National Truck Driver Appreciation Week 2026 runs September 13 through 19. It falls in the third week of September every year, organized by the American Trucking Associations to recognize the professional drivers who keep the country supplied.

When is Truck Driver Appreciation Week?

  • 2026: Sunday, September 13 through Saturday, September 19
  • It is always the third full week of September.
  • You will see it written as NTDAW, National Truck Driver Appreciation Week, or just Driver Appreciation Week. Same week.

What the week is

For one week a year, the industry says out loud what is true year round: nearly everything in the building around you moved on a truck, and a professional driver moved it. More than 3.6 million professional truck drivers keep supply chains moving across the United States, working long hours and long miles to do it. Shippers, truck stops, and carriers mark the week with meals, gifts, and thank-yous.

Where the week comes from

The American Trucking Associations started the tradition more than three decades ago as a national thank-you to the people who deliver the country’s freight. It has grown into the one week when shippers, truck stops, and carriers across the United States all say the same thing at the same time: this job matters, and so do the people doing it.

Truck driver appreciation ideas that work every day

Most appreciation ideas are week-shaped: a banner, a gift bag, a post. The ones that matter are year-shaped. Here is what we think any company should do for its drivers all 52 weeks, and what that looks like at HHS right now:

  • Feed people. Lunch at our terminal is free, any day a driver is there, including every day of orientation. Not an appreciation-week special.
  • Give a driver his own truck. Trucks here are assigned, not slip-seated. Your seat, your setup, your home on the road.
  • Let the family ride. Every HHS driver can bring a rider and a pet along. The road is better with company, and a company that knows that says so out loud.
  • Answer the phone. After hours, a real person picks up. A driver with a 2 a.m. problem should never meet a voicemail tree.
  • Cover the road costs. Showers and parking are paid at HHS. Small line items, big statement about whose money the road runs on.
  • Keep the door open. Drivers here can walk into leadership’s office with a problem or an idea, and driver suggestions genuinely shape how the place runs.
  • Pay for the work between the miles. Tarping, stops, and detention all pay extra here, published like everything else.

During appreciation week, ideas like these get banners. The rest of the year, they are just how a company runs, or does not.

What it means at HHS

Here is what appreciation looks like at HHS the other fifty-one weeks. Every driver gets an assigned truck, not whatever is in the yard. Lunch at the Spartanburg terminal is free, any day you are there. Showers and parking on the road are paid. After orientation, a rider and a pet are welcome in the cab. When you call after hours, a person answers. No truck runs a driver-facing camera. Referrals pay, and holidays and service milestones get recognized, not just noticed. None of that is a gift. It is how the job is set up. If you want to see the rest, it is all published: the positions, the benefits, the path up. Read it and judge us the way you would judge anyone.

To every driver reading this during the week of September 13: thank you. This week and all the others.