WOMEN OF THE FUTURE
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• May I be allowed to congratulate your magazine on devoting five pages to the subject of Women in Transport (CM 28 February-6 March). I think that it demonstrates an awareness of future trends within our industry.
Our organisation, the Brewery Transport Advisory Committee (BTAC), though relatively small (30 members) has always tended to look ahead. Since the early eighties we have recognised the important role that women play and that is borne out by the fact that the majority of our seminars have included women speakers. Veronica Palmer, now director-general of the Bus and Coach Council, chaired the seminars for two years.
At this year's seminar at the Coventry Crest Hotel on 9 April we will have two women speakers, one of them is pre
senting a paper entitled Women in Transport, and it will be interesting to hear delegates' reactions following your special feature.
Perhaps the most relevant remark in your article was the comment: "Women can deal with mental stress better than men." This is a key factor which is slowly being recognised by the industry.
The point has been proved by one of our members, a young French lady, who has trained for two years as a lorry driver, and two years as a mechanic at a French technical training college. In July she will be taking up a highly-paid post driving hazardous loads for a Belgian-based chemical firm.
Today's modern vehicles are probably easier to drive than many cars.
Repairs, equipment and tools also call for minimum muscle power these days: today electronic knowledge is more valuable than muscle power.
I believe that in this industry there is no reason for a woman to be less capable than a man. I think that the shortages of young men over the next decade will be a determining factor on the use of women.
With the sobering thought that stress, about which little is known, is becoming a major threat to life expectancy, perhaps a woman's attitude to HGV driving might be worth investigating.
B Montague, Secretor.' BTAC, Hornchurch, Essex.