Truckin' with Tamie
From CEOs to mechanics to truck drivers, women are revolutionizing the transportation industry. Tune in to "Truckin' with Tamie" where host Tamie explores the ins and outs of trucking, showcasing how this formerly male-dominated field is now opening its doors to women worldwide. We cover the issues affecting women entering the industry for the first time, CDL Schools and training programs, and adjusting to life on the road. We will interview women in various positions in the trucking industry, and get the real scoop on what to expect as a woman in this field.
Truckin' with Tamie
Triumph Over Adversity: Desiree Wood's Fight for Women in Trucking
Imagine a life marked by resilience and transformation, where every challenge is met with unwavering determination. That's the story of Desiree Wood, founder and president of Real Women in Trucking. She takes us through her inspiring journey, from a turbulent youth and early motherhood, through overcoming homelessness and an abusive marriage, to finding solace and purpose behind the wheel of a truck. Desiree's journey is a testament to the strength of the human spirit, illustrating how personal adversity can fuel a passion for advocacy and systemic change within the trucking industry.
Our conversation with Desiree dives deep into the chaotic and often perilous world of truck driving, where she encountered disorganization and unsafe practices firsthand. Her experiences in trucking exposed the troubling disconnect between drivers and industry leaders, sparking a drive to advocate for change. Desiree's transition from driver to advocate reveals her commitment to education, mental wellness, and the empowerment of women in trucking. We discuss the formidable challenges women face, from harassment to discrimination, and the relentless push for better conditions through the nonprofit organization, REAL Women in Trucking.
Desiree's narrative doesn't just stop at advocacy but extends into the broader issues plaguing the trucking industry. From the myth of driver shortages to exploitative recruitment practices, we explore the systemic problems that need addressing. Drawing from her rich personal experiences, Desiree shares her insights on fostering a supportive community and the importance of education in paving a future for truck drivers. This episode is a powerful reminder of the impact one person can have in challenging industry norms and advocating for meaningful change. Join us as we uncover the victories and ongoing battles within a male-dominated field, where the voices of committed advocates like Desiree offer hope and inspiration for a better tomorrow.
You are live. Good morning, this is Tammy with Truckin' with Tammy. Today I have guest Desiree Wood. Desiree is the founder and president of Real Women in Trucking. Let me say that correct. This morning and today we're going to talk to Desiree not just about her foundation and her organization, but we're also going to get down and dirty with Desiree, the person and her beginnings, where she her journey and where she is now. So good morning Desiree. Good morning how are you?
Speaker 2:Cold, we got a lot of snow this week. Okay, sorry to hear that I don't like the cold.
Speaker 1:Yeah, normally where I live we don't get much, but this last 10 days we got two huge waves of snow, so I have still not buried everything out yet. So, as I told you, I want to get to know you, the woman and your stars. So way back when, when, before trucking, what was life like for you?
Speaker 2:Uh, it was um complex, I'll just say so. Um, I uh ran away from home when I was 14 and I got pregnant when I was 15. So I was a single mom. I didn't have any family support. I got married kind of young, to somebody you would think would be every parent's wet dream a college graduate that you know, with a 4.0 grade point average. He ended up joining the army, became an officer, but he was a wife beater and so I left him with my kids and so I had a pretty difficult life when I was young, trying to survive with two kids and try to pay the rent and pay the babysitter and all of that stuff. And then I started working in clubs and we had a really nice life and we had a very we're able to take vacations and live in Hawaii.
Speaker 2:I lived in Key West for a long time. I traveled a lot. I had a pretty nice life, considering my start, and so I ended up in Las Vegas around the early 2000s, late 90s, after living in Hawaii and Key West for a long time, because at that time I was working in a hotel and I wasn't going to get any further in the job unless I had a degree. So I came to UNLV, which obviously lots of hotels here and and had like a five-year plan, and was executing that plan, bought a house, making money, you know, doing really well, and then everything just sort of like collapsed on me.
Speaker 2:I was always kind of a goal setter and you know, when I set my mind to something, I do it, I get it done, I visualize it and it happens. And this time it wasn't happening, like everything I did just turned to shit and I was like what is happening here? So I sold my house. I went back to Key West, I bought a house, just like a whole chain of events happened which led to like this massive depression I went into in the early 2000s and I just even became homeless at one point and I called up a girlfriend and I told her I'm like I can't function. I'd always kind of been an inspiration to my, my girlfriends during those years because I was like I'm moving to Hawaii, bye, you know, like I just said I'm doing this and I did it and now all of a sudden I couldn't do that anymore. I was like non-functioning.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to ask this? So because I went through something similar in my own life, where I was always fearless and then I got to a point where I couldn't even pick out towels for my kitchen. So I understand, I know what my pivotal point was. What was the pivotal moment that switched you from that goal setting, fearless, determined woman to that downfall?
Speaker 2:Well, there was a couple of things that happened. One, I think I listened to one of your earlier podcasts and I heard you say empty nest syndrome. You know, that was one thing. I, as a teenage mom that I didn't have no grandma, no sister, no aunt, no, I was on my own, like my family is not anybody I can rely on for anything Never, could never have so the responsibility. I was always like, okay, I'm going to be free on this day. And then when it happened, I was like what am I supposed to do? Like all I've ever done is take care of people. And now I have like I couldn't just exactly what you said. I just couldn't seem to get anything together. That was one thing.
Speaker 2:9-11 had kind of a big impact on me. I was living here in Las Vegas and I was like, wow, like that somebody could come here and just like do something horrible. And you know, like what are these people? That's always been something in my head since I was a child is a disaster, a massive disaster that happens, that makes people unable to, that makes people unable to survive in the way that they're used to. I don't know if that makes sense, but I'm looking at the fires right now, and so are people going to attack each other or are they going to come together as a community?
Speaker 2:And so at that time, when I was like a junior at UNLV I was a year away from graduating I was like thinking, well, I have all these problem solving skills because of the life that I had as a single mom. So I thought but I can't work in an office, I'll go nuts. So what will I do when I graduate? Will I go? I thought I'll go to Africa and I'll give immunizations to children there or something. But when 9-11 happened, I was like why do I want to go to another country? Why I want to do something in my country to make my country better, and so that was a big turning point for me. Right there.
Speaker 2:Also, there was something eating at me. I guess you could say there was something eating at me and I wasn't quite sure what it is. The non-functioning part, I'm not really sure. I did go on antidepressants for a while, but I found that they were making me worse, not better. They were making me have to number one pay for a very expensive prescription that I didn't have insurance for. And then I had to have them, or I would have like a complete meltdown and I was like I can't be on pills for like the rest of my life. So that was one thing too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not one for pill pushing. There's so many other alternatives for depression. Uh, to get those you know the same dopamine fillings and make you feel like you can still function. Uh, as those you know the same dopamine fillings and make you feel like you can still function, as me. You know I was on them when I was in my early 20s, when I went through a divorce, and it just made me feel like a zombie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't like. I didn't like the feeling and I didn't want to have to be dependent on this thing. So that made me on this thing, so that made me upset, and as this thing changed, oops, my little earbud fell out. I see that what I needed was hope. I needed hope and something that interested me again, and nothing at that time interested me. And so when I got into trucking I was like I like this right away, like I love this and this suits my personality.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we leave the hotel, we leave the college, we leave Nevada, we go back down.
Speaker 2:Where did trucking even come up? I'm not even really sure how it popped into my mind, but when I was staying at my girlfriend's and another friend came down there like what do you want to do? And I'm like I'm thinking so one of the parts of my personality is I've always moved, I've always moving, I'm always going somewhere, I'm always doing something new. I learn things quickly and once I learn them, I get bored. You're like my twin, so yeah. So I needed something where I was moving around, doing something hard. It was challenging every day, and that's why I like the hotel industry is that every day it's different.
Speaker 2:But the hotel industry had changed a lot, where they wanted to make you a manager and then you're on salary so that you're working 80 to 90 hours a week, and that comes up to you making minimum wage. And I was seeing a lot of the managers taking jobs where they were tipped employees because they were making more money, which is what I was doing. So bombshell right here I didn't just work in the hotel industry, I was also a stripper, and so I had to at one time decide do you want to have the career in hotel industry that you want to have, or do you need money right now? And so this was always a battle for over 20 years, Like I know, I'm, you know, functioning in my mind that I could do something incredible, but I need this cash right now. So that was like really kind of the battle.
Speaker 2:And then obviously, you know, getting older you got to start making a plan for the future. So for me, moving around was kind of the attraction to trucking going a different place every day. I like the idea of climbing around in the trailer and seeing something different all the time. So that was really it for me. And uh, so you know, I went to a CDL school and that's kind of where it started.
Speaker 1:We lose audio. I don't know.
Speaker 2:Did we?
Speaker 1:go Okay, got it. Okay, got it. Okay. That was weird. Did you catch all that I did? I did. Okay, sorry, I had. There was this. It was like feedbacking um there for a second, so it must have been maybe a wi-fi, uh, internet connection. So that's uh, that's quite the change then, going from that kind of environment to trucking, money-wise, the isolation. So how did you handle that? Because when you're in the hotel industry and you're in the entertainment industry, there's always people, they're coming at you, they're invading your, your, your private space. You know, uh, you are constantly the center of attention, the, the go-to person for everything in the hotel. So now you're switching to an industry where you're isolated.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's what I wanted, because I was very high profile when I worked in clubs. I was, I mean, I literally made money off my looks for over 20 years, and people followed me.
Speaker 2:I was in magazines, I was in the newspaper every week. Everybody knew me where I went, so I wanted isolation. I wanted to be anonymous. I wanted to be valued for the work that I was doing, not for my appearance, and that was something that bothered me, because I think I was like early 40s. I was tired of people putting a lot of value on my appearance and not the substance of my character and my ability to do all kinds of different things and the whole like well, what are you going to do when you get older? Well, I'm going to get older, you know, like I'm cool with it. Are you cool with it? Like, is it a problem for you? Because it's not a problem for me.
