Moving on down the road
More women are driving long haul
By Kathlyn Horibe
October 13, 2008
The trucking industry is one industry where women can forsake the office and work on the road. Hauling freight in a semi-trailer crisscrossing North America is no longer the sole domain of males. More and more women – many teamed with their husbands – love the freedom of the road, travelling to new places and having control over their lives.
“Trucking is by far a more superior job than most think,” said Erin Sliva-Banville of Oakwood, Man., who started driving in 1996. “The skill required to get safely from point A to B – without having an accident and with crazy drivers and road conditions – is immense. I like being able to say I have a driving record free of any major at-fault accidents with hundreds of thousands of miles under my belt.”
A company driver with Arnold Bros. Transport for almost 10 years, Ms. Sliva-Banville first became intrigued with trucking when a friend of hers, driving for a long haul company, sent her postcards from California, Florida, Texas and other states. At the time, she was managing one of her father’s Esso stations.
“It seemed so exotic and adventurous,” she said. “I love to travel and I thought I should be sending these postcards instead of reading them. Going for drives was also a favourite pastime of mine. It just seemed to fit.”
She obtained her licence with help from a government-funded program through Employment Insurance. Sponsored by her friend’s trucking company, she worked there and at another company before moving onto Arnold Bros. Headquartered in Winnipeg, the company has terminals in Langley, B.C., Calgary, Edmonton, and Milton, Ont.
After being on the road for a while, Ms. Sliva-Banville took an inside job as a company recruiter at Arnold Bros. “It was an opportunity to remain at the front lines with the drivers,” she said, “but also get a new wardrobe, an office and be home every night, except when jetsetting around the country for trade and truck shows and conferences.”
But she was soon back at the helm. “When you’re such a non-traditional type of person as I am, change is welcome,” she said. “I was feeling the need to hit the open road and once again be free of the 9-to-5 bump and grind. Making your own decisions, travelling down an interstate or highway – sometimes a detoured back road – your senses are so rewarded.
“You’re the operator of an 80,000-pound rig containing cargo that you’re ultimately responsible for as well as your partner’s life. I fathom only flying a plane would be similar.”
By then she was married to her husband. “He fell in love with me because I’m a trucker, so going back on the road wasn’t a huge deal for us.” She’s usually away from home about four or five days with two to three days off.
For the last few months, she’s been driving team with Tracy McClintock, also a woman who graduated from the ABT Academy run by Arnold Bros. “We maintain on average a 10-hour shift. That’s 850 or 1,000 kilometres daily depending on the posted speed, coffee breaks and tire checks.
“When someone asks me where I’ve been,” Ms. Sliva-Banville added, “I always break into the song, ‘I’ve been everywhere, man, I’ve been everywhere!’ We don’t have a schedule or route. We’re sent everywhere – California, Nevada, Texas, North Carolina, Montreal, Vancouver – hauling mainly full load, such as Purolator, 3M and food products. We’re out here because we enjoy the blue sky and the open road.”
Regarding inappropriate comments, Ms. Sliva-Banville said, “I was at a truckstop in the deep south and I could clearly hear on the CB radio someone trashing women truckers and how they should stay home in the kitchen where they belong. It was a long time ago and, to be very honest, I’ve never encountered that or any other situation worth mentioning again.
“Honestly, the only challenge I have is sometimes the trailer dollies are wound up so tight from the yard guy that I don’t have the strength to turn the darned handle.”
Trucking used to be a man’s world but this is no longer the case, she said.
“Yes, men definitely have the numbers,” Ms. Sliva-Banville said, “but so many women are now hiring on as drivers to run single or as partners with their husbands. Many retirees decide to hit the road together or farmers want to drive long haul seasonally and take their wives. I’ve seen young couples starting a business venture by buying a truck, getting their licences and making a great living.”
Teams with husband
Owner-operator Bettyann Stovell of Thorold, Ont., teams with her husband, Dan, after getting her licence eight years ago. Previously, she had driven a school bus and double articulated buses for the tourist industry, so getting a Class A vehicle licence was just the next step.
