Women Find Special Niche in Truck Driving
Freight truck driving is a predominantly male career. It is often imagined as a man's job, but some aspects of the profession not only appeal to but also draw on the special skills of women. In Australia, the mining industry is increasingly seeking to employ female truck drivers. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are 4,483 women truck drivers working in the mining industry. One of these women, Heather Jones, is the founder and director of a multi-truck company owned and operated by women called Success Transport. Jones explains the desire for female truckers. [Women] have longer attention spans in a monotonous job of driving long hours.
They are multi-skilled, consistent, clean, and have a gentle touch on the gears and brake, she said. Jones entered the trucking industry during Australia's mining boom, when salaries of over $105,000 were not uncommon. When she had to raise two daughters on her own, she was almost immediately able to make a good living by driving a truck, and she was fortunate enough to find employers who allowed her to bring her children along with her. While she appreciates the freedom of her job, Jones noted the masculine temperament of her co-workers saying "chauvinism is alive and well." She described 16 hour workdays, taking a 38-wheeler truck for 248 miles across the difficult landscape of Western Australia in 120 degree heat.
Despite the relatively high salaries to be made driving trucks, many reject such a job because of the nature of the work. It often involves long workdays that leave a driver away from her family and home for many nights and drivers must be able to handle on-road truck maintenance themselves; for example, replacing changing a 178 pound tire in the middle of nowhere. Another woman trucker, Jessi Ruf, has distinguished herself as an excellent driver, demonstrating the features that are leading many trucking companies to seek out female employees.
The tiny Canadian, also a mother of two, drives a 16-meter tractor trailer truck that weights around 4,000 pounds for Rosenau Transport Ltd. Ruf comes from a trucking family, and spent her childhood in big rigs before following her father and brothers into the industry. She has been a professional driver for six years and for the last two, she has competed in the Professional Truck Driving Championships. Ruf was the only woman to enter the 2010 competition, which was recently held in Red Deer. She competed in the tandem-tandem category at the skills showcase and she came with a mission. Despite being considered one of the best at backing up in her company, her otherwise-perfect run through the course in last year's Championship was marred when she had to reverse the truck and her goal was to redeem herself. The competition has other value to Ruf as well. She views it as a test to demonstrate what she can and cannot actually do and highlight skills that need improvement. What I can learn here, I can apply everyday when I work," she said. "Here, they make (the course) really, really tight. So if I get in a sticky situation and its tight inside the city, I can use what I found out here to apply there.
