I Love Trucks!

I have only driven truck 5 months total plus school. I got into it in 2006, needed a good paying job after becoming divorced. I had twin sons in college and I needed a good income and fast! A cousin of mine suggested I try trucking. Work is scarce in my area. He was an owner/operator, drove flatbed so I went out OTR with him a few weeks. I loved it! I then got a grant to go to truck driving school.

After graduating, I drove flatbed in winter for a month and a half, hauling steel coils. Grueling work, don't know why any woman would want to subject themselves to it. (My hat is off to the flatbedders, it is physically demanding, throwing a 75 pound tarp over my shoulder, tossing 3/4 inch logging chains over my shoulder and having to carry all the ratchet binders. Then, to have to crank down all those salt coated straps and inhale all the road salt was just an added benefit! ha ha). Then I spent a month with Transport America out of Youngstown, drove dry van, had horrible trainer experiences but it was a good company. I passed all my tests, had truck to myself first day solo and I panicked, not ready to do the OTR thing alone.

I went back to office work for awhile but couldn't make ends meet. Then I got back into trucking but with a teammate. We drove refer for Western Distributing out of Denver. I did that a couple months, even got cleared for their USAC division (background check and concealed weapons permit), to haul money for the US mints in an armored semi (Yes, I said "armored semi". I didn't even know there was such a thing but there are few companies that do it. Our trucks looked just like the refer I was driving.) But, my teammate bailed and I couldn't find another one (they had to live in my area).

Then, a few months later, I drove double trailers OTR (team) for FedEx Ground, out of Youngstown. Was home every weekend, had excellent pay and benefits. But, I couldn't sleep when teammates drove, I fell asleep at the wheel a few times, almost wrecking but didn't. I told my boss I was going to kill someone and so I quit. That was the best job I had out of all of them. Haven't trucked since July 2008.

I really miss the smell of diesel, the sound of a big engine and the good experiences I had along the way. (I know this sounds stupid because I don't look the part but I would like to be trained to be a diesel mechanic. I like figuring out mechanical things.)

I expected men to have the attitudes that trucking was a man's job, not for women but they didn't. I was treated exceptionally well. I so appreciated all of you holding doors open for me at truck stops and treating me kindly and being helpful. There were just a couple of jerks I ran across but my whole experience with other truckers was very pleasant. I am a big girl but no one ever treated me like a man.

Take care and thanks for reading. I love talking trucks, feel free to write me at my email address, this site won't let me send emails it seems, without a whole bunch of posts first. My email is tartanian@gmail.com

Be safe!