Website to arrange rides with trucks
I see trucks going everywhere, and I always wondered if I could travel with them. It would be a win/win situation. They get company and/or maybe some extra money and I would get a trip to somewhere inaccessible and cheaper.
I don't want to look for rides on rest areas and petrol stations but would rather arrange them in advance, using a “truck sharing” service similar to ride sharing, car pooling, bla bla car or “Mitfahrgelegenheit” websites.
Is anyone aware of any site like? I am particularly interested in Europe, but information about other areas would be useful.
Best Answer
In most cases, this is not possible. The issue is that carrying a paying passenger like a taxi requires a different license and insurance. For private cars, this can be circumvented in many cases by using the car as a "rental with driver" as you can see on many airports (non-taxi limousines) which are not allowed to pick up passengers on the road but need to be reserved by other means.
when you have a commercial truck with an insured load, this becomes very tricky since the passenger would essentially become the transporter of the goods by hiring the truck as in the model above. You can imagine that this is not an ideal situation.
Of course this depends on the country in question, so a general answer is not possible. In most developed countries you will have the issue above however. The insurance issue is currently an issue for the Uber company for example. If an insurance company has to insure tons of precious load, I would be highly surprised if they would agree that the car is hired by someone else at the same time or that the truck is working like a taxi and picking up people on the road for metered rides.
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Answer 2
This are actually 2 questions.
Travelling by truck is possible. Just check some hitchhikers' blogs or meet them personally. Many truck drivers are bored and want to talk a bit or want to earn some extra and don't mind taking some passengers.
Is it safe? If it wasn't, you wouldn't met many people doing that. It's the matter of trust and the ability to recognize dangerous situations before they happen. But it's just with 'regular' hitchhiking or coachsurfing.
The viability of web site for that is the other issue, and it's quite off-topic in my opinion. Since the truck drivers are usually hired by other company, and not working on their own, they are officially not allowed to earn extra money by picking up some passengers or stuff (although that praxis may be tolerated in reasonable amount) so they won't be going to announce publicly (on the web site).
If you want a pick, just wonder around some rest place or highway restaurant and simply ask if they could pick you up.
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