Company nicknames: Roadway is on the road and in the way


This post is one in a series on prominent company nicknames. See all 25, and share your thoughts and memories about Roadway below in the comments.

Once or twice a year, the family and I take a long, cross-country drive to one vacation spot or another. So when I heard that that the nickname of the freight hauler Roadway Express was "always on the Road and in the Way," I knew exactly what that meant. It never seems to fail: just as I'm about to catch up to a semi truck, it suddenly swings over into my lane, the passing lane, and then spends the next five to ten miles inching past a very slightly slower truck. In the meantime, I get a nice close-up view of the Yosemite Sam mud flaps, while impatient traffic builds up behind me.

According to their website, Roadway Express, now a division of YRC Worldwide Inc. (NASDAQ: YRCW) has been on the road and in the way since it was founded in 1930 by a pair of brothers hauling freight between Akron, Ohio, and St. Louis, Missouri. By the end of its first decade, it had offices in 22 cities and operating revenues of more than a million dollars. After the Interstate system was established, that expanded to 65 cities and more than $40 million in operating revenue from nearly 1,000 trucks. The company celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2005, and now delivers to all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Canada, and Mexico with more than 8,500 trucks.

Not every truck that's in the way is a Roadway Express truck, of course. One blogging trucker has similar nicknames for other trucking companies, including:

UPS: Under the Posted Speed limit
DHL: Definitely an Hour Late
CRST: Caution, Real Slow Truck
PTL: Perpetually Tired and Lost

He also mentions Rude Carriers, which no doubt often lives up to its name, and GOD (Guaranteed Overnight Delivery), which must have a hard time trying to live up to that acronym.

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