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Apr 27, 2016

FEMALE TRUCKERS * USA: Could solve trucking industry driver shortage

* Wiscosin - Only 6% of truckers are female drivers
(Graphic: Shaye Anderson/Trucks.com - Women in Trucking Statistics Infographic)

 -- Women sit behind the wheel of just 6 percent of the commercial trucks crisscrossing American highways on any given day... To the American Trucking Associations, that stark number represents an opportunity at a time when the industry needs tens of thousands of new drivers to keep up with demand... Women are an obvious source of new drivers, the ATA said in a report on the shortage late last year — estimated to be 48,000 drivers and projected to keep growing. Women make up 47 percent of all U.S. workers. Yet the share of female drivers has remained stagnant between 4.5 percent and 6 percent since 2000, the ATA said... The barriers to raising that number are social, physical and institutional... “There’s still a perception that it’s a man’s job,” Klang said. “But trucking is 95 percent confidence, and 5 percent skills. It’s not physically strenuous” ...

(Photo: Women in Trucking Association. Ellen Voie, CEO of the WTA) 

... Still, there are physical differences between men and women that present a challenge to getting more females into the cab, Ellen Voie, president of the Women In Trucking Association in Plover, Wis., told Trucks.com ... With an average height of 5 feet, 4 inches, female truck drivers are 6 inches shorter than the typical male driver. Female truck drivers have an average weight of 160 pounds, Voie said, while their male counterparts are 213 pounds. Their smaller and shorter stature makes it harder for women to reach the controls... She met with Peterbilt engineers at the manufacturer’s factory in Denton, Texas, earlier this year. And Voie also addressed the Future Truck Committee at the ATA’s Technology & Maintenance Council Conference in Nashville in late February... 
* Michigan - “There’s still a perception that it’s a man’s job”
--- The shortage of truck drivers isn’t the only reason that recruiting women makes good business sense. It could potentially improve safety...  Male drivers, on average, have twice the number of crashes as women. They are more likely to be involved in crashes that occur on curves, in the dark or while passing other vehicles, according to a report by the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, England... Stephanie Klang acknowledges that recruiting women to the industry is a challenge because trucking can take its toll on family life. In her case, that means an average of 280 nights away from home each year... She rides shotgun in her Conway's Kenworth T680... The daily grind varies, but Klang prefers hitting the road by 4 or 5 in the morning and driving for nearly 10 hours before finding a spot for the evening. “Legally we can drive 11 if everything works out — you know, construction, traffic,” she said. “Our biggest worry every day now is where are we going to park tonight” ... She listens to NPR by day and watches her flat-screen television by night.. The bed, where Klang sleeps three-quarters of the year, is a twin extra long... In 2006, Klang married again — this time to a fellow Con-way trucker with a cat of his own... 
(Photo: Stephanie Klang and her truck) -- - Ann Arbor Charter Township, , USA Trucks, by JACLYN TROP- April 26, 2016

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