From tractor to long haul trucker
Jess Baker’s truck driving ambitions began on the farm tractor as a 7-year-old.
Those ambitions have taken the 33-year-old through Taranaki’s back blocks carting hay and cattle and numerous journeys across the Nullarbor Plain.
She’s been kicked in the shins by a cattle beast and had to dodge a kangaroo jumping across the highway.
She has driven freight trucks and stock trucks, and road trains, some measuring almost half a football field, from Australia’s west coast to the east.
With 25 years behind the wheel, Baker still finds time to paint her nails for work but can’t remember the last time she put on lipstick.
‘‘I’ve never had a desk job because I just don’t enjoy sitting inside an office all day.
‘‘I much prefer driving trucks where there is something different going on all the time.
‘‘There are always different road conditions, or bad weather, or carting different freight.’’
Baker said more women were looking to truck driving as full time employment.
‘‘There’s quite a few women now driving line haul and logging trucks.’’
With new technology women are far from disadvantaged, she said.
‘‘If you are a woman and want to drive trucks, it’s not a matter of ‘can’t’ but ‘why not?’ ‘‘
Her advice to other women is ‘‘do it, and have a go’’.
‘‘There’s no harm in trying.’’
The job involved long hours, of up to a maximum 70 hours a week, with 14 hour days. But there are compulsory rest stops.
There’s also some heavy lifting and the occasional kick from a cow being prodded to get onto the trailer, she said.
Baker now works for her father’s Inglewood-based transport company, Keith Baker Cartage.
Like most farm kids she learned to drive the tractor as soon as she went to primary school.
‘‘I’ve always wanted to drive trucks as soon as I was old enough to get my licence,’’ she said.
Her first truck was a 18 speed Nissan manual before she graduated to a brand new 2004 450 Isuzu, her father had bought for her, she said.
Based in Perth for six years she drove a 45 metre-long double trailer 909 Kenworth road train carting general freight from Perth to Brisbane, as well as Sydney, Cairns, and Melbourne.
‘‘It’s still is the best truck I have driven,’’ she said.
The 4500km journey to Brisbane would take Baker, and her former partner, 56 hours to complete, stopping briefly every 4-5 hours to swap seats and grab a bite to eat.
With around five per cent of truck drivers in New Zealand being women, Baker is one of a growing number choosing truck driving as a career.
Women in Road Transport (WIRT) chair Meryn Morrison said more women were being employed as drivers.
WIRT was set up to encourage and promote more women to join the road transport industry, she said.
‘‘The average age of drivers is 53 so there are opportunities for young women to become part of the industry.’’
Women drivers are more attentive to detail, she said.
‘‘There’s more women now in the industry promoting themselves as more risk adverse drivers,’’ she said.
‘‘Women drivers are well represented in the logistics side of the industry, they are confident and they want to advance in a career.
‘‘Truck drivers are naturally straight up types of people, especially when it comes to a problem, but the rough, tough macho sort of guy has gone.’’