He keeps on truckin’ — even at 90 years old.
A nonagenarian from Kansas who’s been behind the wheel of commercial big rigs for 60 years was recently crowned the world’s oldest truck driver.
And despite his age, great-grandfather Doyle Archer told The Post he has no plans to retire any time soon.
During his career, the married father of nine traveled a whopping 5.5 million miles across 48 states and five Canadian provinces, according to Guinness World Records, which certified his impressive record.
Archer, in a Wednesday phone interview, likened his longtime job to an ongoing vacation where he discovers different nooks and crannies across the US.
“I do all the time what other people take a vacation and do — save their money all year long to go out and be on the road seeing the country for a month or something,” the grandfather of 25 and great-grandfather of 26 said in an interview. “Here, I do that all the time.”
He’s been to the Kennedy and Johnson space centers, motored through the mountains of the northwest and explored several major cities.
Archer also drove the well-known Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles, including the first 8-mile stretch when the Eisenhower Interstate System in Kansas was first constructed.
The trucker still vividly recalls seeing the sunlight shining off the Twin Towers as he crossed the George Washington Bridge just three or four days before 9/11.
“I would have never gotten to see those otherwise,” he said of the various landmarks he’s traveled to.
But he cautioned, “You have to work hard at it, put in some long hours, inconvenient hours sometimes. Sometimes it’s an all night long drive.”
Archer initially landed on Guinness World Records’ radar after a woman he works with at Coomes Inc. checked to see if he was eligible for a record and helped him fill out an application.
The record-tracking organization then did a background check to ensure Archer was a legitimate nonagenarian trucker.
The record for oldest truck driver was awarded to him on Feb. 2 and announced by the organization last month.
“I was happy about it, you know. I wasn’t overly happy, going off the deep end or anything,” he said. “I took it as happiness and went on.”
He grew up on his family’s farm and has a degree in agriculture, but got into trucking in the early 1960s when a gallon of gas was around 30 cents.
Presently, truckers are expected to drive about 70 hours over eight days, he noted.
Archer recently earned a “Million Mile Safe Driver” designation after travelling 1 million miles without incident, according to Guinness.
“You have to be focused very much on your job,” he said.
“There’s a lot of responsibility out on the highway, you got a truck that weighs 80,000 pounds, 70-foot long, being in traffic you have to be focused on that all the time.”
While he’s taking a few days off over the 4th of July holiday to spend at his Logan, Kansas home with his wife of 70 years, Lois, he has an upcoming trip to Oklahoma. And plans to keep going from there.
“It’s an interesting life,” Archer said, adding. “As of yet, I don’t have any plans to retire. Like I’ve told some people I don’t have that word in my vocabulary.”
