Most people get nervous when the odometer of their car gets near 80,000 miles. Others celebrate if their car turns over the 200,000 mile mark. But nobody makes it to a million miles — unless it’s in a big rig.

For one Palmerton man, not only has he seen the odometer on his 1997 Peterbilt tri-axel dump truck roll over the 1 million mile mark, but also he’s done it accident free.Lloyd Bollinger Jr. doesn’t know exactly how he managed to drive so many miles and maintain such a spotless record, but he chalks it up to a little more than luck.“We learned to behave ourselves,” he said about himself and his son, who also has driven dump trucks and tractor-trailers. “We didn’t overload it, so we’re safe there.”On May 6, he took is daughter, Suzanne Kuehner, on one run to Lebanon. It was Kuehner’s 54th birthday and was something she always wanted to do.“It’s just one of those things I wanted to cross off my bucket list,” she said.Although a rainy day, the two trucked out for the trip.Kuehner said she was surprised by how small the cab was on the inside. But with all of the buttons and gadgets in there, she can understand why space would be limited. Her one disappointment was with the noise level. She envisioned sitting there talking to her dad the whole time, which turned out to be like trying to talk at a concert.“I wish it wasn’t so noisy so we could have had more of a conversation,” Kuehner said.They topped it off with lunch at Midway Diner in Bethel, Pennsylvania. It’s a favorite stop for truckers, she said.Is another trip likely?“I don’t need to do it again, but I’m glad I did it once,” she said. “We got to spend time together.”Bollinger has been driving trucks for 57 years. He started when he was a teenager for his father, who owned Bollinger Brothers Inc. in Palmerton.When most teens are buying a car, Bollinger bought his first dump truck. It was 1959, and he was 16 years old. He bought it for $6,000.The man who sold him the insurance told him, “I was the youngest guy to insure a truck,” Bollinger said.“Some of the neighbors complained because he was driving at that age,” said his father, Lloyd Bollinger Sr.In addition to hauling dirt and rock for his dad, Bollinger has also driven long-haul tractor trailers. He said he enjoyed the work, because he had the opportunity to see different places and meet many people.“I used to be the Southern boy,” Bollinger said, “because I got along with them.”He also drove west to California once for a load of olives. It turned out to be a memorable trip not because of the scenery, but because of the cargo.“I picked up a load of ripe olives. I didn’t know what ripe olives look like,” he said. “I opened it up and they were black. I thought they were bad and threw them out.”Later, he found out they weren’t the green olives he was used to, but instead black olives.“I thought to myself, you dumb hillbilly,” he said.In 1974, Bollinger bought the hauling company from his father and more trucks. Eventually, he developed a small fleet with trucks from Mack, Kentworth and of course Peterbilt. All are sold now, except for this last teal-green Peterbilt.With more than a million miles on it, wouldn’t it be about time to replace it?“All depends on how much you want a new one,” Bollinger said.His son, Mike Bollinger, said a new one can cost about $195,000. Because the price is so high, “everyone keeps digging up the old ones,” he said.