In 2001, they purchased their first truck. “We decided that if we were going to run together, we wanted to have the most control possible over the success of our lives,” she said. Since then, they’ve traded up a number of times and today drive a 2009 Volvo 730. It has its own 53-foot reefer or refrigerated trailer as they work in the food industry.
”The only year-round area for produce is California,” Ms. Stovell said, “so we’ve seen quite a bit of that state. But I don’t like running the same route repeatedly. As I say to Dan, ‘I don’t like learning where every crack in the road is hiding.’”
Team loads require about 1,200 miles a day. On those days, Ms. Stovell often drives 600 miles. “If the load doesn’t have that kind of schedule,” she said, “we prefer to turn only 800 miles a day, giving me only 400 to 500 miles a day.”
Most trips take at least a week or two weeks, but trips to Alaska have taken as much as five weeks before they got home. “I love to travel and see new places and I enjoy working with my husband,” she said. “When people ask about working with Dan, I reply, ‘Well, it’s been eight years out here in this little house and we’re still speaking to each other.’
“I’m very proud to have made a success out this choice of jobs,” Ms. Stovell said. “How many people – never mind women – can say they’ve driven to every state and every province in Canada and the U.S.?”
In spite of teaming with her husband, she said, “I’ve been intimidated sexually from time to time but never any serious problems. I guess men still think women are trying to make a little on the side.”
One time when she was delivering to a New Jersey warehouse, another driver behind her commented on how much he liked her walk. “I just carried on to my truck and proceeded to park it into my assigned dock. Without any encouragement, the other driver let it go.
“Many people are still shocked to see me behind the wheel,” Ms. Stovell said. “I get looks of disbelief, smiles and thumbs up as I drive down the road. I have such a feeling of accomplishment when I do my job well and receive assurances that my efforts have been well accepted.”
Bernice Davidson Nagy also works with her husband. “After meeting Dean in 2002, I decided to take a two-week holiday to go trucking with my husband to see if I could handle trucking and be with someone 24/7 for 365 days a year. The fairy tale part is that I never went back to my old job.” For 14 years she had run a cafeteria in a Calgary junior high school.
”When I joined Dean in the truck,” Ms. Nagy said, “I took over the paperwork, such as border crossings, phoning customers, calling ahead to shippers and receivers to let them know when to expect us. I keep the books up-to-date along with the GST and I navigate with my handy GPS – when it doesn’t mess up – and I’m not afraid to get out there and get my hands dirty helping to tarp or tie down a load.”
Her husband has been an owner-operator for most of his life. He owned his own company for 12 years before selling out and going to work for Snowy Owl Transportation of High River, Alta., which handles mostly LTL.
“This means more pickups and deliveries but better pay for the people contracted to them,” Ms. Nagy said. “They pay commission so you’re not overly concerned about empty miles – not that there are a lot of those. We average 20 days a month on the road and cover between 10,000 to 13,000 miles a month.
“We’ve seen the most beautiful sights: the earth coming awake in the morning and going to bed at night. I get to experience spring, summer and fall four to five times a year travelling north and south and we don’t have winter all the time.”
Ms. Nagy added, “There’ll always be discrimination in this work and other jobs as well. One has to earn the respect of others by proving they can do the same job as good if not better. Attitude has a lot to do with it in this field. Be positive and get it done, ladies!”
Tax advantages
Johanne Couture, an owner-operator from Brockville, Ont., who bought her truck in 1998, was attracted by “the freedom of being on my own and dictating my own hours.”
Her first job trucking was part-time work in 1994 “shunting in the yard and making deliveries to local customers” for an insulation making company. Previously, she had been a union paid garage attendant for Ottawa’s public transit system.
She became an owner-operator, she said, “to benefit from better tax advantages as a business owner and build equity in my business over the years. It was a decision for the long term. Being able to personalize my truck with the latest technology and money saving components like an APU (auxiliary power unit) was also very appealing to me.”
Contracted to a bulk tanker company, Ms. Couture hauls mostly hazardous materials, usually driving around 500 miles a day to the northeastern U.S. “When I was contracted to a van freight and reefer company, it used to be better than 600 miles a day. I’ve been to all 10 provinces and all 48 (contiguous) states.”
