If you’re involved in the transport industry, you’ve probably heard of Heather Jones.
With decades of experience in trucking, she has driven every vehicle combination you can imagine, from end and side tippers to oversized loads on 100-tonne floats.
But Jones is perhaps best known for her tireless work as an advocate, fighting for improved road safety and promoting heavy vehicle operation as a rewarding career opportunity.
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Her passion for helping drivers who are new to the trucking industry get a foot on the ladder led her to set up the Pilbara Heavy Haulage Girls in WA.
There, she provides support and mentorship to new drivers through a unique, in-depth training programme.
Many of these drivers are women, and about 50 per cent of them have escaped domestic violence and abuse situations.
Jones says these women are some of the most inspirational people she’s ever worked with.
“Some of them are coming from the most horrendous situations,” she says.
“They are homeless, they don’t have anyone to look out for them, and they come to us.
“They get extensive training from us, they get a really good job, and they get somewhere to live as well, because if they need to they can sleep in the truck.”
“I also set them up with a mentor, who is usually a man. The reason for that is, they meet them and they get to know them and that reinforces the idea that not all men are like the abusers that they left.”
Jones’ training programme has also helped both men and women struggling with depression, including people who have previously tried to take their own lives.
“Many of the people who come to us have been lost, they are looking for something to give them a purpose.
“We offer them support, we build them up and encourage them.
“We have watched them blossom and they are amazing, productive members of society now.
“I find it so rewarding because at the end of our training, these people have got a job within two weeks earning $100,000, $150,000 a year.
“You know you’ve just changed someone’s life.”
Jones says the motivation to offer a helping hand to new drivers came from a few different sources, including a personal experience she had when she was working for a company in Perth.
“The company put me in an American truck, and I hadn’t driven American trucks before, only European ones,” she remembers.
“When you’re a truck driver there’s an assumption that you know every single truck that’s ever been built, and how to operate every single knob and button, and every trailer configuration, whether it’s tippers or tankers or flat tops.
“That’s extremely far from the truth.”
The Harvey, WA native says she was thrown a set of keys and left to attach the truck to a dog trailer, without any help or guidance from her colleagues.
“Everyone had left the yard by this stage, and I was trying to work it out and read the gauges but all the words on them had rubbed off.
“So I called out on Channel 40, asking if anyone could help me figure out how to release the brakes, and about 300 people told me how stupid I was.
“I didn’t want anyone to have to go through what I went through that day, so I decided I wanted to train new drivers and help them.”
She also wanted to pay forward the kindness of a friend, who offered her a job driving trucks for them and allowed her to bring her children along.
“I had driven Haulpaks in the mines when I was younger but then I got married and had my family, which took me out of work for a few years.
“After my marriage broke down about 30 years ago, one of my friends gave me the opportunity to drive their trucks and bring my two young girls with me, as long as I promised they wouldn’t step out of the truck.
“That’s what really started my career, and I don’t know where I would have been otherwise.
“I feel I must pay it forward and every single driver that I train I ask them to pay it forward to at least one other person.”
Jones thinks it’s difficult for those without experience to break into the trucking industry, despite there being a major shortage of truckies in Australia.
“When the Occupational Health and Safety Act came in in 2004, that took passengers out of the trucks.
“Before that, young people used to be able to do an apprenticeship as they were growing up, going out in the truck with their father or their uncle etc.
“There just aren’t as many opportunities for young people now, it’s harder to get a start if you don’t have any experience.”
While getting an entry-level job in the yard and working your way up seems to be becoming a thing of the past, Jones says inexperienced and unsafe drivers are causing havoc on our roads.
“By putting untrained drivers on the roads, we’re actually losing hundreds of senior, experienced drivers,” she argues.
“Experienced drivers are quitting because it’s too dangerous on the roads, there are too many drivers who take risks and they are causing serious accidents and deaths.
“I would like to see truck drivers being trained for at least a month before they are allowed on the roads.”
She says the in-depth nature of the training she offers at Pilbara Heavy Haulage Girls can often particularly appeal to women, who are statistically less likely to take risks than men.
“Women generally want to be trained well. They want to know how safe the truck is. They want to know everything about the trailers, and the braking systems, and how to load correctly.
“We teach them that. We cover everything from how wide the road is to how the construction of the road will affect trailers, to how to pull into a truck bay.
“We also talk about things like how to keep yourself safe on the roads as a woman. Like when Billy says on the UHF ‘Where are you pulling up tonight, Mary?’
“You don’t tell him! Because there could be 5,000 people listening to that channel.”
Though women still make up just 2.5 per cent of truck drivers in Australia, the mum of three thinks sexism in the industry is far less common than it used to be.
“The older generation, years ago, had the opinion that women shouldn’t be in the trucks unless they had a husband and they were a two-up team.
“My daughters’ generation, those drivers are much more respectful because they have seen their mothers go to work.”
Sharing her advice to new drivers, Jones says you’ve got to put your head down, do the work and leave your ego at the door.
“Don’t think you know it all because you’ve been there two minutes,” she says.
“Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it.
“You can always ask the older drivers, or there are hundreds of organisations that are willing to help new people to the industry, you just need to get in touch with them.”
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