Speaker 1:I'm the cool grandma, so yeah, so I.
Speaker 2:I, I was ready to be alone and be with myself, and I've always enjoyed spending a lot of time by myself. So that's why I thought it would be really perfect for me, because I, I partied. I mean, I've been to all the clubs, I've been all the restaurants, I've been on yachts, I've been in limos. I, I lived that life. But I was ready to like, be with. What can I do? Like, when push comes to shove and I'm in a snowstorm all by myself, can I figure out how to get out of it? And that was really what was important to me.
Speaker 1:So at this point, where were the kids? Were they grown at this point when you made this transition?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my kids were grown up. You know, being a mother as young as I was, I was, uh, had my first grandchild by the time I entered trucking. So they were my kids were off doing their thing. Now I have six grandchildren, so the the missing of the birthday parties when they were little, but it wasn't my, you know, not my kids, but I could see that at the time I entered it was a lot of grandmas my age, their kids were grown up, it was just them. A lot of women that just got divorced and they were just on their own. So I felt like all right, these, this, we're all doing the same thing here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that was mine. I was an empty nester. My kids were spreading all over and, um, you know, I was getting angry, I was getting frustrated, I was unhappy, um, emotionally. I mean, I was just cranky about it, you know, because I had my first child. I got pregnant at 16. She is 32. My youngest is 18. I have been a mom for the majority of my life and, you know, having four kids at home when they left, I couldn't deal with it at all. So trucking gave me the ability to travel where they were. You know that and that was that was a thing too.
Speaker 2:That was a thing too is how do I go visit my kids and my friends, all these different places that I've lived, that I have friends and family, and yeah, that was definitely a thing Like I'm just going to go drive and I'll just take my time off wherever.
Speaker 1:I'm at. Yeah, you get paid. You know you're not paying for the travel, so it was a great pull for me, so you got into trucking. I don't know a lot about your start. Um, I know you, uh, as a person for the last eight years of my career, but how did your career start?
Speaker 2:So I went to a school in Miami At that time there was nothing on the internet to prepare you for CDL training. Because I searched and I'm good at searching stuff, you know, and I'm very computer literate forum and a girl had posted that she had a trainer and the trainer was drinking vodka and she reported it to the company. And all the other drivers on the thread attacked her for reporting it to the company and told her she was a snitch and she shouldn't be in trucking. And I'm like, okay, this is what I'm getting into. That was all that I could find. So I started at this school and right away I could see that people were dropping off like flies and that they were just basically taking us down to where these old trucks were and leaving us there and say we'll come back at seven. You know, go figure it out.
Speaker 1:It's like the old throw you in the lake and you'll either sink or swim, kind of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so we kind of developed a method between us to do the pre-trip and, you know, work it out, and then they take us and drive around the block three times in an automatic in Miami and I only got to do it like two times. Everybody else got to do it like three times and then we tested out. So I was like I didn't grow up around truck drivers but my father was a commercial fisherman and we had boats that were like over a hundred feet long. So I grew up around big equipment, big engines, and my dad was safe, safety, safety, safety, hotel industry safety, safety, safety. You got to know how to evacuate the hotel if there's a fire and keep everybody safe. It's very organized. You know everybody's got a station, what they're supposed to be doing, and I just was like, wow, this is a really important job and this is like really throwing these people out there. So I was taken aback by that. And this is like really throwing these people out there. So I was taken aback by that and they weren't really giving us a lot of clear information about what exactly are we going to be doing, like they weren't ever spelling it out. By the way, you're going to work 11 hours a day or you're going to drive 11 hours a day, you're probably not going to get to shower every day, you know, like they weren't really spelling out the whole situation and they weren't spelling out the situation with the team driving either. So I ended up at Covenant Transport and one other classmate ended up there too, and one guy he went over to Stevens and we all kept in touch.
Speaker 2:And when I got to Covenant, stevens and we all kept in touch, and when I got to Covenant it was just like a who's who of criminal activity, like everybody there either just got out of rehab jail, they were bragging about what they were in prison for and I'm like, okay, we're supposed to all live together. So I did ask for a female trainer, which I got, which I'm of kind of lucky she was. She was a non-smoker, so that was kind of the only way that they would match you up is by whether you smoked or not and where your geographical home time was. And I didn't have a geographical home time preference and have a geographical home time preference, so you know, I was willing to take my time off wherever, and so that was kind of it.
Speaker 2:My trainer turned out to be a pill popper. She was doctor shopping across America, speeding, yelling at me to speed like her, cruising truck stops for guys. Um, just, it was just like drama nonstop. I think she was like 26. And I was like by that time in my 40s, something like that. So I just was like you know, and I'm just, I'm not going to say anything, I'm just going to, like, get the information I need from her.
Speaker 2:But when she ran out of pills and she couldn't get any more prescriptions on the road and we went to an emergency room and they wouldn't give her any pain meds, she wanted to go home and leave me at a truck stop and I called the company and threw a fit and, you know, ended up getting into a safe. I thought she was dead. At one point I had to get another driver because I couldn't move her and that the pill bottle is empty in the trash. Can? I'm like this chick is going to die and I'm going to be stuck with a corpse on the road. So I was really pissed off and I wrote a complaint about it and, um, you know, it just was like about it. And um, you know, it just was like, put me, set me on a course to be on all these different trucks with co-drivers that were worse, if not worse some other nonsense so I wrote the story. I wrote a story.
Speaker 2:This is when blogs were relatively new, social media wasn't really happening and within nine months, dan Rather who a lot of people don't even know who that is now, but he was a I do Okay Within nine months, dan Rather wanted to interview me about my student trucker story and did a series of investigative reports on it.
Speaker 2:The first one called Queen of the Road and I was asked to be in the Twitter documentary because I was going on it. The first one called Queen of the Road, and I was asked to be in the Twitter documentary because I was going on Twitter and talking about it to get people to read the blog and that sort of really just launched the whole thing because I had joined. This other organization was seeking help. How do I get through this? Because I loved driving, I was like I love this job, but why are they making me go through six months of hell with all these crazy people? Like I am not here to babysit people and I don't want to die doing this, and it just seemed like such a screwed up situation for all these people and I was meeting a lot of people too that were in the same situation and it was just like they were setting you up to fail, and it just pissed me off.
Speaker 1:And even now I still hear that you know those same words. You know they're setting me up to fail and that seems like the industry has improved tremendously in a lot of areas with that, but still that same sentiment still holds today.
Speaker 2:It's like dumb luck if you make it and that's how I felt. It was like you have good trainers that are getting paired up with crappy students, and then you have good students that are getting paired up with bad trainers, and if you happen to get a good student and a good trainer together, it's just like you know, dumb luck. You know there's no real good coordination to make sure this person's here for the right reasons and this person's here for the right reasons.
Speaker 1:So your your time away from the spotlight did not last long, uh, with that blog, and then the day and rather series. So how many companies did you end up switching from before you finally found a home for a while?
Speaker 2:I stayed at covenant transport. I never left. Yeah, I did the story. They couldn't do anything to me because-.
Speaker 1:How did they treat you with that?
Speaker 2:They told everybody to not talk to me. I was treated like a social pariah, so they told everybody to not talk to me. But when I came to the headquarters, talk to me. But when I came to, like, the headquarters, people would come find me and I, when I walked through the walls, people would pop up from their cubicle Hi, desiree, I saw you on television. Hi, desiree.
Speaker 2:So I was a little bit of a folk hero, but people feared me at the same time. Like I don't care, you know, I mean, I, I, I, I had already been from my previous life. There's people that love you, and there's people that hate you, and there's people that jealous of you, and there's people that go to bed every night hoping you'll die. I mean, I've I've lived with that for for two decades already, so I don't really care. You know, you don't pay my bills. I don't care, and I don't have anybody pay my bills but me, so that it doesn't bother me. What does bother me, though, is when people came to me for help, and I wanted to help them. So I would tell them you know, make sure you know how to get a hold of the right people in the human resources department. Don't talk to this person, talk to that person, watch out for this person, watch out for that's what I started doing was trying to help people avoid the bad people and find the good people so that they could get through that hellish first six months.
Speaker 2:And and as I started doing that, and obviously through the down rather thing, I was blogging and then somebody posted about CRST. The same thing was happening over there. So then I started talking to drivers at other companies and seeing, okay, this isn't just happening here, it's happening at all the companies that have this particular business model. And this particular business model is the team driving students, where you're making people live together for long periods of time unsupervised. And that made me start studying trucking and the history of trucking and how it turned into what it is today. And it just led me down this whole path that I naively thought, oh, if I just raise awareness of this, these people be like oh, I want to help, I want to fix it, and and and. Instead, what I found was pushback. And that motivated me more, because when you're a determined person and somebody says you know, we already know it's a problem, move on, and they're letting people suffer and get hurt. That pissed me off so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they, they, you know they can go home and sleep in their own beds at night and they're not the ones that are having to deal with it on a daily basis. So you know to them they're not affected by it. Until people are actually affected by it, they're not going to make any effort to change it. Yeah, exactly, so that that was a lot. So once you saw the CRST and you started doing your research, are you blogging about it this whole time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I originally started blogging on a blog called truckerdesireecom, which is still up, yeah.
Speaker 2:I've seen that and and so I was writing there now the student trucker story. I had written one button at a time on a little Palm trio. Cause this I started right when smartphones came out. So I was driving when the whole first smartphones came out, so there was the whole adoption period of the old timers going I'm not, I don't want it. So I had this little palm trio and one button at a time I was writing this story, so I it was on the Ask the Trucker blog and the Ask the Trucker blog was Alan Smith and Donna Smith and they had a podcast that was super popular and so all those original posts were on that blog and I've recently taken it down to edit it and make it into an ebook.
