Let’s All Celebrate National Truck Driver Appreciation Week!

- 9:51 am - September 15th, 2025

National Truck Driver Appreciation Week is September 14-20!

And since we live and breathe trucks, we want to express our utmost appreciation not only for those intrepid men and women who drive trucks … but anyone and everyone who builds trucks, repairs and maintains trucks, and buys and sells trucks.

Folks in the trucking industry are worthy of our praise because:

You all are the backbone of America’s supply chain, the heartbeat of our economy, and the unsung heroes that make daily life possible.
You connect our nation’s communities, deliver essential goods and supplies, and keep us rolling along toward a brighter tomorrow!
You have chosen to take on one of the U.S.A.’s most demanding and important jobs.

At 3.5 million strong, American truck drivers not only deliver our goods safely, securely, and on time, but they also keep our highways safe. So, this week, we thought you’d like to learn some interesting facts about trucking:

Overall, trucking is roughly a $680 billion industry employing over 7 million employees.
Truck drivers collectively move nearly 70% of all freight tonnage in the U.S.
Without this essential industry, we would experience a food shortage within 72 hours, gas station fuel would diminish within 48 hours, manufacturing would shut down within hours, and ATMs would run dry almost immediately.
The top transferred items in America are clothing, food, furniture, electrical goods and machinery goods.
The trucking industry accounts for roughly 5% of America’s gross domestic product (GDP).
The 10-year industry growth estimate is 21%.
There are 200,000 female long-haul drivers – and the number keeps growing!
There are approximately 15.7 million trucks operating in the U.S. today. If you lined up all those trucks end-to-end, they’d reach the moon!
Trucks need 40% more time to stop than cars.
One out of every 14 jobs in the U.S. is created or directly affected by the trucking industry.
90% of the food Americans eat is hauled by refrigerated trucks.
Over-the-road truck engines are designed to travel more than one million miles before being retired, whereas car engines are expected to go just 200,000 miles.
The average big rig carries 80,000 pounds of freight at one time. That’s 40 tons of goods and products!
The trucking industry consumes roughly 50 billion gallons of gasoline every year, which is nearly 13% of the country's total fuel consumption.
Charles Freuhauf invented the first tractor-trailer over one hundred years ago in 1914when a customer wanted a vehicle that could haul a boat.
The average small business trucker can travel as much as 115,000 to 125,000 miles annually. That works out to more than 240 nights away from home out of the 365 days of the year and can add up to over 3 million miles over a trucker’s career.
The majority of the trucking companies in America are small businesses.

If there’s any industry that Americans take for granted, it’s trucking. So, let’s all celebrate National Truck Driver Appreciation Week … and if there is anything that Truck Service of Virginia can do for you, please contact us!