When driving is in the family

Professional driver Florian Kamleitner has been enthusiastically driving a MAN TGS on short-distance transportation routes in Austria for four years. The fact that he has ended up behind the wheel of a MAN truck is ultimately down to his family.

Florian knew from an early age that he wanted to drive trucks. “When I was a child, I often joined my dad in the truck during the holidays,” says Florian, who is now 24 years old. Back in the day, he and his brother often even argued about who could go with their dad. Likewise, Florian’s grandfather spent decades behind the wheel of a truck transporting gravel and two of his uncles are also passionate drivers. In addition to their passion for driving, all of the men in the family share an enthusiasm for MAN vehicles.

“Even when I was a small boy, I was sure that I’d also tame a ‘lion’ one day.”

To make this plan a reality, after completing his training as an electrical engineer, Florian used his time with the Austrian Armed Forces to obtain his truck driving license. He has now been working as a short-distance truck driver for four years. “My job’s very varied and it’s never boring,” he says about his assignments driving a MAN TGS 33.500 6×4 with asphalt tipper for Widhalm Transporte, a company based in the town of St. Valentin in Austria.

In his day-to-day work, everything revolves around asphalt. Florian, with his MAN TGS, ensures that asphalt pavers, rollers, dumpers, asphalt mixes and much more besides arrive at construction sites on time. This can be a task that requires the driver to have good nerves, particularly when trying to get the large vehicle to pass through narrow spaces. “Manoeuvring the low loader trailer is often very fiddly,” says Florian.

The young driver therefore thinks it is all the more important that truck drivers are taken seriously in their career, with all of its challenges. In particular, he thinks that many car drivers lack a proper understanding of his profession. But, otherwise, he’s very satisfied with his career. “Everything’s fine as it is,” he smiles. This is also true of his current MAN TGS model, which he would only swap for one vehicle – his dream “lion” model, a MAN F2000 with 600 hp and, as he puts it, “a wonderful V10 engine”.