Speaker 2:It's just taken me forever, because I think it's still as relevant today for people to understand how CDL school goes, how the training goes, all of the different situations, not just with the people but with the weather and the ups and downs of the money and the expectations, and then the feeling of being alone for the first time, which I don't think they put enough effort into.
Speaker 2:Once they forced you into this team driving, then you're on your own and you're like now I've got to manage my hours a lot differently to get parking and, you know, work within the hours of service and the ELD. So anyway, I'm working on that. But yeah, I was just doing it on the blog. I'd gone to Twitter, building the Twitter following, did the Twitter documentary and then just like this barrage of people asking me to comment on a lot of different things the Wall Street Journal is calling me, new York Times is calling me, and now all of these people are calling me to comment on things on trucking and I'm like, well, I don't want to sound like a moron, so I better research this and call on people that I know that have been in this industry longer, and so that made me really start educating myself on this industry and its inner workings.
Speaker 1:And that's keeping you pretty busy. Is there any social life? I mean keeping you pretty busy, Is there any social life? I mean, while you're working on everybody's problems in the industry, is this your entire focus at this point?
Speaker 2:For the first few years. So I stayed at Covenant for four and a half years, you know, and what they did was they put me on the Walmart dedicated account, which was kind of a cushy job. Um, I think that their mentality was let's keep her rolling, cause if she's not rolling, she's not writing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and they couldn't do anything. Cause.
Speaker 2:I was a good driver. I mean I mean the. The minute I pulled the stop, you know the brakes, I did my log book and I was. I followed the letter of the law. But, yes, every time I was parked I was writing or I was on Twitter. So they were like you got another load. It is a long one. So I had a good relationship.
Speaker 2:Whatever happened at the end that I left there and the and one of the reasons I didn't leave is I knew you would be blacklisted. I was told I would be blacklisted, so I needed to get that two years of solid experience before I attempted to go anywhere. But because I was on the Walmart dedicated account is really cushy, drop and hook. Um, I was like I'm cool with it. I didn't take a lot of vacations. I would work three months at a time. I didn't make a lot of money.
Speaker 2:I decided to myself if you're going to do this being outspoken thing, you can't, because I coveted a lot of these big companies. They shave pay in a lot of different ways. I just told myself you can either sit there and get pissed off because they carved a $5 here, you know a nickel here, whatever, what's ever going on with all the other drivers. We're just focused on the work, and so that's what I did and I learned to live on very little and it was a good life skill to build because I had come from a life where I could go make you know a couple grand easy.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Like I was going through a transition also on how to live on less, and that was a big lesson for me because money just came before Right. So that was an important life skill that I was learning from living with less and getting to know myself and my ability, and social media was helping me have an outlet to talk like therapy. What happened was my truck was getting retired and so they had me come in to switch trucks and the truck that I was supposed to take was in the shop and during that I slipped on algae and shattered my kneecap oh no and yeah.
Speaker 2:So that put me in a trauma ward and in a leg brace and out of trucking for a year. And I moved to Mexico and while I was in Mexico, people were still contacting me, researchers were calling me and I was like Holy crap. But one thing that I did was I enrolled back in school to finish that college and, yeah, I did come back to Covenant but I had some wires left in my knee that hurt really bad so I had to leave. That was how I left. Really was because the metal they left in my kneecap was so painful.
Speaker 2:When I did return to trucking after I got those removed, I did a couple different companies. One was furniture. They didn't get me home in time. Did one that was ltl food. They would have me switching trucks all the time. I was in like 16 different trucks and like they're always breaking down. Move to this one just really kind of a screwed up company, and the winter having to chain up, and I was like like why am I doing this? Like I have enough experience, I don't need to do be chaining up, you know.
Speaker 2:So I ended up moving down to Florida. I did some local work. I wanted to do food delivery. I wanted to know what it was like to do these different jobs. So I took time to do food delivery, local delivery, unloading. I learned to use a double loader. I had one where I was doing plants across the country, which I really liked a lot. I loved the plants and I loved my boss. But I had the opportunity to become an owner operator. It was a little crazy in the beginning but once I started booking my own loads I was like whoa, this is like a completely different trucking and this is different Like I'm negotiating the rate, I'm going where I want to go. I could never work for a company again after that. You know, like this is the deal and I loved it, but my trailer got hijacked. And when my trailer got hijacked, that was sort of the beginning of the end and, um, that's hard to recover from financially.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, uh, so. So that was kind of the beginning of the end. I drove a little bit more after that. I did, you know, aldi supermarkets, I did foreign mail. I did a lot of really interesting things. I did some flatbed for a thing with Florida Power. So I feel I got my degree and I started being asked to speak and do webinars and be an truck drivers more, because I did have the boots on the ground experience and there's really a disconnect that I know drivers see is that there's a lot of people that are in trucking that don't know anything about the job in trucking, that don't know anything about the job, and so I felt like I need to bring this over to this group here, because there were some really good people that are trying to figure out how to make the supply chain better and they don't have access to drivers, and so I felt like I I've got to forge this path over here to bring the voice of what's going on with the drivers to people who want to figure it out also.
Speaker 1:Okay, and while you are advocating for all the other drivers out there, how are you and your mental health Cause? When you came into this industry, you weren't where you needed to be. And your mental health Because when you came into this industry, you weren't where you needed to be. And so now you've had all these years, you've went through all these situations on your own. You're helping all these other drivers. How's Desiree's mental health going through all this?
Speaker 2:Well, it was hard because it was always oh, wake up in the morning, what about this, what about that? Trucking Going to Mexico helped me a lot. It helped me reconnect with the person I was in Key West in Hawaii, which is I love the ocean, I love open spaces, I love walking. I did that when I was trucking. I adopted a street dog and me and her went for long walks and went on adventures. So I was able to reconnect with things I love to do. I love riding my bike, I love swimming in the ocean and going to national parks and I started doing that again and I started unplugging from social media and, and, just, you know, looking at things, I like to laugh, I like flowers, you know and start doing the things that I like to do again.
Speaker 2:And during that time was kind of the rise of Instagram and other social media platforms, and I really wanted to kind of pull back. So I sort of tried, started limiting it, you know, and reconnecting with the real world. I guess you could say and and and. That's where I really um, just that was something that I I needed to do for myself.
Speaker 2:I did weaned myself off the antidepressants, you know, when I started driving and I never needed. I never had to look back at that again and I remember talking to the doctor and telling her she needed to sign off on a paper for me to get my medical card. And she was like, really wanting to increase my dosage. And I'm like, no, you don't understand what I'm saying. This job is making me feel better and you, giving me a prescription is making me want to kill myself, so you need to sign off on this fucking paper right now. You know, I was like, really like I'm fucking serious because I'm weaning myself off these pills and you're trying to cripple me. So just sign the fucking paper. And and she did.
Speaker 2:You know, and I don't recommend that for a lot. I wasn't on any serious meds, but I've seen other people do it. It can be very dangerous. I don't recommend anybody, but I have seen that there's a lot of people that have mental health issues that have entered trucking and it's helped them. It's helped them. Uh, you, you're, you're so focused on the truck and staying, there's no time to let your mind wander on all this other stuff, and that's what I what, what I think is very healing for me, at least with trucking, is that I have a very busy mind and the truck and the road is very healing for me. It puts everything in place. What I need to do next? What's the next thing that I need to do to get closer to what I'm trying to do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, healing and my thinking time. So I'm, I'm, I'm calm when I'm on the road. Um, I can leave anything that I'm overthinking away. You know, um, I concentrate like I'll be driving down the road and ideas will pop into my head lines for things. I'm writing on ideas and I'm constantly going. Siri open voice memo.
Speaker 2:Siri open voice memo you know, yeah, I never, I never. People would always tell me yeah, I I like. I always say I solve all the problems of the world while I'm driving. And then when I turn off the truck, I forget all of them. Right, that's what people say you should record it, and I said but then I won't, I won't do anything, then I'll have all these recordings, you know.
Speaker 1:Oh, I have a lot. I have a lot and but but you use them when you need them. I mean, I I literally sat down the other day and I was going through all the voice memos and I'm like, oh I forgot about that.
Speaker 1:Oh, when did you do that, you know? But yeah, it's great, because I'm the same way. Once I parked, I'm like what was that that I wanted to do? What was that I was thinking about earlier? Um, so, voice memo is great and you can do it while driving. That's a great thing. So you go back to college. What degree did you end up getting?
Speaker 2:Well, all of that time I was studying international business, global business and public policy. But as the organization started happening, I called my school and I'm like, I've been doing this, you know, like group for a while and it's seems like my life is forcing me to do this path. So what's the fastest way? I could just graduate and get out of here. So, although I had all of this global business and public policy supply chain classes that I was taking accounting, I ended up graduating with a degree in business administration to just get out of there. And then I started a graduate program for nonprofit association management and I didn't finish the graduate program. I would love to be able to resume it.
Speaker 2:I had a class that didn't go great. I had a lot of turmoil going on in my home and I was like I'm just, I'm going to get it, I'm just not going to finish school right now because I don't have the peace in my household that I can focus on learning right now and getting the grade that I need to get. So I put that on hold and then the organization tasks just took off, so that that'll be on the back. That's on the back burner now.
Speaker 2:But the, the, the business degree is enough to open a whole bunch of other doors for me and I, I, I, I think a lot of drivers really need to understand there's a lot of other opportunities for you outside of the truck if you will just get a business degree. You know it might sound like a lot that I started college in when I was 37. I had a sixth grade education. I never even did division or percent. I had to take all these remedial classes just to get to college level math and English. It is possible, just one step at a time, and it does open a lot of doors for you to stay in trucking when you can't drive anymore, and which is a real concern.
