Bucking Old Ideas, Some Women Make Inroads In Trucking

(Michael James - Transport Topics) Maggie Peterson, driver for Roadway Express, in Washington D.C for James Hoffa's installation as Teamster president.

Thirty-some years after the women’s movement opened the doors to many vocations traditionally considered “male,” young women still look askance at driving big rigs for a living.

Lissa Carmichael, a 9-year old schoolgirl in Fairfax County, Va., says, “Ladies can’t drive big trucks.” If you ask what she wants to be when she grows up, she says, “A nurse or a cowgirl.”

Lissa has never heard of a “lady” truck driver. “Daddies do that. Trucks are too big for ladies,” she says.

That is the way Lissa sees women in the world. There are certain things “ladies” don’t do. She has never seen a woman truck driver and has never considered that women could drive the big rigs she loves to gawk at out on the road.

For the full story, see the June 18 print edition of Transport Topics. Subscribe today.