More and more women are considering a career in the trucking industry than ever before. Women are finally starting to figure out the money that can be made in the truck driving industry and they are cashing in. Truck driving is one of the few professions that women make exactly the same as their male co-workers. While attending a truck driving school several years ago, I was surprised by a 25% female truck driver training class as well as several female truck driving instructors.
The surprise didn’t stop there as it seemed the women truck driver students seemed to out perform the majority of male students on written and truck driving tests! The fact is women make excellent truck drivers and it is arguable that they make better drivers than the men.
Many younger women have minor children that require their mothers to be at home daily, older women want to be around the grand kids. Married women find that their husbands don’t want them gone for extended periods of time. Also, single women may marry, start a family and leave the industry in a short period of time..
Concerns
The concerns of women drivers are not much different than male. Safety, working conditions, pay and home time are just a few of the issues concerning all drivers. Driver safety is an issue now being addressed by most companies. They are working hard to assure that everything that can be done is being done.
Opportunities in Trucking
The trucking industry likes to promote from within, which allows women the ability to work in positions other than driving. Driving may just be the first step in a long and productive career. There are many more opportunities available to women today than in just a few years past. Women have the opportunity to be involved in dispatch, sales, marketing, recruiting, management and owning their own fleet.
Driving truck is physically/mentally demanding.
Most women who enter the industry later in life have had careers that are traditional: secretarial, office, teaching, nursing, raising the family, sales, etc. Though trucking is vastly improved over the old Armstrong steering and spring ride suspensions, many older women have some medical problems and do not have the stamina to drive under the current HOS laws. Furthermore, many women have never faced the driving challenges that trucking faces, ie: traffic, big cities, mountain terrain and weather.
