Practical wisdom and Prudent driving

Practical wisdom and prudent driving go hand in hand. so this is where we take a philosophical approach to making professional driving a virtue. The end result is it combines our knowledge from experience with our ethics and morals.

Practical Wisdom, the master of all virtues

Let’s backtrack for a moment. I talked about “Luck” earlier on. I thought it allowed me to make the right decisions at the right time and kept me safe on the road. It did, but I wasn’t making the decisions for the right reasons.

So we brought up “Moral Intelligence” and “Practical Wisdom” after that and things started to change. I was on my way to becoming a professional driver by doing the right things, at the right time, for the right reasons. A professional truck driver understands that they’re not the only one out there.

Peace River region freezing rain storms claim many victims.

If you aren’t familiar with the term “Practical Wisdom” (Phronesis), it was considered by Aristotle to be the “Master” of all virtues. His teachings have been interpreted by many people over the last 2,300 years, and psychologists and philosophers have spent years debating the meanings and writing books about it.

I’ve modified a few things to tie this into practical wisdom and prudent driving, but I was fine with this. I’m sure Aristotle himself would have been since he was the one that coined the term “Bend The Rule”.

“For all the virtues will be present when the one virtue, practical wisdom, is present.”

Aristotle

My understanding was virtues could become unbalanced to the point of becoming vices without practical wisdom. Aristotle claimed that every virtue has two ends of the spectrum and practical wisdom allowed you to find the “mean” or balance between them.

Unlike the middle, the balance point or mean is always changing with the circumstances. In essence, Practical Wisdom provides rational, ethical, and moral thinking to always find the balance point. This is what leads to doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right reasons.

Of course very few things comes naturally in life and in order to gain practical wisdom there are attributes or skills Aristotle believed you needed. I decided to interpret and modernize them into a way that worked for me for in the trucking world.

First, you have to take pride in your work. (Have a goal, or purpose to be good at what you do.)

Next, you have to have experience as Aristotle said, but you also have to understand, analyze, learn from and apply it (a modern day risk-assessment).

Lastly, you need moral intelligence to determine right from wrong and how to always act on it in an ethical way. I think this is where most people drop the ball. They know what the right thing to do is, but they fail to do it. I fell into this category myself in my younger more reckless days.

Moral intelligence is one of the more important attributes for younger drivers, or people new to the industry. When experience is lacking, moral intelligence still allows you to make sound decisions. I believe almost everyone has at some sense of moral intelligence. Whether we use it or not is a different story.

A new or inexperienced driver that applies moral intelligence is at least making decisions with the best of intentions based on knowing right from wrong. I feel this puts them way ahead of those with many years of experience that never gained practical wisdom.

Practical wisdom gave me the ability to perform the most important part of my job. Driving requires ongoing risk assessments where I continually had to balance my “Confidence” and my “Caution” in order to find the mean Aristotle describes. Without this balance, my virtue could become a vice.

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A good truck driver attitude is a direct reflection of applied practical wisdom.

I also realized that practical wisdom and prudent driving was the key to having the right attitude. Aristotle claimed it was the key to happiness in life. Rational and ethical thinking gives emotional control and patience. I was happier and my attitude reflected it.

It was similar to achieving “Inner Peace” that some of you are familiar with from other historical teachings. The emotions you show to others through trying situations are how they perceive your attitude to be.

I sat through countless safety courses with trucking companies that all talked about having a good attitude, but they never seem to break down any philosophy or concept on how to achieve one.

When I looked back on it, a lot of them shared the same selfish goal. They didn’t care about the happiness or well-being of the driver. Their only concerns were financial ones, because they knew a poor attitude cost them money in fuel, maintenance costs and equipment damage. It was all about serving the best interests of the company.

What makes things worse is the disconnect between safety departments, dispatchers, and management. It’s a well-known fact that most trucking companies have a safety department preaching rules, regulations, safety and attitude, while certain management and dispatchers are saying, “I don’t care, just get it done.”

It must be confusing for new people in trucking when they realize that there are rewards for following the rules from the safety departments, and rewards for not following the rules from the dispatchers.