Being considered equal to her male counterparts has been one of her challenges, said Ms. Couture, who’s usually home every weekend and a couple of nights during the week. “Always being professional has overcome a lot of prejudice about my abilities to do the job the same as my male co-workers. If the training is the same, the results should
be the same.”
Other than showering in a closed-off men’s room once because it was the truck stop’s only shower, she said, “I can’t really say I’ve experienced discrimination – or at least not my version of it.”
She encounters “minor stuff like the CB rambos who hear a female voice and can’t resist making rude or sexist comments,” she said. “But I was used to hearing that before I started trucking, so it just rolls off my back.”
Two years ago, Sue Covey of Brockville, Ont., decided to go ahead and get her licence. “It was something that I had always wanted but I didn’t ever plan to make trucking a career.”
But she had always been interested in cars and vehicles, worked on them and been in the army reserves for four years. “It’s not a culture shock to be the only girl among 75 guys,” she said.
Now she’s an owner-operator. Her company, Covey Transport, is contracted with Flex-Mor Industries of Bolton, which has terminals in Brockville, and Dorval, Que.
“I didn’t want to work for anyone else,” she said. “I wanted to be able to do what I wanted to do with the truck and have a little more control over it.”
She usually travels 10,000 miles a month, hauling paper products to the U.S. Northeast and Mid-west. “Some days you work harder than others because you get stuck in places,” Ms. Covey said.
However, she’s usually home on the weekends. “If I can’t make a decent living in five and a half to six days a week, then there’s no point in working,” she said. “I’ve been to Vegas and other places where you’re gone two weeks, but not with the company I work for now.”
During her trips, she’s come across “one or two people with a smart mouth, but when you can drive circles around them, they usually back off. I guess everybody gets a comment once in a while.”
There are challenges driving a truck, she said, but they aren’t specific to women. “Everybody gets stuck in traffic, everybody gets held up at the border. You can either do the job or you can’t.”
What she likes about her job is her truck, the great friends she’s made on the road and seeing new places. “It’s a nice feeling to travel around the country and run into people you know when you’re 700 miles from home. You also get to see different places – getting paid to do it basically.”
Though she’s a minority in the industry, she’s not a huge supporter of women in trucking. “A lot of women drivers I’ve met try to play the card,” Ms. Covey said. “They try to get people to do stuff for them – like hands on loads. Not even trying and saying, ‘It’s too hard.’ The only obstacles are people like that who make the rest of us look bad.”
Five years ago, Rachèle Champagne of Gatineau, Que., was hired right out of school by Groupe Robert.
“They gave me a chance even though I had no experience,” she said. “It’s a really good company. They’re pretty big on hiring females and I was treated equally as an employee.”
Today she’s a company driver for Bytown Backhaulers of Nepean, Ont., driving a Volvo with an automatic transmission. “Most big companies nowadays are all going for automatic transmissions,” said the former supervisor of building facilities at the City of Ottawa Building. “It’s fun in traffic. When you’re in Toronto and Chicago two or three times every week, you’re pretty happy not to have that clutch.”
On average, she drives 2,500 miles a week to the U.S. Midwest and the East Coast of Canada, hauling big paper rolls for baby wipes and diapers. “It’s nice light loads of 17,000 pounds,” she said. And she’s home every weekend.
“Once in a while you’ll get that guy who’ll comment, ‘Get back in the kitchen where you belong,’ she said. “Or you get to a customer’s and it’s a really tight spot to back into and you’ve got 15 guys outside on cigarette break. Because you’re a girl, they all stare at you. We all know we can do just as good a job as men. I can deal with the odd comment. It’s just some are still very old school.”
Safety first
Other challenges as a woman on the road include being safe at all times. “I’m careful when I get into truck stops,” said Ms. Champagne, who’s organizing Canada’s first all-women convoy in support of breast cancer. “I close my curtains the second I park and I try not to leave the truck unless I absolutely have to. You hear stories about guys going to New York City or the Bronx getting their trucks broken into and getting beaten up. As a woman, unfortunately, I probably wouldn’t just get beaten up – if you understand what I mean. My main concern is being very cautious all the time.”