Speaker 1:I mean yeah, we all have that line where we can't drive anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does happen in.
Speaker 1:A lot of schools now are online, so you can get a full degree online in your truck. I am currently working on my bachelor's, from the truck mostly, and on my off days I like you. I did graduate high school, but college for me has been very random and I've had classes here and classes there and I was working on my bachelor's in psychology and then I was only a couple of classes away and I was working on my bachelor's in psychology and then I was only a couple of classes away and then life happened. I went back and I switched it to business admin with human resources. Some of my credits transferred not all, so I'm working on that but it's available online, you know, uh, it is really big right now and a lot of drivers need to look at what was I. I was researching, um, the new autonomous training that's out there, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they had an ad for that. I was at my friend's house in Tucson and they have like the little weekly local paper and they had an ad for people to work on autonomous and then you had to have a CDL and I'm like why are they advertising this here where no drivers are going to see it?
Speaker 1:You know like, because that's where they are. That's where they are. Are studying the actual autonomous, yeah.
Speaker 2:But you're not going to get a CDL driver, that the randomness of picking up a local newspaper like advertise it where the drivers are, and that really showed me kind of the disconnect of, you know, credible educational institutions that are studying things relevant to trucking engineers that are really smart but they don like I've talked to MIT, I talk to engineers a lot. I look at plans. You know I get sent plans. I'm like this isn't going to work because the trucks doesn't turn this way to park in this kind of a space. But like I'm sort of a unicorn and I'm like drivers really need to know that there's a lot of opportunities for them if they continue their education while they're in the truck, like you're doing, and it doesn't matter if it's all over.
Speaker 2:I used to worry about the same thing because I moved, went to this community college, went to that community college, went to this four year university and now I'm on the road. Four-year university and now I'm on the road. I finished with the University of Maryland online. Just do it, because 99% of winning is showing up and that's what I saw going to college is they want you to just if they tell you to write a 20-page paper with citations yeah, it sucks, but that you have to finish it. It's following through, it's learning how to do the format. It's not like there's like one correct answer and you're bad. It's the process of starting something and finishing something with the instructions that you were given.
Speaker 1:And with these new autonomous trucks and I'm just going to say this out there because I've been researching it the typical truck driver that we have today is not the trucker of the future. Everything I was reading was very degreed certifications, engineers, cad there was a lot to these autonomous trucks very extensive training, had there was a lot to these autonomous trucks, very extensive training. And if you want to remain in the trucking industry, you are going to have to change with it and that is having a degree, certification and training in these IT departments engineering, because that's what it's going to take to drive these autonomous trucks. They're not just going to take a CDL these autonomous trucks.
Speaker 2:They're not just going to take a CDL, no. What I mean, though, is like we just had a. We we just had real women in trucking was asked to sit in a work group with some engineers from a study group I think they're from Virginia tech, whatever and we were asked by Steve Vasselli, who wrote a book called Big Rig Trucking and the Decline of the American Dream. He's a labor sociologist, he was also a truck driver, and I have come to know Steve over the years. In fact, he knew me. When I saw his book came out, I wrote him, and I'm like hey, I've been writing about all this stuff about truck driver training, and I saw your book, and he goes hey, I know who you are, I've read your blog, so he already knew who I was, and he's been trying to raise this alarm about what autonomous trucks are going to do to the labor market, so he asked us, real women in trucking, to sit in with some engineers that are testing some autonomous trucks up in winter conditions, and they were telling us some of the things that are happening with them, and we were telling them this is what we've been saying all along, because what happens in winter with these sensors, you can make a truck drive in pristine infrastructure.
Speaker 2:But we don't have pristine infrastructure. That's not reality. And winter, you drive through a blizzard and there's you know, ice chips all over everything. That's glass. So if you're relying on a sensor, what are you going to do? Get out every five minutes and climb up on top and clean the sensor off and it's going to get dirty again, like they're going to malfunction. So all of the things that drivers have expressed concerns about before they started all this crap are happening. Um, you, you need. You need to have real world experience and all of that stuff, but but also just to be at the table, to have the discussion with that person and be able to articulate it in a way that they can understand it. You know, this is the reality of it. It's really important. So I just, I really just hope more drivers will see the value and continue your education. If you, if you love this industry and you know your body can only take so much.
Speaker 1:Right, exactly.
Speaker 2:I know I'm at that point myself, your body can only take so much, and then reality sets in. So I started with one grandchild. I have six now. I missed pretty much everybody's birthday parties. I just went to my granddaughter's eighth or she graduated to go to high school. That's the first one I've ever been to. I just went to my granddaughter's eighth or she graduated to go to high school. That's the first one I've ever been to. I'm like all these years pass so fast. You know and you get to a point where you're like I don't want to.
Speaker 2:I don't want to miss any, any more of that stuff.
Speaker 1:Right. So I don't want to go on too much of the autonomous because I want to do a whole segment on that. So I would like to invite you back to discuss autonomous at a later date, because there's a lot of information that I want to put out there that's not out there as widely as it should be with truckers. But going back so, when you were talking about getting involved in the or you keep saying the organization and the group, where did this group? What was this group that started back then?
Speaker 2:So we, I became. I went to CDL school in 2007 and I'm on the truck with this female trainer that's you know popping oxys and driving truck with this female trainer that's you know popping oxys and driving. And we're driving. I think we were driving in some place, it was a snowy, and I saw this sign women in trucking and I'm like, oh, there's an organization for women truck drivers. I'm going to join as soon as I get home. And I did. And I joined the organization.
Speaker 2:And then, when I started having all these horrible experiences, I was on a truck with a guy that basically wanted to tell me about how great he would be in porno and to all this, you know, hitting on me, and I was like, dude, I'm old enough to be your mother, you know. Like quit, you know stop. And started getting very aggressive with me up to the point where he got it up in my face and he was like I just want you to know I would never force you to have sex. And that triggered in me some uncontrollable shaking, um, uh, that I could not operate the truck. It was my turn to drive in my. My body started convulsing and I said I can't do this. I got to get off this truck, got on another truck with a guy, ended up being left out in the desert bleach sprayed on me. So every time these things were happening and I'm reporting them to Covenant they're coming after me like well, you seem to be the common denominator.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I came to find out these guys had had multiple complaints against them, but they were coming after me and that turned a switch on me. So I was going over to this new organization that I joined and saying this happened to me and I don't know where to get help. I also wrote to Alan Smith, the Ask the Trucker blog. Like I really want to do this job. I feel like I'm being set up to fail and I'm like in my three, four month part and I didn't know where to turn for help. Women in trucking just attacked me, just like you must have done this. What did you do, you mother? Like I was like holy shit. You know, like whoa, what the fuck. I was just taken aback by how they came after me for complaining. Now, later I found out that's how they got rid of people that complained about this and I was told. I was told by one of their original directors. You're not the first one that came here and talked about this. You just would not go away and I just found it very fucked up.
Speaker 1:So me, and it hasn't changed though.
Speaker 2:No, it hasn't changed. It's like a false front, a Hollywood. So I grew up in Southern California Okay, I grew up around movie sets. I've known actors and acting and you know what's on fire right now is where I grew up.
Speaker 2:So it uh, it just uh, uh, revealed to me women in trucking is the false front of a movie set. There is nothing behind it, and it frightened me that they were actively covering up rape that was happening at companies, and they were companies that sponsor them corporate sponsors. They were companies that sponsor them corporate sponsors. And then we were actually told at one point yeah, we're grooming them to be, you know, corporate apologists, basically. So I was like, wow, this is so fucked up.
Speaker 2:So me and a couple other women had written these 32 questions to Ellen to get her to answer are you for the drivers or are you for the carriers? Because they would never be really clear. They always wanted to hang their leg on both sides of the fence to the companies. Use the picture of women truckers to say look at us, we're women in trucking. But in reality, to the truck drivers, it's like we want your picture, but fuck off. And you know, it's about dispatchers, it's about, you know female executives. Every time they would go to Washington DC I was like are they going to bring up the bad training? Are they going to bring up you know?
Speaker 1:the race with me, and no, they weren't.
Speaker 2:It was like take a picture with our doll so that we can sell more dolls. And so we wrote this letter. We got her to answer. That was the first blog post on real women in trucking. It was an informal protest group from 2010 until 2013. And that's when I was recovering from a second surgery on the knee, sat down with a book how to write a make a nonprofit file. The paperwork became a real nonprofit and the minute we became a real nonprofit, company started calling me wanting to sponsor us. But I was like, okay, if I just take the money from whatever company so that they can have a check mark on their box, I'm just like her Right. So that's where I have to decide.
Speaker 1:Right. So who was your starting group? Who was in your initial?
Speaker 2:So the person that wrote the original letter was named Heather Rosen. She was actually a trans driver, a third generation truck driver, and she wrote the original 32 questions. The original board members were me and Sandy Talbot Idella Hansen, tracy from the CRST case.
Speaker 1:That was part of the CRS the very famous case very, very big, big one, and um for those of you of you that don't know, tracy uh sued CRST for the um sexual harassment and rapes that were going on at CRST, along with how many women there were, seven.
Speaker 2:No, there was originally in that case 265 women, something like that. Then it got knocked down to now. A lot of this is documented on my truckerdesireecom blog because she posted there. She's like I'm from CRST, Mine was excused and who we found was the safety guy who also posted on the blog from Oklahoma that backed up her story. So he's in the Dan Rather that first Dan Rather show. His name is Tom Hanson.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's a very big case that happened back when.
