Female Truckers in It for the Long Haul

Every day, along the congested highways of Shaky City (trucker slang for Los Angeles), thousands of tractor-trailers, dirt trucks, moving vans and flatbeds shoulder their cargo toward faraway destinations. Life is tough for the drivers, who often put in 60-hour workweeks, drive through the night--sometimes for 10 straight hours--and remain on the road for up to three weeks at a time.

“A lot of women believe it’s too rough a life, too hard a living,” says Anita Kerezman, 49, of Victorville, who drives for national carrier Yellow Freight. “But for me, it offers freedom, a chance to work outside, to view constantly changing scenery. I just couldn’t imagine being cooped up in an office or laboratory.”

Of the estimated 335,000 truck drivers in California, approximately 16,700 are women, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Contrary to popular myth, these distaff drivers are not Amazons who sport anchor tattoos and open Budweiser bottles with their teeth. Many have flocked to the industry to take advantage of its unusual work conditions--independence, extensive travel and out-of-doors assignments. Others have been introduced to the business by a friend, boyfriend or husband who encouraged them to try their hand at piloting a 65-foot, 80,000-pound (fully loaded), 15-gear highway schooner.

According to trucker lore, the first wave of women swept the industry in the early 1970s, when Vietnam-era youths of both sexes became enamored of the “Easy Rider” myth; they longed to be free-spirited wanderers roaming the American countryside, unhindered by ties. The women’s liberation movement also inspired the day’s young women to try everything that men could do. Truck driving, a vaunted male domain, became a logical target. But despite the era’s ebullient liberalism, the first pioneering lady truckers were greeted with less than enthusiasm from their male peers.

“I’ll tell you what the men drivers were saying,” says Dennis V. Frazier, 60, of Apple Valley, a line driver for freight carrier Roadway Express who’s been operating trucks for 37 years. “They were yelling, ‘Get those women out of the trucks! They won’t be able to do the work!’ But the women proved them wrong.”

Life for the early female truckers was often grueling; two decades ago, their jobs required far more heavy labor and lifting than is demanded today. Beginning female drivers would often find themselves paired on “sleeper runs” (two-person long hauls, where one person drives as the other sleeps in a small hideaway berth) with hostile male drivers. Sometimes, the male drivers would play cruel tricks; for example, they’d refuse to stop for bathroom breaks or would give the women the silent treatment during 1,000-mile runs. Others would ridicule the women to peers and employers and belittle their driving skills.

“On one of my first runs, I got really sick from some food I ate,” recalls one veteran female driver who’s logged more than 1 million miles. “So I asked the other driver to pull over, but he just laughed at me and refused. I had to throw up out the window as we were traveling 60 miles an hour. And when we got back [to the trucking terminal], he walked in and announced to everybody, ‘Hey, look, she vomited all over the side of the truck.”

Today such treatment is rare, but trucking’s stringent demands have resulted in a dire shortage of trained drivers of both sexes.

Costs for insuring young commercial drivers are so prohibitive that most interstate trucking firms prefer to hire drivers at least 25 years old. This frequently causes the newly trained younger drivers, who have just graduated from trucking schools, to settle for low-paying, insecure, nonunion jobs or even accept loading-dock work until they are given an opportunity to drive.

“We basically lose the 18-to-25 age group because of this,” says Tammy Boone, 37, owner of Future Trucking Professionals, a truck school in Redding. “By the time someone’s 25 years old and can be hired in this industry, he or she’s usually well-settled in some other field.”

Beginning drivers must also pay some dues. They get the least preferred driving runs--usually irregularly scheduled long hauls that keep them away from home for days on end. They may be forced to travel nights, weekends and holidays, be paired with an unsociable driving partner, work 60-hour weeks and battle fatigue, boredom and loneliness. Starting salary is about $25,000 a year.

“It is a tough profession,” says Maggie Peterson, 41, a Roadway Express driver and 20-year industry veteran. “A lot of drivers do wash out from the long hours and lack of a social life. When I first started out, I sometimes didn’t see a familiar face for weeks on end. But once you’ve proven yourself and gotten some seniority with a good company, you can have security, a steady schedule and make a good income.”

Experienced drivers can easily earn more than $40,000 a year and snag regular runs that enable them to return home every night. Kerezman, who has put in 27 years on the road, is a skilled skier who has traveled to Europe for ski vacations, learned how to pilot a motorcycle and found time to become a speaker for the High Desert Alliance for Jobs and Safer Transportation. Peterson, a scuba enthusiast, has gone on diving expeditions in Central America, Mexico and Hawaii. She finds time to bake, take her 1973 Harley Shovelhead for long drives and regularly work out at a local gym.

But trucking’s long hours and sometimes unpredictable work schedules can wreak havoc on a woman’s personal life.

“In a word, ‘child care,’ ” Boone says. “The industry is definitely not conducive to single mothers. If you’re running the I-5 corridor, for example, you can be gone three to five days at a time and receive little prior notice to make child-care arrangements.

“So right now trucking’s attracting mostly women who’ve never been married, who don’t have young children and who’d prefer to travel, see the world, then settle down later in life. It also seems to be attracting women in their 50s, some of whom are widows, who’ve already raised children and now want to make a living out-of-doors.”

The haphazard scheduling, long hours and away-from-home hauls also can seriously stress relationships. Divorce rates in the trucking industry are high. Yet all but one of the women interviewed for this article are in long-term relationships with men also employed in the trucking industry.

“Basically, that’s because they understand,” Peterson says. “They know what it’s like, and they’re able to support you in it.”

Husband-and-wife driving teams are, according to a California Trucking Assn. representative, the most common driving teams in the industry. They often drive trucks with elaborate sleepers, which boast double-bunk beds, refrigerators, microwaves, televisions, skylights and even closets. Some teams, who spend up to 240 days a year on the road, can earn up to $170,000 a year.

For women who are contemplating “a boogie in the hammer lane as they run a mission” (driving a truck in top gear, while in the fast lane, to deliver a rush load), many considerations must be taken into account.

“I tell women they’re taking on a lifestyle, not a job,” Boone says. “They’ve got to learn how to sleep during the day, drive for long hours in heavy traffic, exercise whenever they can, eat healthy and deal with the danger factor of being a woman alone on the road by always selecting safe places to rest.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more women are entering the trucking field than ever before. With new reforms in welfare laws, these numbers may increase further. On July 1, for example, Yolo County will begin a government-funded pilot program to send selected welfare recipients to local trucking schools on full scholarships. Similar programs may be launched by other California counties.

Meanwhile, the nearly 16,700 female road warriors will continue to power up (accelerate) their reefers (refrigerated cargo trailers), sandboxes (gravel trailers), skateboards (flatbeds), thermos bottles (tankers), Wally Worlds (Wal-Mart trucks), bulldogs (Mack trucks) and toothpick haulers (lumber trailers) down the highways of Shaky City.