With the recent accident of a Primary Producers Truck in an accident involving sheep that had to be put down, there was a highlight about the need to introduce more legislation about young drivers. One of the first vehicles as a young teenager was a truck. I got thrown in the deep end and had to drive for Hay Carters. I then had to load up Round Bales and drive up the road on a steep hill. I remember one particular day when I was worried about on coming cars. Fully loaded i drove half on and half off the road up the hill slow not wanting to take up the full narrow road in case a car was on coming. When I reached the Hay shed I received a blast like you would not believe for driving half on and half off the road, yet I had been driving loaded all day and had not had an accident or lost one bail. So I turned around and said, OK I will drive the tractor, I have never driven a tractor either. Here I am driving back in the tractor wandering what was taking the truck so long. The person who had blasted me had lost his load and yet he was the experienced. Many of the primary producers only had to show they could drive the truck around the bloke. I was not allowed my license then because I was told it was a male thing to drive a truck, yet this did not apply to the farm when noone could see. Because going around the block to get your license was stopped, I had to get my license driving around traffic with two males in the Cab talking and distracting, going around round about right in the centre of town, avoding prams that stuck out at the curbs, all this just so i could drive in the bunkers and up the roads. Because of observation and previous training on farm I learnt from a young age the importance of live load shifts stopping and tying up gates and distribution whilst I had to use double clutches and others just had synchronised gears talk about make things harder for me. During the tests the truck handles differently with no loads or crates on. No legislation or testing could give that skills or theory. I remember driving at the bunker and being one of only three women at the time to drive the trucks amongst the men, I had children to contend with also in the heat. I was very contentious because we were women and not to make any mistake and spill or other wise. I never made one mistake but stood back to the guys explanation when they spilt, Oh its only worth a six packs that is equivalent of today about 1. Talk about extended pressure on women in the work place. I will tell you what they made me do when I went for my ships masters and recreational license another day and that was with crocodiles!
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 03:22:46 +0000
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