Rating: Cute
It is very common and safe for truckers to keep pets with them on the road. Having a pet helps truckers with stress and loneliness. I looked into this account and from my understanding these kittens were born feral and rescued by this man. He has gotten them medical treatment, and is helping care for their eye infections. His set up in the truck is good, having a little box, kennel, bed and toys.
Is there any risk of them getting down in the pedal area while the truck is in motion? Do they get put in the crate while he drives, or is there a solution I'm not seeing here?
Hello, a different trucker with a cat here:
When I rescued my little calico cat and took her with me in my truck, I was worried about the same thing. A tiny kitten can squeeze into the most unlikely of places in a truck! However, very rarely did I ever need to lock her in her crate while I drove. I had her crate tucked into a space behind my seat where it couldn't move, and she would usually sleep there because it was a dark, safe space and she wasn't used to the motion of the tank truck.
Later on, when she got more used to the truck moving, she would play a bit, but due to where the gear shift was located (I drove a manual transmission truck), it was easy while I had the cruise control on to set my foot where it would block her from getting underfoot and where I could feel her trying and nudge her out of the way. She learned pretty quickly that underfoot was not a place for her.
The more pressing problem I had in my new Freightliner was that when I had the truck's Smart Idle feature on (battery powered AC that gets charged by the truck turning itself on and off) the window buttons also worked. As you can see from one of my pics, my solution was a loop of duct tape over the window button, sticky side up. I could still use the window button, but she did not like stepping on the tape.
(I was not worried about her getting out, she did NOT like the outdoors. I was more worried about my window being wide open while I was sleeping. The tape worked!)