This series of posts on Solutions for Ethical Truck Driver Training comes as a result of many long ignored suggestions made by actual truck drivers to their companies who train students and receive a good deal of government funding. The turnover rate in trucking is 125% which is outrageous and most of this turnover is due to predatory lending & poor recruitment. Poor Training & Support, Personal Safety & Harassment Issues, Retaliation by carriers & Industry to push truck drivers out of the industry who protest being mistreated and provoked.

Let’s cut to the chase: As predicted when the economy crashed in 2008 the phony truck driver shortage that the ATA and the carriers it represents rely upon to keep the government money coming in, also dissipated. Now it’s back right when the jobs bill is coming up and all the usual suspects are in high gear for recruiting, but have they corrected their ugly ways?

Sexual Predators and Control Freaks are drawn to environments where they can get what they want and operate without notice. Religious Organizations, Religion based dating sites, Pediatricians, Boy Scout Leaders, Girls Schools; even organizations like Trucker Buddy will attract a risk taking predator. Religion plays a part because denial provides a safe haven for such predators to utilize this fertile ground as a place to feed their illness. This is why these organizations should recognize they have greater responsibility in screening the people they give positions of power to dominate over another person.

“Shunning” is how a person is treated after they have complained about mistreatment or abuse. A sanction to isolate a person further is often associated with religious groups but the behavior is common in the trucking industry, which we refer to as retaliation for reporting abuse. There are many more extreme cases of retaliation that occur in the form of threats or intimidation. Most commonly a ruined DAC and/or telling prospective new employers that the driver is no longer hireable. This has effectively ended many truck driving careers. For Women, the misuse of lifting requirments or agility tests in a manner that is not equal to test given to men and in some cases making the weight inappropriate for the job has eliminated some veteran women truckers from the trucking industry. This is why few people hear much about Women Truckers,most want anonymity.

The ATA advocacy page I have linked says nothing about the recent outpouring of social media, investigative reports and lawsuits about abuse to student truckers by predators and control freaks. Still the media hype machine is hard at work to create the basis for the next wave of student truckers. Articles in Fleet Owner & Reuters ; describe a false image, those of us who have had pay cuts know these articles are complete rubbish. Moving on to more ethical companies is not a viable option because most are not hiring. Only the training companies are claiming to be suffering for truck drivers. Curious isn’t it?

In one manner or another, the government is funding the handful of student training fleets who will most benefit from this next wave of recruiting. The ATA has not acted responsibly when they have continued to ignore that many of the carriers it represents think nothing about hiding behind religion or skewed statistical data which makes it appear everything is fine in the world of training student truckers. This makes the ATA and the Organization “Women in Trucking ” nothing more than an accomplice to abuse. The flip-flop advocacy of what is a priority depends where they can get media attention, it is repugnant and obvious.

“Working behind the scenes” is no good. “Serving in Silence” makes a sinister undertone of a cover up to that which is unacceptable to protect something that is well-known. Partnerships with companies, who have lost, settled or are in current litigation for rampant problems of sexual misconduct and discrimination look to be nothing more than a public relations recovery rather than a pro-active approach to correcting a fixable problem.

Many former female trainers from the handful of government funded mega-fleets have written suggestions to help but they have been ignored. There is no reason a $100,000 grant should be awarded in order to create a solutions code or any other amount in my opinion when real truckers have written endless letters and suggestions to make a better training environment for all student truckers and they have been ignored.

Trucking Companies who train government funded students or receive favorable tax incentives to train workers should be held to a higher level of corporate accountability. Hiding behind religion should not be a factor to avert attention but rather make these companies held under a microscope more closely when it is well known this particular environment makes it easy for a pleasant liar to thrive.

Predators thrive in an environment where there is denial; just ask someone who was raped as a child by a Priest, Pastor, Minister or Deacon of the Church.

I recently had lunch with a Woman Trucker who I had met some months back, she dresses in a rather eccentric manner but she is older than I am. She is very animated and sweet but I could see most people would judge her by her appearance automatically. During lunch she said whenever someone brought up the “P” word meaning “Pedophile” she would go crazy. She never knew why, she had no recollections of her childhood. She had been abandoned by her Mother and raised but her very religious Aunt & Uncle. As a young lady, she got herself involved in troubles that lasted until she was in her 30’s and she came close to dying. A social worker suggested she talk to a therapist and she began to realize she had been raped her entire childhood by her uncle who was very respected in the community and a church leader. Most of the people in her small town already knew about the abuse but they said nothing. They only whispered behind her back. She did not know because she had blocked it all out. Even her childhood friend confessed that there were rumors in the town that her children were fathered by her uncle. She told me when she came to grips with these truths she became liberated and began living her life. She said she dresses in a manner she feels good and she does not care what others say because she feels like she is a teenager for the first time at 50 years of age.

