New Zealand Trucking magazine‘s Dave McCoid had the opportunity to chat recently with some Indian truck drivers waiting on the side of the road in Oragadam near Chennai, for their booking slot to load out of the Daimler factory.

Mohammed Irfan was keen to try and breach the challenges that language barriers present. Although he lived not far from Chennai, he travels the length and breadth of India (a little over 12 times the size of New Zealand with 305 times the population) carting anything and everything in the 180hp Cummins powered Tata he drives for Express Roadways PVT Ltd. The truck ran a manual transmission and tares at 10 tonne with GVW of 25 tonnes, allowing a 15 tonne payload.

Mohammed was on his own at the time, however most trucks on line-haul work in the subcontinent run two, and sometimes three-up, with each driver allowed to drive a maximum of 600km a day. In many instances it‘s not possible due to road conditions and congestion.

The huge open cabs look somewhat primitive, they encourage breeze and offer good shade while waiting the three days to load in temperatures well into the thirties.

Although we cannot comment on Mohammed‘s situation, subsequent enquiries revealed a truck driver in India earns around 20,000 rupees a month ($422 NZ).