The dispatching rewards are, “If you push with this load for me, I’ll reward you with this good one.” They’ll give you more loads and better loads for stretching your log book or even running illegally. In other words, reward you for acting in their best interests and not following the rules.

On the other hand you’re rewarded with a “Safety Bonus” if you do the right thing. (serve the company’s best interest.) The problem is people are doing the right thing out of need or selfishness for the money. They’re not always doing the right thing for the “Right” reasons. If you don’t believe me, ask 100 truck drivers what makes them drive prudently and see how many of them reply with,

“Because I want to make sure everyone’s safe out there.”

as opposed to,

“I get bonuses for safe driving and I need the money.”

The answer you get will clearly determine whether someone is doing things for the right reasons or not.

All this makes finding a good “Moral” company to work for difficult in today’s society. Especially when there are penalties for being an ethical and moral person.

Dispatchers frequently force drivers to bend the rules for the wrong reasons. When the driver refuses, it’s usually held against them. Dispatchers rarely respect the decisions made by drivers of a moral nature, but this is due to lack of training. This isn’t just a problem within the trucking industry, it’s society in general.

When and if something bad happens, nobody is going to watch your back.

The extremely long hours of Ice road trucking can take its toll on many drivers as they can fall asleep at the wheel.

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“Experience” and “Professional” have to be the two most misunderstood and overused words in the working world.

Experience = Knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone.

The Dictionary

I don’t usually quote a dictionary, but this definition proves another point. It says “Knowledge or practical wisdom gained”. The knowledge is automatic. The practical wisdom isn’t.

Unfortunately, we never hire people based on practical wisdom. Most companies put experience at the top of the list of reasons to hire an employee. For some reason, it’s automatically assumed that by having experience you know what you’re doing and you’re good at it. Sometimes, it’s even associated with being a professional or an expert, which is simply not the case.

“Experience is a tool for your mind, and its value is dependent on the user.”

If you look through a job or career section of any newspaper or website you’ll notice almost every ad you see requires “Experience”.

I never saw any value in hiring someone that had experience, but never learned anything good from theirs. You can’t become a professional or expert without practical wisdom. You could have all the experience in the world, and still be a dangerous driver.

If you don’t like Aristotle’s ideas of practical wisdom you can think about it another way. Just over 100 years before Aristotle and half way across the continent, there was another great philosopher writing down ideas for fortune cookies.

“He who learns but does not think, is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.”

Confucius

Most employers don’t know the difference between a knowledgeable applicant and a professional.

Here’s why.

Very few companies ask questions during an interview that require rational thinking and moral responses to find out if the applicant is a professional or not.

Instead, they talk back and forth about how much knowledge each one of them has. Hell, they can barely find a “body” to fill space these days, let alone a knowledgeable one. That’s OK, because this quote from J. Paul Getty sums it up,

“The employer usually gets the employee they deserve.”

“Professional Truck Driver”

This is the other term tossed around all too frequently and there’s no real definition for it. It’s hard to imagine how a relatively undefined term can be used to the extent this one is. I didn’t find much on my Google searches.

“Undertaken or performed for gain by people who are paid.” was one of them, and “Extremely competent in a job” was the other. If we use “Extremely competent in a job.”, that puts the number of professional drivers below the 5% mark. If we take out the word extremely, we might be able to bump it up to 30% or 40%.

I’ve also seen some trucking sites and companies with some really good definitions. They refer to a professional driver as someone,

“Having the ability to represent themselves and their company prudently through all aspects of their job.”

A professional trucker is said to have a positive work attitude that allows them to consistently fulfill their duties of safe operation, and service.

These make sense, although, I’d define a Professional Truck Driver in this way.

Professional truck driver – “One who possesses the practical wisdom to consistently make prudent decisions based on the knowledge gained from experience.”

If defensive driving teaches you what to think about behind the wheel, Practical wisdom and prudent driving explains how to think behind the wheel. Safe driving is a virtue to a professional truck driver where all their actions consistently and continually achieve “Moral Excellence.”

2001 Kenworth W900 hotel Kenworth on ice. Sweet spots and sweat spots. The temperature is never right.

How do you know when you’ve gained practical wisdom? It feels like you switched on a light in your brain and you can see everything more clearly.

Thanks for reading Practical Wisdom and Prudent Driving