Wheels Of Change...How Trucking Shaped America

Celebrating nearly 100 years, the American truck has changed the face of America over the past century, bringing commodities to the far-flung corners of backwoods towns and leaving an imprint on the psyche of young boys for decades (who didn't have a Tonka truck as a kid?). Writer/director John Connor's history of trucking incorporates archival footage and stills, interviews with early truck drivers, and close-ups of many of the great trucks of old. Interestingly enough, the first really useful trucks were electric, burning rubber at speeds of up to 7 and 8 m.p.h., but they lost the battle to the internal combustion engine, and gasoline eventually lost to diesel (in 1931, it costs all of $11.32 in diesel to go from coast to coast). Interviewees talk about the good old days when a "defroster" was a candle held by a passenger, and heated bricks on the cab floor kept one's toes from becoming numb. Wheels of Change looks at the key developments both in legislation and technology over the decades, which led truckers from being a loosely knit band of travelers who spent the night in 40-bunk shelters along the road to today's modern organized truckers with high tech rest stops (in some, a trucker can take a shower, buy a new hat, fax his or her family, and check out new job listings on a computer). Although the program occasionally romanticizes its subject, overall Wheels of Change is an excellent and entertaining documentary at a superb price. Highly recommended. (R. Pitman)