{"id":5432,"date":"2025-12-01T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alcoawheels.com\/north-america\/en\/blogs\/\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T14:03:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:03:09","slug":"the-holiday-season-runs-on-18-wheels-and-frozen-windshields","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alcoawheels.com\/north-america\/en\/blogs\/the-holiday-season-runs-on-18-wheels-and-frozen-windshields\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holiday Season Runs on 18 Wheels and Frozen Windshields"},"content":{"rendered":"
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It\u2019s 4:30 in the morning, just outside Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The wind cuts sideways across the lot, hard enough to rattle the mirrors. Chris, a long-haul driver from Illinois, has been parked for a few hours, barely enough time to shut his eyes. His back aches. He pours what\u2019s left of yesterday\u2019s coffee from a dented thermos, then boots up the cab and checks the weather. Seven hundred miles left. He\u2019s got six hours of margin, give or take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Farther south, in Amarillo, Maria fuels up her truck under flickering lights. She\u2019s on her third run of the week, heading for Flagstaff. Her dashboard flashes a tire pressure warning, again. She sends a quick text to dispatch, then climbs back in. She\u2019s hoping to beat the snow and make it home in time for her daughter\u2019s school concert next Friday. No promises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These aren\u2019t extreme cases. These are the holidays from the driver\u2019s seat. Cold starts. Empty lots. Coffee that doesn\u2019t stay hot. Clocks ticking. Roads that go on forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And still, they drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It isn\u2019t just freight in those trailers. It\u2019s everything the season depends on. Wrapped gifts. Frozen turkeys. Boxes of decorations. Bulk shipments of salt and fuel. If it\u2019s sitting on a store shelf or waiting on a doorstep in December, there\u2019s a good chance it got there by way of someone like Chris or Maria, someone watching the weather and counting the hours from behind a frosted windshield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no slowdown between Thanksgiving and Christmas. There\u2019s more freight. More risk. More missed dinners and video calls. And more drivers doing everything they can to hold it all together, quietly, without recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you manage a fleet, schedule routes, or keep trucks on the road, this matters to you. The names in this story have been changed, but the reality behind them hasn\u2019t. These weeks test even the most seasoned professionals in the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This piece is for them. And for you. Because how we treat our drivers in these weeks says everything about the industry, and everything about what kind of holiday season the rest of us get to have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a>What It Takes to Keep the Holidays Moving<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When we say the holidays don\u2019t just happen – they\u2019re delivered – these numbers show how true that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every Thanksgiving, truckers move around 55\u202fmillion live turkeys, plus 250\u202fmillion pounds of potatoes and 770\u202fmillion pounds of cranberries, keeping grocery aisles stocked across the country. Those figures come from the logistics specialists at Mercer Transportation and data from the National Turkey Federation and Farm Bureau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bigger picture adds even more depth. The National Retail Federation tracked about 197\u202fmillion shoppers between Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, making that stretch one of the busiest shipping periods of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Capacity doesn\u2019t stretch, it tightens. The FreightWaves National Truckload Index shows that around holidays, the Outbound Tender Reject Index (a measure of how often carriers turn down loads) jumps by nearly 3 percentage points, topping 10\u202fpercent on peak days. Rate pressure follows: spot rates climb too, hitting around $2.46 per mile, up 10 cents from the year before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short:<\/p>\n\n\n\n