforcement officer (1)

bear in the air - police helicopter (3)

chicken hauler - trucks that are decorated heavily with chicken lights. (2)

chicken lights - The extra lights popular amongst owner-operators, lease-ops, and small companies looking to get noticed. (2)

city titty - local cop (3)

commercial - polite term for a prostitute (2)

convention - lots of city police (3)

county mounty - county cop (3)

customer - someone who has been pulled over. a cop is said to be "with a customer" if he currently has someone pulled over and "open for business" while manning a speed trap. (3)

discos - metonym for a cop with his submission lights turned on. (3)

dry van - a standard trailer (1)

floating - "floating involves shifting without ever touching the clutch except to stop or start out, and is DEFINITELY more art than science." (1)

full growed - "full growed = full grown bear = Sheriff" (3)

good buddy - "Good buddy is a slang term for gay truck driver by the way, so don't call a truck driver a good buddy unless you want punched. Call us simply 'Driver'" (2)

granny lane - the far right lane (3)

hammer lane - the far left lane (3)

lot lizard - slang for prostitute (1)

lumper - "'Lumpers' are one of trucking's dirtiest little secrets. They are people whose only job is to unload trucks. They are often part of a subcontractor group that functions independent of whatever facility you are delivering at and are most commonly found at food warehouses." (2) He claims later that this is an official term (3).

pickle park - a rest stop, called a pickle park "because the parking situation is usually so tight." (3)

picnic - lots of state police (3)

the push - a tactic where "we intentionally tailgate you (usually with headlights engaged, even if it's daytime) because you're driving like grandma and we want you to speed the fuck up or get out of our way." (3)

reefer - refrigerated cargo, usually food (1)

rolling - moving, driving (3)

the wiggle - a tactic in which "we pretend to 'accidentally' swing our trailer into your lane, scaring the shit out of you and making you get far away from us." (3)

Trucker slang is plentiful elsewhere on the internet as well: check out a longer list of terms at The Truckers Place.

Labels: vocab