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Getting sick is unpleasant in the best of circumstances. But for a trucker far from home hauling a load that must be in the receiver’s hands by tomorrow morning, the experience can be especially grueling.

Eat better and live a healthier lifestyle. That is the advice from a soon-to-be-released report on “Gettin in Gear,” a federal initiative that seeks to improve the health of the nation’s truck drivers as an antidote to fatigue and drowsy-driving problems.

The nation’s safest truckers descend on New Orleans this week for the 63rd annual National Truck Driving Championships.

It’s a long road to the National Truck Driving Championships.

Trucking’s safety inspectors are used to judging whether a driver and his or her carrier are following the rules. This week, the tables are turned, as 51 inspectors from the United States, U.S. protectorates as well from Canada and Mexico are carefully scrutinized in their own right by stern, impartial judges.

The founder of the company whose slogan for many years was “Where the rubber meets the road” had much to do with paving the way for the current truck transportation network.

Smarting from scads of criticism lobbed by trucking executives that shippers were not playing an active role in the debate over proposed revisions to the hours-of-service regulations, the board of directors of the National Industrial Transportation League reaffirmed its opposition to the proposed changes.

The proposed sulfur standard in diesel fuel for trucks and buses has not generated a groundswell of controversy and appears to be headed for adoption by the Environmental Protection Agency before year’s end.

Long hours, low pay and older men. That’s the profile of Canadian truck drivers and their work patterns, according to Statistics Canada.

Staff photographer Michael James is in New Orleans documenting this year's truck driving championships. See what's going on today through the lens of his camera.