Speaker 2:Back and it started with somebody named Monica Stark. Anyway, it went on and on and on. It got dismissed. The EEOC did a lot of bad, not bad things. They kept putting cases in after the fact. They did a lot of missteps which ended up doing a huge misjustice to the women. There were 13 women. The judge wouldn't let the 13 women testify for the one woman because they didn't all have the same trainer, even though they all had the same experience. There was a lot of shit that went down on it. Then another lawyer came in and picked up the individual cases and tried to take on some of those cases. They were making a lot of good progress, but then another judge came in and dismissed it.
Speaker 2:That that law firm I, josh Friedman. There's a lot of videos on our YouTube channel of them talking about that case. It was just a lot of shit going on. At the same time you had the prime discrimination case happening, the CR England rape case happening. So there was stuff going on at all these different companies, but it was all the same stuff and it was pretty clear it was a way of doing business and they're making money by saying look at us, we're bringing all these women into trucking, but they're not talking about how many are not making it and being traumatized for life and 23%, if you want to know, I looked this up 23% of women leave trucking for sexual harassment, discrimination.
Speaker 1:They don't feel safe.
Speaker 2:No, they don't feel safe. And they feel safe, and they and they. Why should they? You know, we have an industry where you could rape somebody and then still have a job and still be training and bring another woman into that environment.
Speaker 2:Yep, you just dump the girl off and say she can't drive. You know that's like the death nail in your coffin for somebody to say you can't drive, they don't want to hear anything else about you. The cr england rape guy he he's in, he went to jail. The cr england guy is like you know, the heat was high on him so he walked across the street five, five miles down the road, got a job with Watkins Shepherd, got a verification of employment and he's driving again. So it was very clear that people that do this rapists, predators. They can go from one company to another company and they generally go to training companies because they have access to fresh meat and they know nobody cares. So they can blend right back in the population. So this guy he's been in jail for five years. He's getting out this year. We have nothing in place to take his CDL away right now.
Speaker 1:So he can go back to a company that allows felons.
Speaker 2:Yep Allows felons and say I'll be a trainer.
Speaker 1:So you started your organization with some pretty big headliners. Then you you were making waves all across trucking. You're out in the spotlight, Tracy's in the spotlight as well at this point. So you have a lot of people that are in the news starting your organization. So you have a lot of people that are in the news starting your organization.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it took a toll on all of us. You know we had a lot of journalists wanting to do ride-alongs. We got approached for a lot of television shows. Of course they wanted us to just be bozos and sexualize us. And you know the sexy trucker that drives all day and, you know, picks up a different guy every night. So we had to like really be on our toes to be, professional.
Speaker 2:Sometimes shit can the plan, you know, and and Tracy had a hit job piece done on her that really hurt her feeling, so she was like I don't want to do this anymore. All of us, it's taken a toll on us doing all these interviews and putting our lives out there to just say, you know, this is the good, the bad, the ugly. My life is not perfect and and and stuff. Michelle Kitchen got involved. She's been really like my right hand because she's tough.
Speaker 2:Deb Dingo, and it has taken a toll on all of us because we don't want to be out in front. We have, you know, idella lost a child when she was younger. She lost her daughter a couple of years ago, who was a very active supporter of real women in trucking. You know we've had stuff going on in our family that had taken a toll on us. And then sometimes you have women that seek our help, that they kind of get obsessed with us. You know like they want to be, like they want like every single day, you know, and it's really hard, you know, know.
Speaker 1:Then with the rise.
Speaker 2:It is, it's, it's, it is draining, so it's. It made me start hiding, you know, and just checking out more, having anxiety attacks. You know, like some people, you can't please, um, uh. Then there's a lot of people that want to spread you into all of these different issues. So I had to. We had to like kind of like circle wagons and say, okay, we got to stick to like our core issues and stuff, because really we don't have the funding. Like women in trucking, they're bringing in over a million dollars a year and what are they doing? They're having parties and and making dolls and stuff, but they're not.
Speaker 2:When we started the protest group, we were trying to push them to do their job. We didn't want to do it for them. I didn't want to be in charge of shit. I've been in charge of something my whole life. So we were only trying to put a fire under their ass to do the job they said they were doing. And then now we're having to do it on a shoestring. And then we started seeing them come back into the picture and try to take credit for the work that we were doing and taking our talking points and adopting them, and for me I would. Part of me was like, ok, now they're doing their job, but then it gets to the right, to the implementation part, and then they bail. So we watched them monetize the issue, get it to right here before implementation, and then they're on some other nonsensical bullshit. So we had to like stay with it. And it has been exhausting, it has been draining, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you took this protest group and you formed all you ladies get together. You formed this real women in trucking organization nonprofit and you have sponsorships coming at you and you're saying no, you're saying we, we are actually going to. You know, we don't want the fluff, we want serious change. And how did the industry handle that?
Speaker 2:Uh, so we had us foods. They were like one of our first, this one lady, but at the time that we had to like say we're not going to have any more corporate money because we don't want to be a checkmark box. So we had this one, us foods. I was talking to all these different, a lot of companies that were calling me. Sometimes I'd have to say, realistically, your job sucks Like I don't. You know, like realistically, even if you and people would get mad at me and they'd be like, well, what if? If they've got Walmart, what if you get Target? Well, target's doing kind of, you know the same. You know they're taking the student fleets. I mean, ideally, companies would take a look at their supply chain rotation and say we're not going to take any more student fleets because we know what's going on there. We're going to pay a little bit more to have an ethical company. How do we get an ethical criteria? And that is just not a word that you hear in trucking. Ethics and trucking are not. So then we said, well, what about law firms that are going after companies for discrimination, sexual assault, wage theft? So we that's how we supported ourself for a really long time was law firms that were trying to fight for the rights of drivers and, um, you know, and then when the pandemic happened, like the skids came uh, you know, on everything. We did get some COVID money that supported us for a couple of years and then we got a Cypre award. We had started truckers, emergency assistance responders to help drivers that get stranded on the road, and we got a Cypre award, which is when a big class action lawsuit happens and they can't find all the class members. The money sits in the bank for a certain period of time and then it has to be given to a nonprofit that has a mission. That is similar to what the case is about. So we had gotten a large side prey award for TEAR, which is the acronym for Truckers, emergency Assistance Responders and from the Navistar class action, where the engine was yeah, the bad engines, yeah, yeah, the bad engine, and that supported a lot of activities for TEAR. We were able to do a whole bunch of. We got some money during COVID to give care packages to drivers from a lot of different companies and then, when all of that ran out, basically it came to us. Michelle and Idella have given a lot of their own personal money to keep things going.
Speaker 2:I work seven days a week. We've had a lot of members retire from driving seven days a week. We've had a lot of members retire from driving and as we've gotten FMCSA to start actually taking this issue seriously, we have wanted to like back away. But we have to see it through. So right now just trying to keep it all together. So the work I do, consulting um expert witness, that money goes to real women in trucking to fund our activities.
Speaker 2:Um, I was only able to pay myself a salary maybe two years in the 15 years we exist. So I and it wasn't really still under the poverty level, but it was enough to take the heat off of me. So we really fund a lot of it ourselves. You know, and we were like, if you do the math on the membership, you got to have a lot of members to support the activities we did in the meantime. But this is what I learned from it. You know, we started the queen of the road awards. What we learned is it doesn't really take that money to have a huge impact and these organizations that are bringing in the money they are, they are completely fucking over a lot of people. Sorry for my French, but it's the truth.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it only takes really 10 or 15 people that are on it all the time making phone calls, writing letters, going to meetings, showing up in person to make a huge difference and impact, and that's what's lacking, and so people need to hold these associations accountable.
Speaker 1:Right. Most of the associations they're they're um. Women need to feel like they're a part of something. Um, not all of them are advocators. Um, they're just. They're um groupies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that that's a hard thing, cause we've had that too. We've had people that are they get a little obsessed, they get a little fixated on one of us and then if you're not there for them at the drop of a hat when they call you, then you're a bad person, you're a horrible person. But you know, the truth is some people want to be involved for the wrong reasons. Yeah Well, I just want to put this out there.
Speaker 1:If anybody wants to be my groupie. I am horrible at returning text messages and phone calls. You can ask my best friend. She may not talk to me for months, so I love my.
Speaker 2:I have great girlfriends that I've had for like over 30 years, but they know me Like I show up when I show up and I'm, I always love you, you're. When we're together it's like we were never apart. But I'm just not a phone call person and I'm just.
Speaker 1:I'm not. I'm not a fluff person and you, I text with you. So you know I have very short texts. I am short, blunt and to the point. I'm all business and I know that it gets on people's nerves.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've had people that were in our organization. Call me, she likes you, you're the flavor of the month, they would say. And then she doesn't. And here's my thing. If you're helping the cause, I'm all about you. But when you want to start talking to me about what so-and-so is doing over here and what color I, I tune out like I don't have time for that stuff. I'm all business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm not a follower, so I'm not going to get on your little, your little follow train and be your little girl. No, I'm a leader, I go my own way, my drum beats to my tune and and my tune only you know so I, and I love that I love.
Speaker 2:I love being around leaders and people that are doing their own thing and they are self-driven, and those are the kind of people. Now I do wish that I could get more people to coalesce around this one issue, because it's a difficult topic and, going back to an earlier question, why I took it, the reason I stayed on it, because I knew it was such a difficult subject matter for people to talk about that nobody was going to talk about it and get down to the nitty gritty, down and dirty right. It needed to be said. The words need to be said.
Speaker 1:So we're going to get into your issues here in a minute. What I want to tell our listeners today is so, after all these years of being a trucker, getting into these organizations, getting your education, you actually took a job, you bailed on us in the trucking industry and you are enemy number one.
Speaker 2:No, I'm still tell everybody I'm a truck driver.
Speaker 1:So you took a job with Nevada's DOT.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did.
Speaker 1:Correct. So what's your role at DOT?