She began driving a truck about 5 years ago and was thankful for the government voucher to have a chance for a new life. The trainer she was assigned told her she had to have sex with him in order to learn to drive the truck, when she refused he threw her off the truck. Her second trainer used her only as a second log book and did not teach her anything. This is a very common training experience for single women entering trucking. Veteran Women truckers may not be fully aware of this because many have become Owner-Operators and have never had to work for one of the Government funded fleets. This woman I met loves the freedom trucking gives her to live far away from that small town where she can be herself. She is not a highly educated but she is very astute in her perceptions. She is thankful she has found trucking but frankly, when CSA2010 comes into effect I feel many of us poorly trained students will be replaced.

It is very difficult to have a student insured obviously because they come from CDL Schools with barely enough experience to hold the steering wheel, PTDI certification OR NOT! NOTHING can prepare a Student Trucker for being in charge of a big rig on the open highway until they get out there and do it. I would also like to add a word of advice to single women who have been offered to learn to drive from a “Owner-Operator”. While this might sound wonderful that someone has taken a personal shine to you, the truth is they probably want a relationship or a 2 week sex partner. For insurance reasons like I said above it would not be possible for a veteran to take you on their rig and for you to receive the hours needed to be considered experienced. I have met many student females who bought this line only to be put off a truck after they refused sex. They often say that they never learned to drive but were only badgered for sex the entire time.

Student Truckers are funneled into a handful of Truck Driving Training Fleets where they are to be trained to drive and most will not make it. There is no shortage of truck drivers but there is a shortage of good trainers who are not Control Freaks and Predators. There is also a problem in poor recruiting which makes good trainers quit. This is especially true for Women trainers. Retaliation for reporting predators remains a problem and as one former CR England Trainer alleged in a June 2009 blog talk radio program for “Truth about Trucking “, sometimes groups of trainers will work in conjunction passing a female student around until she has sex with one of them.

Being a trainer for a student means you are risking your life at the hands of someone you do not know anything about. This is a huge risk when the quality of students is very poor and trainers often quit because of it. The quality of students has been poor because of the government money to foot the bill for anyone with a pulse thus creating predatory lending. The good trainer suffers the consequences of this chaos which leaves predators who see student truckers as a ripe opportunity for additional company money and sex.

Contrary to the assertions by Ellen Voie in the Q & A about the CRST Sexual Harassment Case , the Women did not all want to be part of a lawsuit. Tracy Hamm for instance had filed with the EEOC prior and had never been contacted. She saw others being hurt by the same people and wanted change so no one else would be hurt. This is in her deposition and Ellen Voie had no business making such remarks at any juncture when she had never talked to any of these women at length. Another former Woman Trainer who successfully sued U.S. Xpress shared this ridiculous question she was asked when she was deposed for her case. “What color panties were you wearing?” her story will be in a future post about some of the unsafe training situations these companies put female recruits into. It becomes overwhelming when the companies are linked to “Women in Trucking” AFTER the lawsuits & allegations. Personal Safety is equal to Highway safety for this line of work. You cannot concentrate on the highway if you are afraid of your trainer or co-driver, or want to kill them as in a recent case from “Gordon Trucking “.

This particular woman trucker was able to go on to work in the industry because her settlement included not being blackballed which is most commonly done to women truckers who ever dare speak out about the treatment they receive. She later married a trainer and became one herself. They are no longer married but she told me her former Husband has had multiple complaints against him for sexual misconduct but he has not been taken off the training board except for short periods. He was eventually assigned to train only married couples but was caught multiple times masturbating while he was training, even kicking the students out to stand on the street while he finished! Why is he still a trainer at all?

She is no longer a trainer and like other women trainers I have met, they are given the problem students who should not be on the road at all but for some reason the company retains them. The clue to this may be that in order to receive the funding on each student they must be employed for a certain period of time, even if they are a menace to highway safety. That is the student trucker industry! These are the students who after a good deal of time are not learning and/or have many “issues” that prevent them from becoming good, safe truck drivers. It is because of this, Women trainers are scarce.

Tracy Hamm the Woman Trucker from the CRST Case who first made contact on the Trucker Desiree blog had offered solutions from her perspective after having been a student who had troubles and as a former trainer. We have all seen many competent truck driving students fail to succeed because of the system which protects predators. We have also seen many incompetent truck driving students succeed who should not be on the highway or go on to become predatory trainers themselves. This is why we are demanding solutions! If you read the entire Q & A of Ellen Voie you would have seen Tracy Hamm’s name brought up time and again. Ellen Voie contacted Tracy following a phone conference we had when I advised Ellen that her information was incorrect. Tracy also spoke at length with WIT Director Marge Bailey who took away a very different view once she spoke to Tracy. I am not at liberty to share the remarks that Marge wrote to me following her chat with Tracy, but I can say it was lengthy and Marge Bailey expressed a concern that indeed these issues are much more complex and need to be fully addressed. Tracy like many other Women Truckers provided Ellen Voie & myself solutions that have been suggested to carriers for a good deal of time. The problem is that the carriers ignore these suggestions. Recruiting seems to be a priority but not conduct to insure success.

