EVANSVILLE, IN. — Next time somebody tells you trucker chivalry is dead, whip this on them: According to a recent survey, a full 75 percent of truckers have stopped at least once to help somebody on the side of the road.  How many four-wheelers can say they’ve done that?

Or this: Truckers are anything but environmental troglodytes.  Most — that’s MOST — drivers try to recycle their everyday cast-offs such as pop cans and used paper.

Furthermore, most drivers report exercising other means of reducing their carbon footprint, including the use of toll road PrePasses, generators and biodiesel fuel.

Not only that, their go-to on-the-road snack doesn’t involve guys named Oh Henry! or  Jos. Louis.’ A trucker’s favorite snack is fresh fruit.

And finally, truck drivers are a very tech-savvy bunch: A full 66 percent of the truckers surveyed have a smart phone and know how to use it.

How do we know this you ask? 

Every year, Atlas Van Lines surveys its drivers in what they call a King of the Road Survey. Now in its ninth year, the survey never fails to draw back the curtains on a life that is all too often shielded from the public eye.

Here’re some more revealing details to pull out next time somebody disses the folks behind the wheels.

More than three-fourths of drivers check email daily; 84 percent access Internet on a daily basis and 56 percent of drivers check social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter every day. 

The survey results deliver a helpful and sometimes playful snapshot of life on the road. Not only did Atlas learn that the truckers’ favorite antacid is Tums followed by Rolaids, but also, among the most interesting materials drivers report carrying are a 10-ft. dragon (and who hasn’t carried one of those?) and a statue of Wyle E. Coyote.

Full survey results can be found here.