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Oct 21, 2016

TRUCKERS' SHORTAGE * USA: Increased assistance for female trainees

* California - Trucking firms rethink training to attract more female truck drivers

--- Trucking companies are making training programs more appealing to women in the hopes it will help the carriers expand their driver applicant pool and allow them to attract more female truck drivers... Carriers have increased assistance for female trainees by offering more practice time in truck driving simulators, creating internal support groups and adding female driver liaisons. They’ve added sexual harassment awareness and self-defense classes to training curriculums so women feel safer on training runs and can better respond in abusive situations... To recruit more women, some carriers now let existing drivers — predominately men — train their spouses. Other companies have expanded military veteran recruiting to promote trucking jobs to women retiring from active duty. A number of carriers also fund scholarships for female high school graduates and career changers interested in transportation industry jobs... 
(Photo) -- CAL, USA -  Trucks.com, by MICHELLE RAFTER - OCTOBER 19, 2016

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Oct 19, 2016

FEMALE TRUCKER LIFE * Canada: She loves to drive trucks

* Ontario - Female truck driver loves her life on the road

--- Valeska Riveros isn't your typical truck driver. She is just about as tall as the door handle on her 18-wheel big rig. But Riveros, 37, says life on the road has given her a feeling of freedom, security, and independence that she's never known before... "I love this job," said Riveros, who works for Challenger Motor Freight Inc. "I don't know how I didn't do this before" ... Riveros came to trucking after spending about 10 years working in Kitchener at the Schneider's meat packing plant. When that factory closed, she was offered a job in Hamilton at the new, amalgamated Maple Leaf factory. For Riveros, the work was monotonous and unfulfilling — and she was getting paid $3 less an hour... 
(Photo by Gary Yokoyama,The Hamilton Spectator: Valeska Riveros in the cab of her 2015 Volvo truck) -- Hamilton, ONT, USA - Hamilton Spectator, by Emma Reilly - Oct 18, 2016

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Jul 2, 2014

FEMALE DRIVERS * USA: The most beautiful trucker on roads

* Massachusetts  - Female trucker contest announces first-place winner

(Photo: Emily Weymouth, Most Beautiful Trucker 2014) 
Charlton,MASS,USA -Overdrive -June 27, 2014: -- Overdrive‘s Most Beautiful, a contest in its second year of recognizing female drivers, has selected its first-place winner. Through a combination of online audience voting and a judging panel, Emily Weymouth was named Overdrive‘s Most Beautiful... Weymouth of Charlton, Mass., hauls motor oil, transmission fluid and other lubricants for Dennison Lubricants. She says when she was younger she “loved the challenge of being better than the boys and showing them up” — and as a driver, she likes to show that trucking can be a woman’s world, too... Asked the definition of a beautiful female trucker, Weymouth said it’s “someone who isn’t afraid of being themselves. Someone who has a passion for what they are doing on a daily basis. She should be confident and outspoken, yet cares for others. I think a female’s rig also comes into play with this question. Truckers take pride in the rig they drive, and that helps show confidence out on the road” ...

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Oct 4, 2009

FEMALE TRUCKERS * Canada - Hold fundraiser for breast cancer

Ottawa,ONT,CAN -The Ottawa Citizen, by Tony Lofaro -October 3, 2009: -- It was an unlikely sight Saturday, a convoy of 18-wheel trucks adorned with pink ribbons rolling down Ontario’s Hwy. 401... But it was for a good cause... The 40 female truckers in the rigs drove from Cornwall to Cardinal, Ont., and were part of Convoy For a Cure, a fundraiser for the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. The event last year raised $15,000. Organizers hoped to surpass that total this year...



(Video of the first one, from YouTube, by zoomfx -30 Nov 2008: "Convoy for a cure" Rachèle Champage I had the idea for the convoy when I was driving down the 401 West one night with 2 of my girlfriends and thought wow! this is cool 3 girls rolling down the highway... Here is a bit about me... Got my license in early 2004, been running all across North America since then...I'm a single driver based out of Ottawa, I run mostly mid-west and the east coast...)