Here are some of the Solutions from Tracy Hamm and other Women Truckers:

1. The trainer & trainee should spend at least 24 hours together prior to training. During that time, they should ask one another questions and talk about their expectations. The carriers should help by preparing a “Common Concerns” Checklist to help facilitate this interview process.

2. A general compatibility questionnaire would help determine the appropriateness of the match. This will also benefit the “Team Business Model” where some carriers require a team driving component to training: For Instance, Music Preference, Cleanliness, Personal Hygiene, Bathroom Stops, Sleep Patterns, Gambling Stops, Storage… answering these questions verbally will reveal personality traits such as inability to work together OR over accommodating behavior which can turn into “I gave you everything…” tantrum later.

3. The Student Company should be required to have a liaison that will be responsible for the trainee’s success. That person will have the trainee’s phone number and will call him/her once each day to inquire how the training is going. The trainee should meet the liaison in person during on site training. The trainee should be told how to make an S.O.S. via Qualcomm prior to leaving with their trainer and be given phone number that WILL be answered should they need assistance for an emergency to get off the truck. This should be discussed prior to fully understand what would be considered Urgent and what is NOT.

4. To avert retaliation or confrontation by trainer/co-driver for requesting to be removed from a “situation” the liaison and student should devise code words or phrases to indicate that there is something wrong that needs the attention. For example, “I need more vitamins in my water” could mean, “get me out of the truck immediately!” (something to that effect.)

5. The trucking carrier should supply the trainer and trainee with a code of ethics that they must agree to by reading, signing and keeping a copy with emergency numbers before departing the terminal. This should also be done for truck driving teams in student fleets. Any violations of sexual misconduct are grounds for termination.

6. A series of conduct films are very much needed in truck driver training because of the highly unusual training conditions. Two complete strangers from very different backgrounds, religions, political affiliations are expected to conduct themselves as professionals who live and work together without guidance?

I’d like to see my CEO teamed in a truck with the very outspoken 50 year old woman with a gold grill on her teeth. I’d like to see them work together to put a set of chains on at donner pass at 3 a.m. How about Clayton Boyce as my trainee when I’m PMS? We all have our daily issues but in this super intense environment in which we expect to teach and learn we should also provide more guidance before we hand out keys to 18 wheelers.

Other former Women Truckers have offered suggestions such as putting cameras in the cab which for training trucks might be fine if they were activated by a panic button rather than rolling constantly. This is rather impractical given the sleeper size, the reality of changing clothes, having to pee in a cup or bottle at times when facilities are not available. Cameras open up the door for too much weird behavior which is already a problem in trucking where abuse of power is an epidemic.

The first step in making solutions is freeing us from denial and understanding that being a trainer for a trucking student who cannot drive can very well end someone’s life, including the trainers.

The trainer should not be put on team miles from day one which has been common practice. The reason why is that students who come from ANY CDL School ARE NOT prepared to drive an 11 hour shift. This is something you build up to and throwing students out on the road to move cheap freight puts every single person on the highway at risk! The trainer is there to train a person who has little more than a few trips around the city where they went to school. They have barely driven enough to understand lane changes , changing weather and how to manage traffic flow. The trainer is placed in a catch 22 if they must be in the sleeper for 10 hours by law. How can they ever supervise the student legally? That is a question I would like to ask Ray LaHood U.S. Secretary of Transportation. I know this man cares about safety because I follow his news closely on Twitter and I highly doubt he is being told the correct information about what goes on in the REAL World of training truckers and what female recruits have to put up with in order to learn.

The trainer should not be expected to break HOS laws to train students.

Putting trainers in unsafe training situations makes good trainers quit and leaves only the ‘Hot Dog” trainers and Predators who have another reason they take the risk. There is a shortage of good trainers because predatory lending brings unsuitable candidates into trucking. There is a shortage of good qualified, screened students. There is a shortage of proper & effective support from the carriers to teach conduct skills to recruits who are expected to live, work & learn in a truck the size of an elevator.

This is the first part in a series of solutions that have been contributed by various REAL Truck Drivers who care about Highway Safety & Personal Safety. These things should not be for sale , they are free and we hope ethical professionals in the trucking industry will recognize that it’s time to do things differently.

Correct the manner in which you train trucking students and your driver shortage will cease.

Not there ever was one…..

**** This Post Originated from the REAL Women In Trucking site where you can find additional reading links and other comments*** written by Desiree Wood