One of the advantages of the job is that she can bring her children along. “They spend the whole summer with me in the truck,” she said. “My kids are proud of what I do. I’m really proud as a woman to do this job. What I like the most is when a car passes me and the woman on the passenger side smiles and gives me a thumbs up. I get a real kick out of that. That makes my day.”
Regarding the challenges of being an owner-operator, the price of fuel is the most challenging issue in the industry today. “You have to be on top of this cost at all times,” Ms. Couture said, “know where it’s more affordable, know the fuel tax rates – the pump price is not your true cost. You have to be constantly doing the math before making your fuel purchases. You also have to sign on with a carrier that isn’t out to make profits off of your fuel surcharge. In these tough economic times, there are more carriers doing that.”
“With the price of fuel the way it is now,” Ms. Stovell said, “it’s been a real challenge. Controlling costs is our biggest challenge.”
“Being an owner-operator has to be one of the most difficult jobs,” Ms. Nagy said. “Trying to run a small company, driving the truck and finding the loads is only a very small part of it. It’s collecting the money and doing the books that can make or break a person. My hat’s off to those who are doing it and making it work.”
In addition to the price of fuel, the high cost of “doing everything” and over regulation, Ms. Covey said, “There’s the lost times at customs and traffic jams, which we never get paid for. Everybody wants your time for free.”
Another issue is big carriers that want to dictate through the Ontario Trucking Association to the government, Ms. Couture said. “The speed limiter issue in Ontario is not about safety and greenhouse gases. It’s about the big carriers not being able to recruit and keep good drivers and owner-operators. They’re trying to choke out the smaller independently well-run carriers.”
Ontario is introducing legislation to make speed limiters mandatory for all trucks driving into, out of and within Ontario. A speed limiter, which will be capped at 105 km/hour, is a built-in microchip that presets a truck’s top speed.
A third major issue facing the industry is “the lack of overnight parking throughout this beautiful country of ours,” Ms. Couture added. “In Ontario, the government has closed a few service centres and a few more are facing impending closure. This is a bad thing for drivers looking for somewhere to pull over, use the washroom, go to sleep.”
Regarding pollution, she said, “Because we’re supposedly the ‘big bad’ polluting trucks, we have a lot of parking restrictions, due to city bylaws when we’re actually a very minor part of the pollution problem. Our engines have gone through major changes in the past six years and more to come by 2010. In addition, a large number of us use idle reduction technology to reduce even more this threat of pollution.”
Career tips
As for starting a career as a truck driver, Ms. Sliva-Banville said, “Do a lot of research on the company you want to work for as well as research the type of freight you want to haul. Talk to as many drivers as possible but don’t believe everything you hear.
Ms. Stovell suggests hiring on with a company that has a training program. “They ask you to team up with another driver as a mentor,” she said. “This can range from good to great, but it also comes with another problem. Some men simply can’t be that close to a woman team driver in such a little house and keep his thoughts to himself. I have seen some disasters, and yet there are many success stories as well. Teaming up with a female mentor can solve most of these issues.”
“Realize you’re entering a man’s world,” Ms. Covey said, “and that you’re going to have to play by his rules. Be prepared to do the entire job.”
“Go for it, girl,” Ms. Champagne said. “Just be careful. Don’t sleep in dark alleys where there’s no one around.”
“Sign on with a good reputable carrier,” Ms. Couture said. “Don’t look through all the rose-coloured glasses the recruiters paint for you. Do your digging. Be flexible in what you are willing to do. Find the good senior drivers and ask them all the questions you can. There’s only one stupid question in this industry and that’s the one that was never asked!
“Walk tall, look professional, plan your routes, plan your stops and, when you get lost – and you will – don’t panic. We’ve all had to turn around in an awkward spot.
“This industry has gone through many changes over the 14 years I’ve been part of it and it will continue to change,” Ms. Couture said. “We have to be able to adjust to change and I hope we, the members of this industry, get consulted more often when changes are impending.”