• THE OWNER-DRIVER: JANET HIGGS, HEBDEN BRIDGE, YORKSHIRE J anet Higgs,
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30 and single, works out of Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, and has been driving her own truck for six and a half years—time enough to learn to handle the occasional man with "an attitude". The original idea was that she would take her HGV in order to drive the cattle wagons on her parent's farm, but that never came about. At 24 and with a Class 1 licence she bought a P-reg Bedford KM which she ran for 18 months until, she explains: "I couldn't keep welding it back together any more." She now operates a D-reg ERF 38-tonne artic with a brick grab on the trailer. As with most owner-drivers, running the truck is a way of life. For Janet 12-hour days are the norm, five or six days a week, with the majority of nights spent in the cab. Carrying bricks and concrete blocks, the average 60-mile trip for her half a dozen or so regular clients adds up to around 78,000 miles a year.
But according to Janet the lifestyle presents few problems: "It's a fairly lonely life, but you have the advantage of being your own boss so all the effort is on your own behalf."
Most other truckers, her clients and people she meets on the road are not particularly surprised to see a woman driving an artic, although there are the exceptions: "The majority of the men ore fine. A few look at me as though I'm off another planet, but most are friendly and helpful and treat me as one of them. However, there are a few who really have an attitude about women driving lorries. They often seem to have a bee in their bonnet about a woman doing a bloke out of a job. When I started I used to take it all to heart, but now I give as good as I get."
At weighbridges and roadside checks Janet feels she is treated in exactly the same
way as the men and the fact she is female doesn't win her any favours, but neither is it a ..., disadvantage: "When I'm stopped in the truck they take it for granted that it's a bloke "2 driving, and I'm often amused because a lot of them blush and seem really embarrassed 2 to find it's a woman, but it doesn't make them treat me any differently, and I don't want fr to be treated differently."
q Security in the lorry and at overnight stops does not present much of a worry: "I sleep
1 in the wagon most nights and it doesn't bother me really. I do take a few precautions >
i though. I only ever stay in a proper lorry park, I only have my initials on the side of the
g truck; not my full name. I have both a CB and a mobile phone and I always keep the jack 8 handy down the back of the seat!"
5 [ by Elizabeth Daly x