At first, trucks had no cab at all. The driver sat outdoors on a wooden seat. Roads were rough and bumpy, if passable at all. The working day was tough, lasting from early morning to late evening. An average haulier worked up to 3,800 hours a year, compared with today's average of about 1,700 hours a year. And, according to one description of Swedish trucking life in the 1930s, one round trip a week between Skåne province in the south and Stockholm, a distance of 600 km, was all a driver could manage. "We loaded on Sunday mornings between 5 and 6 am. Then, after a solid breakfast and a couple of schnapps, we would set off for Stockholm, where we were expected at 6 pm the next day," a driver recalled. In those early days, there were no safety regulations, but a commercial driving licence was required. On the other hand, trucks didn't go very fast. According to a 1903 exhibition catalogue, Vagnfabriken's first truck managed a full 12 km/h.

Technical developments have accelerated throughout the 20th century, moving extremely fast in recent years. "Six years ago, when I started, no one had mobile phones. A driver had to park at a filling station and phone from there," says Jaap Tersteeg, FMC Manager/Benelux at E.R.S. Logistics BV in the Netherlands. Moreover, with today's technology, a driver's working day is well documented. A tachograph reveals the number of hours he has driven, and at what ground and engine speed. A GPS satellite monitoring system tells traffic dispatchers exactly where each truck is located, and the driver is in easy contact with the world by mobile phone. According to Johan Fogelin, traffic manager at Ahréns Åkeri, a haulage firm in Södertälje, aside from good driving, the most important skill a driver hauling international cargo in Europe needs is a knowledge of languages. English is a must, but other languages are desirable. Bill Skoglund, training manager at Utbildningscentrum BSAB in Jönköping, Sweden, has been training truck drivers for 30 years. He agrees with Fogelin, and adds that the quality of the driver's working environment has greatly improved. "Driving is not the primary concern today," he says. "Drivers need to be familiar with new technology, have social skills and preferably be multilingual too. They are their company's ambassadors. "Among the biggest changes are technical advances inside the truck itself that have made the driver's job comfortable. Not all of them are high-tech. Björn Widén, 54, who has worked in haulage all his life, has driven a Scania R144 with a Topline cab for Ahréns since 1997. He feels that the most important features of his truck are its refrigerator and coffee brewer. In the evening, he likes to drive into a German "Autohof", where he can take a shower and eat a nice meal. Having parked, he makes his bed - with proper bed sheets. "Then I feel like a king!" he says. Yet truck drivers still have tough jobs despite such creature comforts. Haulage companies pressure them and insist on strict adherence to timetables. Loading and unloading are very risky and most countries still have no regulations on seatbelt use.

E.R.S. Logistik BV in the Netherlands attacks timetable problems by doing 95 percent of its hauling at night. That way, cargoes always arrive the next morning. They move faster and more safely, since night traffic is far lighter. Mr Tersteeg sees nothing wrong with night driving: "We have fixed routes, and our customers expect rush deliveries. There is no reason to drive during the day. "The traffic surrounding trucks is constantly increasing, making heavy demands on drivers. Within ten years, the total quantity of transported cargo is expected to rise by 50 percent, and annual mileage per truck by 40 percent. Driver comfort and technical aids that enable drivers to operate heavy vehicles more easily and economically will therefore become more and more important in the future. Today, Scania engineers are looking at systems that will make it easier for drivers to manoeuvre their vehicles so they can focus to a greater degree on the traffic environment. For example, they are testing various kinds of truck stabilisation systems. The lower the centre of gravity, the more safely a truck holds the road. Lane-keeping and adaptive cruise-control systems are also under development. They will ensure that a vehicle stays in the right position on the road and in relation to the vehicles ahead of it. It is no big step from this to a system that can intervene if the vehicle does not behave as programmed. But the question is whether this is desirable. After all, massive forces are set in motion if anything goes wrong, so, for the time being, and probably well into the future, it will be the driver who continues to make the crucial decisions.