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May 23, 2009

Female Truckers Stories * South Africa - Brave the night shift

With HIV taking its toll of male drivers, firms look to women to bring stability

Johannesburg,SA -The Guardian (UK), by David Smith -22 May 2009: -- Eunice Sikhunyane clocks on at 5.30pm for one of the loneliest jobs in the world. The single mother climbs into her cabin, turns on the ignition and spends the next nine hours driving a 16-wheel, 28-tonne truck through the African night... Eunice is part of a growing occupational group in South Africa: the female trucker. Women are in demand for a job once synonymous with masculinity because of the devastating toll of HIV/Aids on male truck drivers... About one in four truckers are estimated to be HIV positive. It is a transient lifestyle notorious for long stopovers far from home and easy access to prostitutes. About 3,000 truck drivers are lost annually to Aids as well as accidents, armed hijackings, alcoholism and other causes. The industry says it needs 15,000 new recruits each year. Women are often seen as more likely to take care of themselves and their vehicles... Eunice, 36, used to drive tractors and fire tenders but joined the Rennies haulage company three years ago because it paid better: 4,700 rand (£350) a month. She has seen the culture of promiscuity among male drivers... "Most of the guys sleep with prostitutes and don't know if she's sick or not sick," she said... "Maybe he will buy a lady and the next day he'll go with his wife. Someone asked me: 'So, will you buy a man?' I said: 'No, I have a boyfriend'."... Happiness Sibisi, 27, became a truck driver after leaving school. She is one of two women drivers, alongside 58 men, employed by Unitrans in Durban. "They treat me like a kid because all of them are very old," she said... She had one terrifying experience when she was being followed. She called her depot and was told to return. "I went faster but they kept following me... "I do worry but a job is a job. My husband wonders whether I'll come back in the morning. When someone wants to steal a truck you give it to them, because a truck can be replaced and you can't."... (Picture: South Africa Illustrations Truckers Against AIDS)

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Jan 5, 2009

FEMALE TRUCKERS * Canada & USA

* A silent minority takes the wheel - Female drivers fiercely private

Toronto,Ontario, Canada -The Toronto Star -3 Jan 2008: -- ... For reasons cultural and otherwise, Gill, 32, is one of the few South Asian women in the GTA who drive tractor-trailers – an industry increasingly dominated by Indo-Canadian men... Women in general probably make up less than 15 per cent of truck drivers, says Doug Switzer, of the Ontario Trucking Association. "Women driving trucks is a minority. South Asian women driving trucks is extraordinary"... Nachhattar Chohan, president of the recently formed Indian Trucking Association, says more than 65 per cent of truck drivers in the GTA are Indo-Canadians. Out of those thousands there are, probably, a couple of dozen women who drive with their husbands... Bhangal hired her about eight months ago and says she is as good as a male driver or better. She always delivers on time, he says. Her trips are mostly to Illinois, Iowa and Georgia, and typically last two or three days... (Photo by MICHAEL STUPARYK/TORONTO STAR - Balwinder Gill, who didn't know how to drive when she came to Canada in 2000, checks her rig at Mattu Transport in Mississauga before heading to Montreal, a trip she makes five times a week)


* Hard Work Big Dreams - Eyes Wide Open

Maryland/Delaware, USA -RoadKing -1 Jan 2009: -- I was getting divorced and had two children to take care of. At the time I drove a school bus, and my soon-to-be-ex husband used to say that if I could drive a bus I could handle a truck... So I called up a training academy to learn how to drive a truck. I even held myself back an extra week before graduating because I didn’t feel completely confident with my skills yet... In America, we don’t realize how blessed we are. This is a beautiful land and I think that most of us take it for granted. When I’m driving I do try to take the time to appreciate what I see out my window — the sunrise, the beautiful colors of the trees in the fall, the animals running around in fields. The scenery is never the same. It’s amazing... (Photo: This driver always pays attention to what is happening outside her window. Joanne Ortega, Driving for 26 Years)

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Mar 20, 2008

FEMALE in TRUCKING * New Zealand - Globe-trotting chick takes up trucking

Edith Staff has swapped life on luxury charter yachts for trucking

Orewa,New Zealand -The Rodney Times/The Bay Chronicle -20 March 2008: -- ... Edith was drawn back to her home town of Kerikeri, after 10 years travelling the world... She rattles off the places she has been... and finally home... She’s inspired by the concept of Chicks’n Trucks and introduced a bit of style with splashes of hot pink... With daughter-in-law Hazel and daughters Dulcie and Penelope, she has a team of chicks, who are good with people, love the outdoors and are not afraid of dirt or a bit of hard work... Edith has started out with one truck and has another on standby... Both trucks are two and a half tonne, with a load capacity of two and a half tonnes... They offer covers for building site materials and ramps for small vehicles such as quads and ride on mowers... They generally work in the central and greater Kerikeri area but will go further afield, as far as Auckland... (ON THE ROAD: Edith Staff has travelled the world, but now she's making a name for herself in the Kerikeri haulage business) - PN: You call... and she... haul !!!

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Jul 6, 2007

Female Truckers * USA - THP trooper allegedly harassed they

A Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper who allegedly groped two female truck drivers last year was allowed to continue working for months, then retire with a full pension

TENN,USA -The Tennessean/Land Line Magazine (Grain Valley,MO) -July 3, 2007: -- ...the two truckers say Sgt. Leon King rubbed or fondled them at the Brownsville weigh station... One of the women said she was taken to a secluded room where King allegedly threatened to write her a ticket, then asked if she would go out on a date with him... The Tennessean also reports that, according to state records, King had also used his position to make advances toward another woman in 1999... Two other Tennessee highway patrolmen have recently been in the news on sex-related allegations...

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