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Information highway
Page 24
Page 25
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TruckNetUK has brought together British HGV drivers
like never before. Tim Maughan meets the man behind the website.
The Navigation Inn stands right on the doorstep of the Riverside Stadium, Middlesbrough FC's ground. It's an unusual setting: a solitary, detached pub next to a modern football stadium. And then, a few hundred metres away, are the towering chimneys of the Corus steelworks. Inside the Navigation's saloon, behind a pint of bitter and a ream of paperwork, sits Rikki Chequer. managing director of truckers' website TruckNetUK.
It's his day off, hence the beer, and more confusingly, the paperwork. As he explains, driving is still his main job; "I've been a Class 1 driver for 22 years. for my sins," he jokes, as he takes a sip of beer. "I started driving trucks in the [army's] Royal Corps of Transport in the early 1980s."
After that, he went through the mill of general haulage. before finding a niche on Special Types work. Heavy engineering loads are the mainstay of his work and road planers are a common consignment on the back of his ScaniaT cab, plated at 65 tonnes. Unfortunately, the job has its health risks."There is an awful lot of sitting around in this job and so I tend to smoke, and smoke,and smoke!" he explains.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that Chequer has two pairs of hands. He works full-time as a truck driver yet manages to keep TruckNetUK on drivers' computer screens.
It is a drivers' website through and through and Chequer explains his involvement. "In Christmas 1999 I thought that I'd buy myself a present, so I bought a computer.! plugged it into the telephone line and started looking for truck drivers' sites.
"Then I came across Truck.Net in the USA. If you ask drivers in the UK if they want to drive in America. the answer is usually 'yes'. They're after the stereotypes: the big trucks, the lifestyle. It's a pipe dream. though. In reality it is hard graft."
Chequer was impressed by the site's message board, a facility which connects truckers the length and breadth of the United States.-I saw that the drivers were talking about problems with parking, overloading and pressure to work over hours," he reflects, gulping a mouthful of bitter.
Popularity
He emailed the people behind Truck.Net, and in time requested a slot for a British section.The Americans agreed. Off his own back. Chequer then flew to Louisville, in Kentucky. That was in 2000. In 2002, he successfully persuaded Truck.Net to give him a UK franchise.
In November 2002 TruckNetUK attracted 31.350 visits. Chequer is keen to distinguish between "visitsand -hits": the former is the true reflection of a website's popularity. The latter, he points out, is merely one visitor clicking various pages on a site. If he chose to speak in terms of "hits" we'd be looking at nearly 2.3 million individual clicks in a single month. On an average day,TruckNetUK gets visits. Among other things, the site card' tions on equipment. jobs and sea crossinl it is the "Roundtable" arena which reall tures the spirit of Chequer's baby; drive; messages, drivers respond to questions. get things off their chests.
Solidarity
Some drivers connect their laptops u mobile phone in the cab; others acct site from home. Chequer acknowledgi TruckNetUK brings drivers together in that would be impossible without the int He also knows that some bosses an of this collective "power of communic and new-found solidarity. That said, it' new phenomenon; he explains how a T4 operator banned in-cab CB radios a feN back simply because he was concerned' staff would exchange unwanted gossip.
Chequer stresses that all comments Roundtable must be substantiated. It's tant that any libellous information does through. A team of administrators and erators scans the site, checking for pot' dangerous or offensive material.
There is a place, though. for constructi cism Truck parks are at the top of every • agenda and unsurprisingly these corm close scrutiny on the site.
Revenue
As Chequer moves onto his second I sums up why Class 1 drivers play seconi "It's simple. The companies that o parking areas want coach parties and I the revenue earners."
Sticking to the financial topic, we wi TruckNetUK is making significant a of cash for Chequer. The advertising sponsorship — in part provided by CM magazine Truck and Driver — he says only the cost of maintaining the sitc haulage pays his bills.
As long as trucks move and driver and seek knowledge, TruckNetUK wi computer screens. Chequer is adamant site will never be a forum for any strick paign.There will be no personal crusad At the end of the day, it's a place ford talk about day-to-day transport matte!
The inquisitive ones will get their qui dressed, too: "There is no such thing as question if you do not know the answe