![[Valid Atom 1.0]](valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom 1.0 feed")
WOMAN in TRUCKING * Australia: Mother truckers
* Western Australia - Women are carving out well-paid careers as long-haul truck drivers
Pilbara,WA,Australia -ABC North West/The Sydney Morning Herald, by Julie Power -August 30, 2014: ... There are about 558,000 heavy-vehicle licence holders in Australia, and of those roughly 5 per cent are women. Up in the Pilbara, it is estimated that as many as 15 per cent are female, and many of those were trained by Jones in her Scania truck. Nearly single- handedly, Jones is dragging trucking into the 21st century. For more than 20 years, she has been lobbying against dangerous driving, sweet-talking companies into hiring newly trained female drivers, and visiting schools to educate children about trucking... The Pilbara Girls have an average age of 40. Some are older women - Jones' mother Connie is still driving at 70 - who would find it nearly impossible to get such well-paid work at their age elsewhere in the country. Most of the 30 women spend days on the road, sleeping in a swag or in their trucks; luxury is an occasional night in a cell-like "donga". These trucks represent economic freedom and independence to drivers like Rosalie Hann, who loves the miles and miles of "woop woop"... They also represent a thirst for adventure. Toni Ranum - who at 39 has also worked as a butcher, a crane operator and a rigger on the wharves - says she dreamed of becoming a truck driver when she was a little girl... Truck driving is one of Australia's most dangerous professions, with about 225 truck-related deaths each year. Heavy-vehicle drivers are responsible for about a third of these fatalities, but many truck-related accidents involve cars driving into trucks. Jones has been first on the scene at several fatal crashes, and she lives in fear of lightning strikes that routinely spark fires across the Pilbara that have trapped and killed other road-train drivers...
Claims by the industry's peak body, the Australian Trucking Association, that women don't want to work in trucking, this exasperate Jones and Denny... To address a shortage of qualified drivers, the ATA wants to bring in foreign truckies on 457 temporary visas, which Jones and Denny say will only contribute to the number of fatal accidents... Jones says there is no shortage of licensed heavy-vehicle drivers, just a shortage of companies willing to train them. Since moving to Karratha in 2010, after her company went belly up when six customers defaulted on large accounts, Jones has trained 26 drivers, mostly women, for free... In a new book by Denny and Jones for women truckies, some of their tips are: don't advertise your presence at a truckstop by hanging your bright-coloured smalls on the front of the truck; don't hang a red towel on the bull bar - Denny was told this means the driver is "available"; avoid flirting on the two-way radio; wear professional hi-vis work clothing, as some male drivers may get the wrong impression if a female truck driver wears skimpy shorts. There will also be lots of hands-on stuff, like how women can use straps and smarts instead of brawn to change an 80-kilo truck tyre, or lift heavy items on and off the truck... Jones started campaigning for more women truck drivers, and for better facilities and more training, when she was home schooling her two young daughters on the road... It is 7.20pm when we finally reach Sandfire. The roadhouse is closed and dark. Nothing is open, other than the toilets, which we can only find using a torch... The roadhouse may be closed, but the staff are out the back frying up a steak on the barbecue. We wait until they are finished to cook some cheese and baked bean sandwiches in the fat they've left behind. Better than going to bed hungry...
Labels: womans in trucking
posted by Unknown @ 10:45 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home