Speaker 2:What do?
Speaker 1:you do.
Speaker 2:I am a transportation planner, analyst of freight.
Speaker 1:So she's not at the weigh station, y'all I just want to put that out there. Which, if she was, she'd probably hammer, you just saying, but I would.
Speaker 2:There's certain ones I'd be calling in if I did that. No, I'm not. I'm not in that division, I do. I can't talk a lot about my job you don't have to, but part of my job is to work with the Nevada Highway Patrol Oversize, overweight, and there's things that they're trying to get done to modernize their facilities for Nevada trying to get done to modernize their facilities for Nevada. What I look at is truck parking and projects that will make the freight move smoothly and efficiently through our state and hopefully as a multi-corridor partner with our neighboring states. So that's my job to look at that as a whole and what I always do is bring it from the eyes of a truck driver.
Speaker 1:Right yeah, so you as a truck driver and being on the other side of it. It does make you look at things a lot differently, Having the experience of both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does, because now it's easy to say, okay, they don't know what it's like out here. You know these paper pusher, pencil pushers I've said it myself you know. You know moving papers around your desk. Now I'm having to see how slow things move. When you have a new administration, a lot of people change positions. No, you have to wait for all those people to learn what the job is that they got themselves into and see if they're going to stick around and do it. That's very probably the biggest challenge right there and it's complicated to win people over.
Speaker 2:To almost come full circle for me, because I'm dealing with a lot of policy now, which is what I ended up going, you know, when I started out in college and somehow went on this other path and came all the way around back, and now I'm coming back to policy and global business and how that all works and global business and how that all works.
Speaker 2:But I'm also dealing with people who think complete streets is the most important thing, and scooters and bicycles and bike paths and how to get them to see that freight is critically important to everyone. And, ironically, one of the very first interviews I ever did it's still on YouTube was with Overdrive magazine, todd Dills, and I was telling him how truck parking because it doesn't have its own set aside funding has to compete with other projects in transportation and so there has to be more advocates to explain why truck parking is important. Because you're up against people that want walking paths, who can actually show up to meetings in person, to city commissioner meetings, and win because there's no truck driver there to say but wait a minute, isn't it more important that you have your stuff at the store? So I said that in this interview with Todd Dills all those years ago, and now I'm living it in my job, where I've got to be in a meeting with all these different groups that are like this is important, that's important, and I'm like wait a minute, that's too.
Speaker 1:So that, yeah, and that's very important Um, which also comes into play with the core issues that you are dealing with on the real women in trucking side as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, it, it. You know. I mean it's important to understand that. I started the real women in trucking for the sexual assault and the bad training issue.
Speaker 2:What happened from my activity on Twitter was getting asked all these questions from journalists because the only truck driver they knew was Trucker Desiree on Twitter. I was one of the first female truck drivers in social media so I didn't follow other truck drivers. They followed me, but journalists and elected officials and people that were doing stuff are who I followed. So when people from magazines and articles would say, what about this trucking issues, one of the things they said was what do you think about this guy, jason Rivenberg, that was murdered when he was trying to park? And I read the article and I was like oh my God, and I started talking about truck parking, which led me very quickly to meet his widow, hope Rivenberg, and she was going around trying to get petition signatures.
Speaker 2:I don't know if everybody knows this story, but for me it was heartbreaking. She's pregnant with twins, her husband shot for $7. It was visible on his dashboard while he was staging to park. It deliver a food lion, a load of milk. The teenager kills him for the $7 and she gives birth to the twins, 14 days later in a murder trial and is trying to collect petition signatures to raise awareness of the lack of truck parking for truck drivers at County fairs. And I'm just like she already has a two-year-old. I'm just like, okay, she's lost her husband, she's got two infants and a toddler and she's out there by herself. So I started sharing the petition on Twitter. Asked the trucker, alan Smith, and Donna Smith mobilized a movement. The bill became a law. It was incredible we got so many people on Twitter to help us.
Speaker 1:The law is what?
Speaker 2:Tell them what the law is now the law is Section 1401 of the Moving Ahead for Progress Transportation Bill Jason's law. You can Google it. It is the law of the land. It made truck parking an eligible activity for funding when states included in their freight plan. Here's the thing Before Jason's law, states just got money for transportation OK, and then they all fought over whatever they got. Jason's law made them now have to make a freight plan and study truck parking. Jason's Law made them now have to make a freight plan and study truck parking. So now all these states are like what's a freight plan? How do we do it? What's truck parking? Why do we need it?
Speaker 2:So you have all these people that have worked in state DOTs that now have to do a new job that they've never had to do before and they don't even know where to begin to do it. That takes time. So that all was around 2011. We went to all the meetings real women in trucking.
Speaker 2:I went to every single meeting that Federal Highway had and I made a lot of connections during that time, which is kind of what led me to the job that I have now but got very involved in this truck parking thing and from going to those meetings, the more I went, the more I learned that people really wanted to solve this problem but they didn't really understand the behavior of truck drivers over the road truck drivers. So I began doing consulting. There's a study that's coming out in spring that we've worked on to really get down to the nitty gritty, to teach people that work on this problem why we need to park what we need to do when we're there, parked the things that we need. People didn't realize that we do our laundry on the road. They didn't understand that there was no toilet in the tractor. Nobody told them this.
Speaker 1:So they thought we were rolling with an RV. So they thought we were rolling with an RV.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean, and I always tell them you know we have autonomous trucks on the road, but nobody's ever thought let's put a toilet in the semi. You know they already have an RV. Dump at all the truck stops Like what's the problem here? So there was so much to connect the dots that needed to happen over these years, and so that really led me into getting really a lot more involved in the truck. Parking was Jason's Law and Hope, and so Hope gave birth to the twins. She remarried. The twins are now teenagers. There's a lot of people that have been working on this issue behind the scenes that the drivers have never seen. But the driver behavior too is there's always new people coming in. Nobody teaches them how to find other alternatives besides big chains. You know they're sort of taught to just go where you get your fuel points and never go anywhere else, right yeah and but.
Speaker 2:But over time, when you become an experienced driver, you're like, okay, I'm gonna take my shower in the afternoon, when it's less crowded, and then I'm gonna go park at this little hiding spot that I have, that's very peaceful, that I'm not going to tell anybody about, and you learn that over time. Or this old mom and pop place that has a great restaurant, a gigantic parking lot, that you can get a spot any time of the day, 24 hours. Those are the little hidden inside grapevine things that you learn over time that's not taught. And there's a lot about living on the road that we don't teach the new drivers. And there's a there's a lot about living on the road that that we don't teach the new drivers. And because they're always coming in and cycling out, you always have this churning problem over here that you know.
Speaker 1:With parking, yeah, so we have um the core issues. With real women trucking, you have the sexual assault and the trainers, you have the parking. What other core issues are you guys focused?
Speaker 2:on right now. What has sprung up in the last year and a half two years is hiring discrimination. There's just a lot of a lot of companies that are not hiring women.
Speaker 1:Period end of story, which is weird because they keep saying they're trying to increase the percentage of women. Um, I, where I work, um, there are not very many of us women drivers. At the terminal I work at, I am actually the only woman driver, and it hasn't been easy, um, but yeah, I. So it's crazy to think that, oh, we are trying to increase the number, we are trying to advocate, we are, you know, advertising for women, we are pro-woman, but when it comes down to it, they aren't when it comes down to it.
Speaker 2:No, they just they say whatever they want and they make a lot of money. They make a lot of money telling and these companies don't check out anything. They just like this is our women. Same with truckers against trafficking. A lot of companies are like they're the companies, they're not even good companies and they're like they'll support truckers against trafficking. This is a great cause, but they don't want to clean up their own house.
Speaker 1:They're like well, we have our checkmark women's issue over here, and so it looks good for PR's all it looks good for their marketing, but they're all full of shit.
Speaker 2:All these companies are on the best women to fleets to drive for. It's like a joke, you know? Like no, no, they're not. Um, so it's all pay to play. It's a bunch of total nonsense. It's very confusing for women because somebody who's wanting like we used to be when we were single moms, looking for a job that they could have make a nice life for the kids is seeing I'm going to be a truck driver. And then they get in the CD and they don't realize that these companies are making money off of you. You're a little dollar sign for them when you enter trucking because they get a tax credit for you because you're minority or you're just whatever it is. I got a list of tax credit for you.
Speaker 2:Dislocated worker, all this stuff and they're getting all these grants and government money but at about the three or four month mark they don't care about you and you're on your own. So you're in this space where you're not insurable yet and you're just that far from you know being and you just can't find a spot. So the discrimination we're seeing a lot of uh companies just saying they have a waiting list for women. They're not hiring women. That is illegal. It violates the civil rights act of 1964, title seven. So if anybody's experienced that, please call us. There's a few companies that we're going after on that Retaliation and blacklisting. We're having a lot of women and this goes on with a lot of drivers. But women need to really pay attention. When you leave a company and you had a little fender bender, they put it on your record as a preventable accident. I mean it's really hard to get that off.
Speaker 1:Uh abandonments, you know I mean so I had to fight an incident. Um, and I didn't even have an incident. I had a guy who got mad because I had to merge in construction. He was behind me, but you know how cars, when you're merging, they try to go around you. He couldn't go around me. He called the company and said that I broke his mirror off. Okay, the company sent a message on my, on my navigate on my. What do we have back then? Um, I am sitting in traffic next to the SOB with his mirror intact. Not even a scratch on it. I have a message from safety about it. I can't take a picture of it because I'm driving and I'm in traffic or I will get fired. There's nothing I can do. The guy's just mad woman driver he's going to be. You know, he never sent in any proof, but yet they put it on my record and I had to fight that. Yeah, and it wasn't easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard. I mean once somebody puts something on your record, I mean I'm really lucky because I I followed. But I had a guy one time he was cutting me off and being a real asshole on the road and um, I flipped him off. I was like fuck you. He called my company and I called my company. I said this guy, he goes. He already called me, don't worry about it. You know my boss was cool and stuff. But there are people out on the road like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that are just assholes and they have nothing to do but just try to be. You know? And the safety department doesn't care.
