Have you ever wondered where the term “Chicken Lights” came from? One legend says that the truckers in the 1920s, driving slow trucks on then-dark streets, were often the victims of thieves as they moved loads of chickens through small towns. To help stop this problem, truckers started putting lanterns around their cargo – thus the name, Chicken Lights. Today, almost 100 years later, it would be tough to steal anything from a rolling “triple digit chicken truck” so now all of those little LED safety devices are used to make a unique night-time statement. Truckers like Tracey Rieks are big on individualism – here you can see his Kenworth lit-up like a Christmas tree as he flew past me recently on the Interstate. Sporting tanker lights on the bumper and emergency vehicle lights on the trailer, Tracey’s unique “Chicken Truck” is proudly driven by Cooper Roberts (both of them are from Hubbard, IA). Cluck, cluck!
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interesting, but in the late sixties and early seventies, I drove for a man who offered “second morning delivery”. We leave from north central Louisiana or North east Texas and deliver LA on the second morning, we were running single, and we did this every week. Some Owners and drivers put extra lights on the trailer so they wouldn’t have to deal with an inanttentive four wheeler who would run into them, We were true chicken haulers. this was a time when a lot of drivers ran a swan hood ornament, it got to be popular to take a shotgun and try to shoot your hood swan off, it only happen once or twice but everyone started running extra lights so they wouldn’t get shot at, Oh all this happen rolling down the interstate, at about 80 mph…..cluck cluck chicken truck, we had some of the fastest and best looking trucks, This was a long time ago, We ran the same route every week and we could tell who’se truck it was and we holar at émover the CB, which led to chicken haulers running some very powerful CB…..How I and some of my friends survived is a big mystery, but we had fun and worked our asses off
Yeah in the early nineties we had the fastest freight hauling u it’s you ever laid eyes on thanks to DougAllen of Allen and associates. I had a lit up classic e tended Freightliner it ran 140 in the big hole. And yes we dam sure had fun. DOUG PASSED AWAY BUT ME AND THE GANG WILL ALWAYS HOLD HIM DEAR IN OUR HEARTS for he and his wife Betty and son Jimmy made it possible for us to have some of the greatest times of our careers. Chicken lights and chrome. Doug Allen gave us a home. We love ya Doug.