Semi Truck
The strongest state for semi truck searches was Nebraska. That matches with trucking industry statistics, which show that Nebraska has the highest concentration of truck drivers in the country, with 27.36 drivers per thousand jobs. Iowa, Idaho, Indiana and Michigan were also extremely likely to search for semi truck over any other term.
While semi truck is popular throughout America’s heartland, it’s rarely used in several states. Delaware, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont were so strong in their own terms that not enough data could be collected about semi truck searches.
Tractor Trailer
Dominated by the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, this regional term for large trucks is most common in West Virginia, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Vermont.
18 Wheeler
Trucking is a $726 billion industry in the United States, with 7.1 million people employed by the industry. That’s 6 percent of the U.S. working population. Truck driver is the most common occupation in 29 states, including Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, where 18 wheeler is most frequently used to describe large trucks.
Texas is a titan of the trucking industry: the state employs 182,370 truck drivers, most of anywhere in the country.
Searches for 18 wheeler was also prevalent — but not the primary term — in some other southern states, including Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee.
Others
Among other terms, big rig is the most common phrase to be used to describe a large truck. California, Wisconsin, Texas, Arizona and Georgia are most likely to use the term. Worldwide, big rig appears to the preferred term in Canada, Brazil and most of Europe, outranking semi truck.
Lorry is the term used in Britain to describe a “motor vehicle for transporting goods.” Lorry is also used frequently in Sri Lanka.