Speaker 1:Oh, we got a call, so it doesn't matter that there's no proof, you're still getting it. Why? I mean, I was on the phone saying, hey, I'm next to him. Oh well, there's nothing you can do about it.
Speaker 2:Women have to be really cover your ass. Yeah, you know, if you're leaving a job, take a picture of all sides of the truck to prove there's nothing you know wrong with the truck. That it's where they want. I mean, these companies will screw you every way to Sunday to make sure that you can't get another job. So you really have to like watch yourself, especially in those early years when you don't have enough solid experience to get to the next job. So I see a lot of that. So that's one of the issues that we're kind of dealing is trying to teach women about this before and how to, you know, go and fight it with higher rate and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:There's not enough women that know that they don't have to drive in dangerous conditions. It's winter weather surface transportation assistance act. We put a number of videos on our YouTube channel about that. Paul Taylor truckers justice center specializes in that. Um, but you need to know how to report it.
Speaker 2:There was a very big case that he did Cynthia Ferguson against prime and she was saying you know it's not safe to go and they wanted her. They fired her for not going and she won that case. It was a significant settlement. Cynthia Ferguson has passed away, but her case lives on and it's really important for women to know there's other women that paved the path for you. Yes, exactly, and you need to know about the sacrifices that they made so that you could be doing this job. And please, arm yourself with knowledge. You know if a company is telling you to drive in a blizzard and you know it's not safe, you're the captain of the ship and you need to know how to say the magic words to them, because they don't teach these dispatchers, they incentivize them to get you to keep moving. They don't care if you die, the freight's insured, the truck's insured and if you're a?
Speaker 1:CDL and your job and your livelihood.
Speaker 2:And the truth of the matter is, if you die on the road, they're not going to bring your body back for your family your family's on their own to figure out how to bring your body back. For your family, your family's on their own to figure out how to bring your body back. So you have to think about yourself, because they're thinking about themselves.
Speaker 1:Um so I? Those are our core issues. Yeah, I always tell drivers. First of all, if you're dispatcher or somebody calls you and said and gives you a hard time, first words out of your mouth should be send it to me in writing. Yes, absolutely. Do not answer the phone.
Speaker 2:Don't answer the phone. They're calling you because they know there's no record. As soon as they start calling you, you know they're trying to get you to do something.
Speaker 1:That's illegal and once they send it to you in writing and you say it's a safety concern, it's their job on the line. So you have to make sure you cover cya yeah, it's like hot potato.
Speaker 2:I always think it's like hot potato. They say something to you and you say something back to throw the hot potato back in their lap, which is it is not safe to do that. Right, and the word safe is the word that you need to. You know, because it is about highway safety.
Speaker 1:It is and and if you don't know, a lot of people don't realize Warner had a huge lawsuit a few years ago where there was a newer driver driving in bad weather. Uh, there was an accident across the median. But the car came across the median, hit the truck. The truck was nowhere near where the accident started, but because the truck was out in inclement weather and it was just there, the um, the uh accident was more severe and the injuries were more severe and the driver of the car won a humongous lawsuit just because the truck was there, even though the truck had nothing to do with it. So even when you're not at fault, even when you're nowhere near and you just get ran into in today's society, you are still at fault.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you're a CDL driver, you're going to be the one that gets left holding the bag. Yeah, you know, and the companies are not. You know, everybody goes running for the hills and you're the rogue driver and you need to think about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, you're the one that's going to take the fall. It's going to be your name in the news all over the place. You know it's going to be. Oh, why were you there? Why did you do it? And nothing you say is going to matter, because you were the one behind the wheel and that made the decision to do it.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. So, yeah, yeah. So that's about it. I'd mentioned two other things that we're doing. We've been working a lot on our website is the independent contractor rule.
Speaker 1:Um, oh, I'm going to send you a text, by the way.
Speaker 2:I got a.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm going to send you a text. By the way, I got a. Um, I actually I was going to message you about this. I got a text message this week about a job offer. Um, and it was so much sense per mile and it was 10, 99 and.
Speaker 1:I read it and I responded and I'm like, is this a lease purchase? And they're like, no company driver driver. And I was like, how did you get my number, you know? And they're like, um, you applied? I'm like, no, I I haven't applied to anyone. And they're like, oh, oh, um, I don't know, we'll take your number off, but I have the text message, the company name, the recruiters name and number and they are recruiting illegally 1099 for a company driver position.
Speaker 2:There's so much abuse happening in the industry right now. There's so many offshore companies coming in setting up brokerages, setting up trucking companies, having drivers do these lease purchase, rent. I've met drivers that are their company driver. They're paying for the fuel. They have got them doing so many illegal things. It's like a boat is sinking and you're trying to plug all these holes and we are just not equipped to deal with all the situations happening. We just urge drivers do not work for a 1099 company. You are guaranteed that you are going to have your checks stolen, bag for some really dangerous situations and I just can't even. There's not even enough time for me to share all of the horror stories that I've had. So we have put some letters out, we have some law firms that we are working with to talk about the independent contractor rule and you know, obviously we don't know where a lot of stuff is going to go because of the administration change. And then, lastly, I have had some guy. There's so many different driver groups now, but three driver groups got ahold of me a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2:Whatever asked me to sit in on some meeting about the broker transparency. We had this meeting with this office, a small business administration. They said you know, everything you guys are describing is an antitrust issue. You should write to the Federal Trade Commission. So I had actually met Lena Kahn, who is the commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, at a cocktail party when I was in Washington DC and we had written her about the independent contractor rule and she knew who I was. She was like oh yeah, I'm reading a letter from you right now. I said, well, I just was in this meeting about this broker thing and it's like antitrust. And she said, all right, the letter. So I did, I wrote the letter. She's probably leaving office now, but right away when the letter got published it was picked up by some Washington DC circles and some antitrust lawyers called me right away and they're like there's something here you know. So I'm like OK, you know. So as a supportive measure, that's not one of our core issues.
Speaker 2:Something there with this broker transparency that really needs to be unraveled, because I have spoken to some shippers about it and I believe that if we get down to the nitty gritty, we're going to find out the shippers have been paying market rates and then the brokers are turning around and making the second contract and cutting all the profit out and all the fuel surcharge and nobody's the wiser, and then listing that load up on the load board for this grossly reduced price when in fact they are paying over here.
Speaker 2:So they're like believing that the shippers are believing we're paying, so where is it going? And there's just a lot of people in the industry that shouldn't be. There's a lot of foreign companies, like I said, and I believe that it puts our supply chain at risk when you have so much corruption happening, so much wage theft happening people just getting a truck, wage theft happening, um, people just getting a truck. And we're going to have another wave of it because when the freight slowed down, the complaints slowed down, because so many companies are going bankrupt but as freight picks up, I just got called by usa today, a few days ago, because they're doing a whole truck driver shortage.
Speaker 1:There is not a truck driver shortage.
Speaker 2:They're like there's no truck driver shortage. Yes, I'll talk to you, but you have to understand the ATA does this like every three months and they do it to ramp up. People go to CDL school, get in training. Now you have a low wage workforce that doesn't know what's going on. So it's it's a mechanism to keep those people coming, you know.
Speaker 1:And they're overpaying for overpriced this is my rant. I mean I just did my podcast about this the other day overpriced CDL schools that do not. I mean I just did my podcast about this the other day Overpriced CDL schools that do not give proper training and then they're coming out with no job because there is not a driver shortage.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's no driver shortage. Then they get them involved in lease purchase. Then they get, you know, their wages stolen. Then they, you know like, it just sets off the whole chain of events all over again and it's just exhausting to keep up with. You know, like, how do you get these people to not do this carrot and stick thing that they do?
Speaker 1:Well, from what I heard, the schools are getting grants for the people that they send through these driver mills. And that's my word, that's my statement, that's what. I put in and I stand by that. They are driver mills, they're CDL mills.
Speaker 2:The students are their own industry and I said that in the Dan Rather show back in 2009, that the student trucker industry is an industry. Within trucking, it's an inner. Recruiters make money. Recruiters make more money than the drivers. Yep, Everybody is getting a kickback from getting these people in and they work cheap. They run the freight, They'll do the team driving. They're making money from the government. Everybody's giving them accolades because they're bringing, they're creating jobs, but there's no tighter retention. Nobody's going and saying you hired 5,200 people last year and you're still saying that you have a driver shortage. What happened to those 5,200 people? Like, let's have an audit and find out what happened to them. And that is just a lot of government waste that people need to pay attention to because the taxpayers are funding that ultimately, and you know. And then everybody's like, oh, we're creating jobs. Like, no, you're not. You're creating an indentured servitude operation. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly 100%. That's my soapbox right there. You don't want to get me started because you know, coming in as a driver and being a driver trainer, I have seen some crazy girl and she literally didn't even have three hours behind the wheel at the school she went to. Her instructor was also her, her test out and he passed her, knowing she failed and couldn't drive. And this girl almost killed me three times in her first hour behind the wheel.
Speaker 1:She did not even have the basic tools. You know, she did not have the basic skills down, not even the basic.
Speaker 2:I mean I, I don't know how this mess. I mean I don't know how this mess. I mean money. Basically that's really what it is. That's how the mess has happened. We've seen DMVs just since I've been in trucking people getting paid off the DMV to pass people. Fraudulent CDL is given to people. There was a big bust in Florida a few years ago. A school in Memphis got busted because they were paying people off to pass people that didn't have the skill. So it is a real freaking mess. And then I've actually met. I met this Serbian guy who's told me he was brought over here, taught to drive in two days and you know, just doesn't know anything about the regulations, wasn't taught how to park, only to go forward, drive 11 hours, pull over on the side of the road, call this number and then they give you more hours to drive. Or the Serbian companies who are?
