Truck drivers all over the world seem to have one thing in common. And no, it is not that they drive a semi. It is because it seems that every truck driver wears a hat. If you are shopping for hats online, you will come across many nicknames for hats. For example, baseball caps, dad hats, snapbacks, and of course trucker hats.
Why do truckers wear hats?
- Protection from the sun
- Fashion
- Advertising
Truck drivers all over the world wear hats to help block the sun rays and the glares that may affect there driving. Not only are hats fashionable, but they are just as important for safe driving. Often the “trucker hats” worn by truckers are given to them for free as promotional advertisements.
Truckers drive for hundreds if not thousands of miles. A lot of times on very little to no sleep. Blocking the sun rays and potential glares are very important when driving such a big vehicle that is sometimes hauling a very dangerous load. The load could be a tanker full of gasoline or other harmful chemicals.
The trucker could also be hauling an extra-wide load, like a double wide home. Truckers need to be alert at all times and wearing a hat to help with distracting sun rays and glares, makes driving the big semi-trucks that much easier.
So is blocking the suns rays and potentially dangerous glares the only reason that truck drivers wear hats? One would think so, but as it turns out, there are other reasons why truckers wear those iconic trucker hats.
The Reason Why Truckers Wear Hats
Hats and truck drivers seem to go hand and hand. I remember in the early 90s when I was a young boy, my dad drove a semi for most of my childhood. I remember he would be gone for days at a time and every time he would come back home he would have a different hat from a lumberyard or from a hardware store.
They all were made the same, just a different color and a different logo on the hat. So why does it seem like every trucker wears hats? We learned that one of the main reasons why they wear hats is to help block out unwanted sun rays and glares that could affect the truck drivers driving. But it seems that there are more reasons than just that.
Trucker hats have turned into a fashion accessory, but they didn’t start out that way. Trucker hats originated in the 1960s. U.S. farm equipment supply chains and feed stores decided to use hats as a brand exposure tactic.
Truckers travel all over the United States stopping in many different cities and in many different states. The farming and feed companies thought it would be a good idea to print their company’s logo and information on hats and give them to the truck drivers that would deliver supplies to them.
These truckers who thought they were just receiving a free hat that helped block the sun, just turned into a walking, talking billboard for the farming and feed companies. So when the truckers wore the hats, they would be advertising that particular farm equipment store or that particular feed store.
When speaking to someone you look at them in the eyes. What is right above the eyes? The forehead. So people all over the country would talk to these truck drivers and see that company’s logo, the location, and the phone number. That would serve as an advertisement and it would help that company bring in more business. Blocking the suns rays and dangerous glares are very important. But what the hat showcase can be just as important.
Truckers could even wear trucker hats that advertise for the trucking company that they drive for. That, of course, is very important for the truck drivers company.
Trucker Hat vs The Baseball Cap
Some people would say that a trucker hat and a baseball cap are exactly the same. This is a false statement and they are actually very different from each other. Yes, they are both hats and yes they both can be a form of advertising for different companies. But there are a lot of differences between the two hats.
If you want to get technical, a trucker hat is considered a snapback hat, but not every snapback hat is considered a trucker hat. Trucker hats do have the adjustable snap just like a snapback hat, that makes the hat capable of fitting everyone’s head. But the material used to make the trucker hats and the way that the hats are crafted makes the difference.
Trucker hats are mainly made of foam in the front of the hat. And the way the hat is crafted in the front makes it much taller than the typical baseball cap. This higher surface is perfect for displaying company logos and information. The back half of the trucker hat is made of a mesh material. This mesh material makes wearing the hat in the summer much more easier.
Wearing a hat in the summertime can make your head very hot. But the mesh on the trucker hats makes it possible for air to get in and circulate and that helps to keep your head cool. Baseball caps are crafted usually using solid pieces of cotton, so there isn’t any breathability to the cap.
A Brief History On Hats
The baseball cap has been a part of every baseball players uniform since the 1850s. It wasn’t really socially acceptable to wear a baseball cap if you didn’t play professionally on a team until the 1970s. In the 1850s, the first baseball caps were crafted using straw as a material.
These straw hats were first worn by the professional baseball team the New York Knickerbockers.
After a few years of wearing the straw hats, they switched the hat’s material from straw to wool. As years went by they realized wool hots were too hot, so they began to make baseball caps out of cotton, which was much cooler to wear in the summer heat. As televised sports became popular in the 1970s and 80s, it became socially acceptable to wear baseball caps as a fashion accessory.
So overall the trucker hat is just an altered baseball cap. Instead of wearing the hat as part of a professional baseball team, the hats were made to give to farmers and truck drivers as a way to advertise different companies.
The farmers and truck drivers willingly accepted these trucker hats, not because of the advertisement on the front of the hat but because the bill helped keep the sun out of their eyes and the mesh material in the back of the hat helped keep their heads cool in the summer heat. So walking billboard or not, the trucker hat was crafted with mesh to keep heads cooler and that’s what sold the farmers and truck drivers to wear them.
Trucker hats are very popular in todays fashion world. Not just for farmers or for truck drivers, but for anybody and everybody. The design has remained the same over the years, the high foam material that creates the front of the hat, and the mesh material that creates the back. The hats are still used today as a marketing technique.
Almost any business or company you can think of still use trucker hats as a form of advertising. And that advertising still works and will continue to work forever. A simple hat created by a farming company or a feed company a long time ago to advertise the products and services they offer turned into one of the biggest fashion accessories in the world.
So if you see a truck driver wearing the iconic trucker hat, you now know they might be wearing the hat just to help block the suns rays or to protect their eyes from dangerous glares while they are driving but the story of the trucker hat is about much more than just being a sun blocker.
And to think, it all started from a farmer wanting to advertise the company they ran.
