Trucker Magazines

Most of them are easier picked up at the truckstop than they are subscribed to. Trucker's News is a fairly decent one, physically larger size than average magazines. It tends to come out in the middle of the month.

Roadstar is another one, regular size and it is usually available the first of each month. Some good articles, and the publishers of it also publish some trade journl type truking magazines for maintenance and operations people. Good staff, knowledgable writers.

The Trucker is a twice monthly newspaper type. Good info, though they like to fill the inside space with industry/company puff pieces sometimes, and they have the biggest fascination with wrecks and photos of any paper I know of.

The little 'readers digest" size magazines at the truckstops are universally junk, 2-3 articles usually recycled from the bigger magazines and the rest nothing but ads.

All the magazines have a lot of company ads in them, since that is how they make their money and what funds the free magazines.

There are still some pay magazines, like theo old "Overdrive" and "Landline" which comes with OOIDA membership, and some old trucking stuff from the various historical groups as well.

 

Wheels of Time, the magazine from the American Truck Historical Society, is available throughout the midwest in Tractor Supply stores. Comes out every 2 months.

 

LandLine and Overdrive can still be had for free.

the "paid for" subscriptions to LandLine come with your yearly dues (if you choose to join) and include more articles than the free version. this i know, as i now have the yearly membership, and the "paid for subscription" is thicker than the free one.

check with just about any truckstop, they will have the free ones, then you can use the "reader service card" inside of each magazine to recieve the free version sent to your home.

RPM magazine (looks like Reader's Digest) is full of crappy ads for jobs, and very little substance, unless you are at a toilet and need "flushing paper" then those "Reader Digest" sized magazines come in handy......but, ouch........the pages are rough on the skin...............

 

I have subscribed to Transport Topics for many years. It is a weekly news magazine of the American Trucking Associations. Sure, it is a business and government oriented magazine, but many articles are about such things as Hours of Service, equipment regulations, etc. They often publish letters-to-the-editor from drivers. It costs me $99 per year, but frequently I know of new regulations and trends before my bosses.

 

a former co-worker of mine from years ago gave me one of his copies. it is a good paper/mag indeed, but way too expensive for the average driver to subsribe to. my former co-worker was an o/o.

 

heard the companies advertising in those mags are no good....true?

 

they are just typical "help wanted ads"........

 

Burkey mentioned Wheels of Time. Some must have both Wheels of Time and Old Time Trucks. Wheels of Time is the magazine of American Truck Historical Society that stages a national antique truck show in a different part of the country each year. Their message board is very active and the participants are very knowlegable. We voted recently about receiving the magazine every month or a larger magazine bi-monthly with a couple of special issues not available at Tractor Supply. Cost is a deductable $37 (ATHS is a non-profit).

Old Time Trucks is new magazine (three years old, now) by the former editor of Wheels of Time. Dues are $25. They have staged one truck show and they are opening local club chapters, but it is a much smaller enterprise than ATHS. I subscribe to Old Time Trucks for the old-timer stories that seemed to disappear from Wheels of Time. The feature photo article in the Dec/Jan issues was by Hank Suderman. You may know him from the web site "Hank's Truck Pictures." I enjoy recognizing these people from the shows, videos, web sites and magazines. It is like one large family when you follow it over a period of time.