Women in Trucking encouraging same-gender driver training policies
Most female truck drivers feel safe in their truck cabs, but it’s a different story when it comes to sharing a cab with a male trainer.
In a summer survey by the Women in Trucking Association, 42.5% of respondents said they knew of female drivers who were harassed or assaulted when sharing the cab with a trainer of another gender. Sixty-six percent of those surveyed were female.
The drivers offered their truck cabs an average safety rating of 83%, but the figure dropped to just 51% when it came to rating the safety of women who share a cab with a trainer.
Almost two-thirds (62.5%) of the 436 professional drivers who were surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that a same-gender training program would encourage more women to pursue careers as drivers.
Women continue to be underrepresented in the trucking industry’s workforce, representing just 3.5% of Canadians driving trucks and 7.8% of American truck drivers.
The survey results build on the association’s ongoing calls to encourage fleets to adopt same-gender training policies.
“While having a same-gender trainer isn’t an option in instances involving female drivers, there are also alternatives to help reduce or eliminate issues, such as ensuring that when sleeping arrangements need to be made that one of the parties has the ability to have a paid hotel room available to avoid the need to sleep together in the same cab,” the Women in Trucking Association says.
It also encourages trucking companies to market team driving opportunities with partners.
Other recommendations include equipping trucks with sound-enabled cameras and panic buttons in sleepers, using day cabs and separate lodging for on-the-road training, and using local routes for over-the-road training.
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What WIT does not say in this report is that the sexual assaults in truck driver training happen at fleets that are their sponsors and that Ellen Voie herself has acted as an expert witness for the perpetrator / companies and against women truck driver students in both discrimination and sexual assault cases. What this same gender media blitz is about is to finally admit there is rape problem in truck driver training and not hold companies where it is happening accountable. Not name corporate sponsors names. Same gender training violates the civil rights act of 1964 Title VII and overlooks the obvious issue. Some people are not trainer material and should not be training regardless of gender. There is a reason there are not a lot of women trainers. Let’s talk about why that is. Women also harass students sexually and become violent. There is a video on our you tube channel that illustrates this perfectly. Two women. Female trainer throwing student off the truck in a very violent altercation. Why? because she hit on the student and the student wasn’t interested so the trainer called the company and told them she wanted her off the truck. The company said “okay” and let this trainer conduct herself like this. That is the problem is the companies coerce people to become trainers who are not teacher material and they let them do what they want. So, until that problem is solved this issue will not change. WIT is trying to play CYA because they have enabled bad actors for over 10 years where they know rape is happening. Now they want all of us to be dumb enough to think this will fix it.
That’s true it’s very difficult to share a cab with opposite sex, it discouraged the females who are willing to train males driver even to join the trucking industry, lastly, how do l do when l want to migrate to Europe as my profession is a truck driver
When I trained, I was living as a transgender female. My trainer was a man.
He wasn’t happy about it as he was told by the carrier that he had to stop at a place where I had access to showers and toilets when we shut down. He generally shut down where he wanted to doing mid-west US runs. We slept in the tractor.
He took great delight in having Howard Stern on and Stern was going on one day about gays, transgender people and his generally disgusting and offensive comments. I politely asked if he could change the station. I was told, “My truck, my station, my choice, so tough being you.”.
First week was fine, second week was ok, third was bad, fourth was shall we say, intolerable. He slept in the tractor, I slept in chairs as best I could which was risky, at the truck stops and for the most part when and if he talked it was personal stuff that he wanted to know.
Read and discussed first week reviews, read second week reviews, looked over third week, just signed the fourth week’s, never read them. Didn’t care, I was just so depressed and demoralized.
I think it would have been a lot better for me if I had a female trainer, but the carrier didn’t have any, but they did take me on and I got my own truck.
Got axed by them over the phone alongside the road just 2 days before my probation was up.
I was told in confidentiality outside as I was leaving after turning in my tractor, keys, company identification and passes I was hired because I was trans and fired because I was. Made them look “progressive and all inclusive”.
Found another carrier whose only concern about me was could I drive?