Manchester Evening News
Aug 2006

Girls Get into Gear

Girls are being encourages to get into gear in a regional recruitment drive for women truck drivers.

Thomas Hardie Commercials, a Volvo dealer in Trafford Park, has launched the Girls in Gear campaign in conjunction with City College Manchester and with funding from the European Social Fund.

The company is looking to sign up 100 women to a five-day training programme that it hopes will go some way to redressing the gender imbalance in the large goods vehicle (LGV) industry.

Currently, women make up just two per cent of the total number employed as LGv drivers. The firm believes that the size and weight of the lorries have previously deterred women from pursuing a career in the sector.

But the advent of power steering, syncromesh gearboxes, lighter clutches and advanced technology on all vehicles means that it has never been easier to drive a truck. Improved working conditions and rates of pay have also made the role more appealing.

Training for the LGV class 2 licence is opem to any current driving licence holder from Manchester, Salford, Trafford Park and Stockport who is aged 21 and over and has fewer than six penalty points.

LGV students will be trained in a "girl friendly" truck, which has been specially themed and covered in images of hot pink kisses, at Thomas Hardie's own academy.

Driver development manager Rachael Scanlin said "We have painted the cab pink and the body of the truck is liveried with an images depicting pink petals."

Sarah Walters