Speaker 1:yeah, and I know a Serbian driver who just worked for a company before he came to where I am and he was working two different clocks. He was, he was team driving as just one person and it was exhausting, yeah 16 hours and they tell him I have text messages.
Speaker 2:One guy shared the text messages. They give him more hours, which is basically whoever it is. Seats another driver on the ELD and tell him to keep the one person to keep driving. And then they're texting him and saying, if you get pulled over, tell him this is your name and this is how you pronounce it. But they don't know because the way that they got brought into it from their own community, they don't know the regulations. They were not taught that that's illegal.
Speaker 2:That's not how you're supposed to do it and you have a right to say no. That's not how you're supposed to do it and you have a right to say no, and that's why we have a lot of dangerous drivers on the road right now.
Speaker 1:True. So you're fighting. This is new stuff that you're going to be tackling as well. That's a lot on your plate.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if I'm going to tackle it, but I try to talk to people when I go and do public speaking that are in agencies that have the power to poke around a little bit more and see oh yeah, I see it right here. Illinois has a lot of people in there. They need a very big audit in Illinois.
Speaker 1:We are probably the most corrupt state. We had the huge VL scandal with George Ryan back in the day. Yeah, we are probably the most corrupt state when it comes to that. It's horrible. So I got, I went to Wisconsin to get mine. I had a great uh training up at Fox Valley in Wisconsin, it is. It is so, um, I did not go through Illinois to get mine. I was well-trained. So what? What else besides uh, you were just in DC, um, so you're, you travel a lot for this. You spend a lot of time working on the trucking issues. Is there anything else going on in your life besides this, or does this take up all of it?
Speaker 2:Right now, I'm pretty much just working all of the time Working. Yeah, I'm pretty much working all of the time. Right now, there's not a lot of downtime for me. I have a horse. Oh, he bucked me off in October. I spent most of October in the hospital with a broken tailbone.
Speaker 2:He still loves me and I still love him, but I can't ride. I rode on Christmas Day oh, that was nice. What's his name? You know, his name is Scout and he's a beautiful paint and that's kind of my downtime right now. I love Washington DC. I love the conference that I went to. I'd love to get more drivers introduced to going to. It's very expensive, but I feel like there's a lot more value there. There's a lot of people that just are so eager to talk to a truck driver Like they can bear, you know well, you look at.
Speaker 2:Well, you look at this, does it make sense, you know? So it really makes you feel like, okay, I have a, I could do a lot. You know networking with this group a lot better than going to this other show. That's more like junior high school.
Speaker 1:So you know what I mean. We talked about that the other day. Yeah, so I just we're still going. We're still going, though, but you know, yeah Well yeah, I'm not going to go to.
Speaker 2:I don't. We're not going to go to Matt's after all.
Speaker 1:You're not going this year.
Speaker 2:No, I'm not going to. We just pulled out of it, and the reason why is because the fall that I had um is going to cause me to have another surgery and it's going to have to have take place in the spring and it just wasn't going to be financially make sense for me to travel. There is a documentary out about our work called Driver that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June. We wanted to bring it to Matt's the filmmaker I don't know if she still is, maybe she will. We wanted drivers to see it before it gets on streaming platforms. We do know that MIT is going to be showing it and they asked if I would come for that.
Speaker 1:Is it going to stream anywhere?
Speaker 2:It probably will. It just takes time for streaming channels to pick up after it goes on a film festival tour, so it's usually on a film festival tour for over a year before streaming channels start picking up the documentaries that came out. So eventually it will. We did like over over 700 hours of filming and it's a 90 minute film, so there's a lot of content that's not in the doc. That I wish was, um, it's more about like the precarity of the job and us trying to help other drivers, you know contacting us for help and trying to live our own lives on the road and juggle, all of this kind of stuff. But for me right now I need to like see through a couple of cases that we have pending and focus on my job and do the best that I could do. You know, and you know we have the thing up looking for board members and you know I'm looking at you, tammy, because I think that you would be a great addition to what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Tammy sent her email this week.
Speaker 2:She did yeah After thinking about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really. You know we've had people that want to help, but then they there's not follow through or their life gets busy. Some people have gotten, you know, family issues or medical issues that have prevented them from really contributing, and I know more than anyone that trucking consumes your life, like it's hard to have time for anything else. But if you're going to be in this industry longer and you care about making it better, we have an established voice. We've kicked down a wall that could never be put back up again and, um, I Della's and you need fighters.
Speaker 2:You need, we need fighters that are not afraid to tell the truth and aren't going to get wined and dined by another association for 20 minutes so that you'll be silent.
Speaker 1:Yep and then toss you out the back door. So when you watch this, ladies, and you have had experiences or you've seen experiences and you've dealt with this industry and you want change and you're willing to work to help make that change, you know where to go. You come over to Real Women in Trucking and you tell them I want to help with change. I want to be a voice. We all have a voice and you know, use it. This is me using mine. You know I've been in this industry for eight years and if you wouldn't, if you knew me before, you know I have a voice.
Speaker 1:I've always had a voice about women issues. If you knew me before, you know I have a voice. I've always had a voice about women issues. I've always been in male dominated industries. I was in insurance for years. I've always dealt with male dominated industries and when I came into trucking, I'm like I'm just going to stay on the back burner and I was so outraged with the things I've dealt with that finally, I'm like I'm done, and you know I'm not an overly religious person. I'm done and you know I'm not an overly religious person, I'm Baptist. But I'm going to tell you what God knocked on my head in a dream one night and he said you have a voice, use it. Um, I had a dream about not you know, and so this, this is where we're at, and I I'm done with with just sitting here complaining about it.
Speaker 2:So that was my thing is everybody's complaining about the same thing. Let's do something. I need to find my successor. You know I can't keep doing this. I turned 60 this year and, um, I know that if I just fold it up, the other organization will just take credit for a lot of stuff they never did. Tried to cover up, continue to try to cover up and everything will just go on. Now there is a very good study going on right now, but you have to have some outspoken, tough women to make sure implementation happens Right.
Speaker 2:You got to go past that stopping point.
Speaker 1:You know you got to go past that, that, that stopping point. Um, you know you, you want to actually implement. You don't want to stop at the where everybody else stopping. You want to take it real women in trucking wants to take it farther and they want to be part of the implementation and they want to make sure that implementation occurs.
Speaker 2:And I, I got to tell you that you know, last I was in DC for a different conference a few months ago and I was talking to somebody and she said you should really tap into the insurance industry because the insurance industry would care about, because it does have an impact on highway safety. When you have somebody that's operating a tractor trailer, highway safety, when you have somebody that's operating a tractor trailer who is being terrorized by the person that's in there with them, you have a highway safety issue, and so sexual misconduct and the lack of a code of conduct of the kinds of drivers that we have is impacting highway safety for everyone, and the insurance industry needs to be brought into that circle. So you might be just the person to do that yeah.
Speaker 1:Parking inadequacy, that also is highway safety.
Speaker 2:That is because, yeah, it sure does. Because of the cargo theft. Like why do you give me you know a couple million dollars worth of cargo and then tell me to go fend for myself?
Speaker 1:Or the trucks that are parking on ramps and getting hit. It's all part of the same risk management. I can see where insurance companies would definitely play a part in wanting to see some change with that.
Speaker 2:The problem lies in the companies that are self-insured. That can doctor their crash statistics.
Speaker 1:Right, but even being self-insured they do. I mean there there is an, an insurer backing them up regardless.
Speaker 2:So that has to be that. That is where somebody needs to dig into further that knows the inner workings of the insurance industry, yeah, so that's definitely interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, I know we have had a very long podcast. So, desiree, what's 2025 looking at for you? Anything big coming up that people need to keep an eye out for?
Speaker 2:Well, we have some. We have some big things that we hope will conclude that I can't talk a lot about in 2025. I hope that by the spring we have some noteworthy news. We'd like to have people join our fight. Use your voice, if that's your superpower. Share our news, share knowledge with each other before we get the next wave of new students in and it starts all over again with people making all the wrong decisions. And that's kind of the big thing is how do we help people make the right decisions from day one so that they can avoid the obstacles that are in some of these companies that are setting you up to fail, and you know we're looking for new leadership. A lot of us want to move on with our life. Deb is, you know, deb has taken over a um, a company that is a startup. They're looking for some women drivers that want to drive locally now, uh, for a medical waste Um, couple of other women going to get this industry straightened out.
Speaker 1:Okay, and if, like uh, she said earlier in the podcast if you've experienced any kind of discrimination with the hiring process, please reach out to Desiree or Women in Trucking with that information, as they are gathering all their data.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we really need that information Recording if it's legal for you to record. But make notes. Who did you talk to? What did they say? If they sent you emails, said things like you know that they have a hold on women, they're not hiring women. Like you know that they have a hold on women, they're not hiring women. I mean, we've seen some things that some of these recruiters have said that are just like wow, you know, you wrote this, you know Right, you get an email. You said this. And nobody seems to know the law anymore in this industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people just aren't scared of the law anymore in this industry?
Speaker 2:No, they're not, they're not.
Speaker 1:All right, we're going to wrap this up. Thank you so much, Desiree, for being a guest on Trucking with Tammy. It has been a pleasure having you on Well thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I had a good time talking to you and I am going to follow up with you.
Speaker 1:All right, all right. All right, Thank you, everybody for joining and you guys have a great day. This is Tammy with Truckin' with Tammy. See you on the road, bye.
