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Sisters are doing it for themselves

3rd April 2008, Page 20
3rd April 2008
Page 20
Page 21
Page 20, 3rd April 2008 — Sisters are doing it for themselves
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Keywords : Androgyny, Pat, Pat Butcher

With cleaner, better facilities, and an industry acceptance of women drivers, why aren't more jumping on the bandwagon?

Words: L Radtey THE SUBJECT of attracting female drivers into the industry comes around regularly, but no-one has been able to fathom out why so few are staying. Looking at what it's really like out there may offer some answers.

Certain difficulties arise trying to find experienced women who are prepared to be interviewed. As far as they're concerned, they aren't 'female drivers', they're just drivers. They go about their business without fanfare and have no desire to be on the receiving end of one. So this leaves me with only one option, and that is to rely on my own experience and that of a friend, Pat Nicholson, who has more than 20 years' experience to her name, and who works with the Professional Drivers' Association when she isn't behind the wheel.

The pair of us are away in our trucks all week — we leave Monday morning and arrive home on Friday. I work in short-sea containers while Pat does curtain-sided multi-drop distribution.

Contrary to popular belief, facilities available to women tend to be better than those our male counterparts have to endure. There are few truckstops and MSAs that don't have female showers, and the few that don't rely on a unisex facility, although these aren't usually up to anything like the same standard.

On the whole, our showers are cleaner and better maintained. This is partly down to lower throughput, but that is not the whole story. Pat sums it up by saying: "We look after ours, the men don't."

You won't catch a woman leaving empty bottles and razor blades about, and we rinse around when we're done.

Safety first

This also leads to greater availability at customers' premises. As someone who is not a great user of roadside areas, it never ceases to amaze me just how many showers there arc tucked away, especially now that cycling to work and gym membership are all the rage among our office counterparts.

Where the men are consigned to only one designated "Drivers" toilet, we females are ushered through to carpeted and sweet-smelling cloakrooms, with proper soap, changing areas and power showers — some have fluffy towels!

Pat starts her day in the early hours and has learnt garage forecourts are the place to go first thing. "They're always spotless at that time because they've just been cleaned,she says. Curiously, she never has competition from others starting at the same time — the men don't seem to think that way. I carry the means to have a strip wash every night before bed in the lorry, so I stay clean whatever time of day I take a shower.

Day-to-day treatment of females tends to be on a level with everyone else. It's more about individual attitude than gender. One exception is those who carry the health and safety banner. As Pat puts it: "They tend to come and tell you what you are doing wrong in a manner they wouldn't dare if you were a 6ft, 18-stone fella."

The other big consideration for many women considering a driving career, especially one that involves nights out, is personal security. Pat feels safer in a designated truck park. "I try to park up with other people, I feel safer that way." I go for quiet industrial estates and deep lay-bys on the grounds that the fewer people who see me walking between the lorry and the building the better.

Once the curtains are shut, no-one knows who's in there, which is a theory Pat endorses, too. "I pull my curtains immediately if it's dark. and I have the internal light on," she says.

Personal choices aside, it comes back to basic common sense. Both Pat and myself use the passenger door once we have stopped for the night, so as to confuse onlookers as to whether we have a big burly bloke out of view We take care not to leave obvious signs that we are female on view.

I know of several women who always give a false name when ordering food in cafes where orders are called out across the room, and I never give my registration and company name to cashiers in MSAs where anybody could be listening. I always ask to write them on the ticket myself.

Pat never opens the doors of her trailer when she parks empty. "I know be vulnerable in the early hours walking around to shut them. Plus, I need to be able to just start the engine and drive off should I need to." We also both do our defect checks at the end of a shift, rather than at the start, waiting until we are somewhere safer to do a full walk around. This is easier due to the advent of dashboard computers to alert drivers to failing lights and oil levels.

Technical innovations are helping in other ways, too. Pat and I both use pro-tracking systems where available. Pat is also a fan of the integral panic button in her R-series Scania Topline. "You just press the switch and the lights flash and the horn goes off. It should be standard in all sleeper cabs," she says.

Other simple measures include trying to park up under lights or near cameras in industrial estates, or in view of large factories with 24-hour security, asking the guards to keep an eye out. Parcel depots and all-night premises are ideal.

All of these are things our male counterparts would do well to emulate. After all, if the driver is secure then the load and vehicle are as well. It would be interesting to see if vehicles with female drivers suffer from load theft and similar problems less often as a result of increased vigilance.

So if we have it so good, why are there so few? "It's the hours that put a lot of women off", says Pat. "Transport companies aren't able to tailor them in the same way as other industries are."

Attractive career

A valid point, and one no amount of attractive training opportunities is going to solve. -You tend to get more women doing the day runs for large companies, such as the supermarkets, because it's less intimidating. There isn't the variation and unpredictability that there are in other less easy fields. "You either want to do it or you don't" says Pat.

Then there is the question of children. I'm married with two under-fives, but my husband is an industry veteran who works from home, so it isn't an unusual scenario from his point of view. Other spouses may not be so open-minded.

Finding childcare is difficult and expensive at the best of times, never mind fitting it in around long hours, unsociable and changing start times, and the possibility you may not get back when you expect to, with little or no notice. As a mother, there is no-one harsher than myself deciding if I am doing the best I can for my children.

It would be naïve to suggest it isn't a fight in the early days of a woman's career, and attracting women who haven't got the grit to go out and grasp it for themselves won't make for long-term experienced staff. Or, as Pat says: "It's not the way to end up getting the job done."

In this brave new world of increasing emphasis on work-life balance and gender equality in the home, we need to stop trying to make the job attractive to women and start making it better for people. Accomplish that, and the rest will surely follow, •

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