Hitting The Road: As Supply Chain Issues Persist, Opportunities For Women To Get Behind The Wheel Increase
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - As talk of the supply chain problems gets louder, so does the call for more women to consider a career behind the wheel.
The number of women handling big rigs is growing steadily, and there is a special reason trucking companies are welcoming them to the road.
Right now about 10% of the nation's truckers are women and the president of Women in Trucking, Ellen Voie says part of the reason the number isn't higher is the Hollywood image of truckers.
"That's the challenge is the image of the industry, a lot of women talk themselves out of coming into the trucking industry because they think that they have to be big and burly, or they think they have to be mechanically minded, or they think they have to know how to shift and guess what, there are automatic transmissions in those trucks now," Voie explains.
Voie says a study by the American Transportation Research Institute shows "women actually make better drivers than male drivers. Women are risk-averse. Male commercial drivers are 20% more likely to be involved in the crash in every statistically significant area than female commercial drivers."
Angelique Temple believes it.
She's been driving accident-free for "21 years. I have traveled over two million miles."
Temple says it can be very rewarding.
"I would say between 70 and 100,000 is the average that I see from the people that I know that I'm in the industry working for company drivers," she says.
Voie says it all depends on what you are willing to haul and who you work for.
"Private fleets typically pay more, Walmart drivers start at 90,000," she says.
Encouraged by her husband Robert, Carla Holmes left her job in Behavioral Health Counseling to join him on the road as a co-driver. She enrolled in a driving school to get her Commercial Drivers License (CDL).
"Probably half of the guys there were supportive and the other half were like, whatever!" Holmes says. "You're just a chick you're not going to make it."
She says the female drivers took the training more seriously. While the male drivers were having to take the final test multiple times, she and the other women passed on their first time.
Angelique has seen the amount of ribbing or harassment wane a bit over her years on the road, but it's still there.
She says it's all about approach.
"You have to come out here demand your respect," Jones says. "Do your job and do well show them that they need to look at you as a driver first woman second."
Carla says because she's on the road with her husband she doesn't hear too much "stuff."
"I have purple hair, so I get a lot of people, complimenting me on my hair that's about the most harassment that I get," she says.
Carla has now been co-driving with Robert for a year and just last week topped 100,000 miles behind the wheel. She says it's the best decision she ever made.
"There's freedom in it like I get to, I get to see the open country I get to see different weather I get to experience different weather, and there's a peace and a serenity to driving," she says.
WATCH: Life On The Road
Both women love their lives on the road.
Angelique made $114,000 last year driving for a company and this week, she starts her life and as an owner/operator and expects an even bigger paycheck.
"We calculated at least, at a minimum of 250,000, and that's just based on my personal running," she says.
Carla says she and Robert will probably be in the 200 to 250 thousand range. She says their truck "never stops" and she handles the noon-midnight shift.
"From seven to midnight, you know when it's just me on the road and there are not very many cars I get a lot of what I call "God time,'" she says. "You know I get a lot of time to just sit and really have that meditation and time to reflect on my day what's going on in my life."
Carla who is 42 and Robert who is 54 both have four children from previous marriages and the youngest of the 8 is Carla's 17-year-old son who lives with his dad.
Angelique is 45 so she has spent almost half of her life bringing in a paycheck from the road.
"I love the independence, I love the fact that most my years I raised six children behind this wheel, and was able to provide a fabulous lifestyle according to what they feel," she says. "I felt was just like 'hey we're gonna make it today and they were like no we look good. We look good.'"
Voie says as women consider the possibility of getting behind the wheel there are a lot of women truckers with growing families.
She says they even have some who are on the road and their husbands are at home with their kids.
But not all jobs mean being away from home.
"There are intermodal jobs where you're picking up, you know, shipping containers or rail containers, there are delivery jobs, waste management waste hauling, I mean, hauling trash you can put your kids on the bus in the morning, you know, and haul trash during the day and be home for their baseball games," Voie says.
Angelique says driving a truck is a profession you need to love because it can get tough.
Voie says they are working with truck manufacturers to make rigs more gender-friendly and she points out with the current supply chain issues the job possibilities for women are infinite.
Both Carla and Angelique love their view out the windshield.
"I've always been fascinated with sunrises and sunsets," Carla says.
"When I'm looking out the window, and I'm saying overall that's like endless opportunity is like the sky's the limit because you never see where the road ends, so there's no limit," adds Angelique.
