Recently the United States has experienced a shortage of truck drivers, putting further stress on an already strained supply chain.
In the past year alone, the country has been short about 80,000 truckers, who are needed to transport food and other vital goods as the supply chain tries to recuperate.
More women drivers are beginning to fill that shortage. Women only make up 10% of truck drivers right now, but that number is growing.
Keosha Farris, a local woman who left her previous job to become a trucker, said, “It’s not just a career that men can do. It’s for everybody. Anybody can do it; you can do anything that you put your mind to.”
Farris is part of a four-week commercial driver’s license program at Edge Tech Academy in Arlington. She is learning defensive driving, size and weight laws, cargo handling, and safety regulations.
This increase in women truckers could be partly in response to the infrastructure law passed in November 2021, which actively promotes more women in the trucking industry.
Section 23007(b) of the bill reads, “It is the sense of Congress that the trucking industry should explore every opportunity to encourage and support the pursuit and retention of careers in trucking by women, including through programs that support recruitment, driver training, and mentorship.”
Over the summer, the American Trucking Associations launched the “Women in Motion” initiative to “accelerate the rise of women throughout the industry and help eliminate the roadblocks that stand in their way.”
The nonprofit Women in Trucking Association also encourages “the employment of women in the trucking industry, promotes their accomplishments, and minimizes obstacles faced by women working in the industry.”
Women reportedly pass the driving test at a higher rate than men, and companies statistically save money on insurance with women drivers, according to industry leaders.
Lawrence Turner, the lead instructor for the CDL program at Edge Tech Academy, said, “It’s an industry that’s still growing. We still need truckers.”
Explaining why, he said, “I say if it comes on a plane or a boat, a truck is the last thing that touches that freight and gets it to the dock door — which then gets it to you.”
“So, we need that gap filled,” he said. “Female truckers are the new face of trucking. We love it.”
Furthermore, he explained, women coming into the trucking industry will “allow the industry to increase in pick up of product and productivity of moving freight across the country.”
Turner continued. “Of course, a lot of freight is local, but a whole lot more of it is over the load long miles. A lot of miles, a lot of hours. So, we do need people in place to cover those.”
