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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.

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  • Any question about legalities must mention your location, because laws vary greatly by locality. – Flimzy Dec 16 '14 at 12:31
  • It's tagged hitchhiking, but isn't in the scope? – Mark Mayo Supports Monica♦ Dec 16 '14 at 13:06
  • @MarkMayo I rollbacked the edit, the tag wasn't added by the OP. – Dirty-flow Dec 16 '14 at 13:07
  • Cool. I was confused! – Mark Mayo Supports Monica♦ Dec 16 '14 at 13:11
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    @РСТȢѸФХѾЦЧШЩЪЫЬѢѤЮѦѪѨѬѠѺѮѰѲѴ IMHO asking for travel related online resources is on-topic, we have tons of such questions. – Dirty-flow Dec 16 '14 at 13:36
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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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    You've got the theory correct, but in practice I've still gotten numerous rides from truck drivers while hitching, since they either don't know or don't care about company policy and/or insurance issues. – lambshaanxy Dec 16 '14 at 12:07
  • @jpatokal The person who asked the question explicitly excluded hithchiking from the scope. – uncovery Dec 16 '14 at 12:49
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    @uncovery "I see trucks going everywhere, and I always wondered if I could get a lift from them." - hears like hitchhiking for me. – Danubian Sailor Dec 16 '14 at 13:04
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    I think the question is more about ride sharing/car pooling sites like Blablacar, Mitfahrgelegenheit, etc. so basically another way to arrange a lift not completely unlike hitchhiking and not about disguised taxi services like Uber. Not sure this answer fully addresses that. – Relaxed Dec 16 '14 at 13:36
  • I am not sure how it's a win/win situation if the driver does not get any money from the passenger. – uncovery Dec 17 '14 at 15:18
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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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  • Hitch hiking was excluded from the question. – uncovery Dec 16 '14 at 12:50
  • and hitchhiking is not always safe. It all depends on the people you meet, which you can't control. And of course it's not always safe either for the person picking up hitchhikers for the same reason. – jwenting Dec 16 '14 at 13:01
  • @jwenting I didn't written hitchhiking is safe. I've written hitchhiking with truck is as safe as normal one. – Danubian Sailor Dec 16 '14 at 13:03
  • (+1) But whether a site does exist to arrange such rides is a simple question that ought to be on-topic I think. – Relaxed Dec 16 '14 at 13:37
  • you wrote "if it wasn't, you wouldn't meet people doing it". Which implies it's inherently safe. – jwenting Dec 16 '14 at 14:10

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