In this week’s episode, Josh is talking to Lyndal Denny who was a Winner in the 2020 South Australian Community Achievement Awards.
Lyndal Denny has a focus on creating safer roads by educating motorists on safe driving practices around heavy vehicles and working to support more women into truck driving careers. Across a eight-year trucking career, Lyndal has driven road trains throughout WA, SA, NSW, QLD, VIC and across the top end through wet season flood waters and fires – transporting everything from cornflakes – to oversize mining infrastructure. She’s worked extensively under Rio-Tinto, Woodside, Chevron and BHP HSE systems and regulations.
Lyndal co-founded Pilbara Heavy Haulage Girls – providing newly-licenced women with 160 hours free training in real work environs.
Lyndal was honoured to be named a Rotary International Paul Harris Fellow for her work in heavy vehicle road safety.
In this episode:
- We hear how Lyndal first got into heavy vehicle trucking after being tailgated by a truck and nearly run off the road
- Lyndal gave us some great road safety tips around trucks on the road
- Know the blind spots in a heavy vehicle; keep away from the passenger side and if you can’t see their side mirrors, they can’t see you
- Don’t take the gap in front of the truck as they are coming up to traffic lights. They need this space to slow down
Links
Connect with Lyndal on Linkedin
Visit the WITA website for more information https://wita.com.au/
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Follow us on our Inspirational.Australians Instagram Page
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Transcript
[00:00:02] Annette
Finally, listeners, I just wanted to apologize for the audio this week, but I’ve done as good as I can, but it’s still a little bit scratchy in parts, but it’s such an interesting listen, I’m sure you’ll forgive us. Welcome to the Inspirational Australians podcast, where we chat to people making a difference in their communities and in the lives of others. And here is your host for today. Josh Griffin
[00:00:40] Josh
This week’s episode of Inspirational Australian podcast is sponsored by Tallulah Bright, who is a drag queen, chef and business entrepreneur. She arrived in Adelaide in 2019 and after introducing us up around the peninsula, staying on the spot interviews with local businesses, she found a remarkable and decent following. Tallulah then began to patron cooking shows and social media. It’s a fabulous success with engagement reviews. Tallulah then decided to open up her own shop in semaphore that brought Tallulah Bright’s Emporium and Café. And you’ll hear us talk about that a couple of times because this week’s guest is also based near semaphore. But Tallulah told me she has exciting plans of 2022 and some of those have now come to pass. So Tallulah has taken over the colonel light hotel in Pirie street Adelaide very exciting. It’s now called colonel light Tallulah bright, which is an awesome name. So go out to Pirie street Adelaide check out colonel light hotel, which is now kind of like Tallulah Bright. And also don’t forget to follow Tallulah Bright on Facebook now onto the podcast. Before we get into this weekly dose of inspiration, just wanting to ask everyone to take one or two minutes out of your time and leave us a review please. Apple podcasts would be great. Google podcasts, Spotify. Wherever it is. I would love that review because it helps us get these stories out to a few more people and so many Inspirational people. We’re talking to these stories that the feedback we get is fantastic. That it just drives people’s day gives them a bit of motivation in that for the rest of the week. So if you can’t, well, if you haven’t reviewed a podcast before, this is a good learning opportunity to. As Annette, you as like a good little learning opportunity.
[00:02:26] Annette
I love learning opportunities and if you go to Awards Australia dot com, forward slash podcast, I’ve actually put a link there and a how to guide in how to review. So where there’s no excuse,
[00:02:39] Josh
really, and we always love your work. We want to try to tame videos and how to guides and how to do things and that we’re always improving things that way. So that any further delay we get into this week’s episode and I’m talking with Lyndal, Denny, who’s the founder and CEO of Women in trucking Australia and a truck driver herself. So Lyndal established to let Women in trucking in Australia for female heavy vehicle drivers. And the great thing is this group is why those people for those people and it has a dual focus of providing a platform where Women can come together to tackle the challenges that female truckers face in the industry and addressing the enormous gap that exists in small vehicle driver education when it comes to road sharing. And as we’ll find out, that’s a very personal story for Lyndal. So WTI successfully received commonwealth government grant to produce a heavy vehicle road safety ad campaign, which was running all throughout 2020. That campaign increased his road user awareness of the dire consequences of risky on road decision making around heavy vehicles. They also received additional funding to create a second campaign. So Lyndal, thanks for joining us. And so many questions from that little bio I’ve read out, but the first question is, how are you This one?
[00:03:59] Lyndal
I am right, Josh, thanks so much for inviting me on.
[00:04:03] Josh
Absolute pleasure. Lyndal had the great fortune of getting to speak with you a few years ago. When I believe you are nominated in the awards and fantastic to see that since then, you know you started Women in trucking Australia and then that organization was nominated and became a winner in our community achievement awards for South Australia. So congratulations on that.
[00:04:30] Lyndal
Josh, thanks so much for having me. Yes, we were absolutely delighted to win the Jones Harley Toole community road safety award. And that has spurred us on to produce a second heavy vehicle road safety campaign that has recently gone to air and will be our contribution to educating road users on sharing the road safely around the Christmas. New Year break when the nation’s motorists take to the roads.
[00:05:03] Josh
Well, I’m not glad sounds Funny. Talking about road safety and the Death toll, but it’s good that you bring it up because it’s one of the saddest things that it’s time of Year. We’re all going on Harley Toole is taking time off or enjoying family and friends and you always hear these horrible stories of road accidents which is devastating. And you know, these kind of things you’re putting out. It’s so important.
[00:05:29] Lyndal
Oh, look, there’s an enormous Gulf in, in Education, education and teaching road use is about sharing the roads with heavy vehicles. People still think that trucks are slow and they must get round them at all costs. And modern 21st century trucks can travel at the speed limit. If you can get tangled up with one, they will come off second best. Because of the sheer size of the thing, so extreme caution always is required around trucks. And we hope that this road safety campaign will just go that little bit of extra way to, to showing people what they should and shouldn’t do around trucks.
[00:06:15] Josh
Well we’re talking about road safety and education. Do you have one or two quick tips that we can share the top of the episode for you know, people driving their everyday cars when they’re approaching a truck because just quickly I remember being a plate driver. So you know, early on when I was not with my parents in the car and was a little bit freaked out, I suppose when you come up alongside quite a big truck. And you forget, you forget your old plate learning very quickly. Sometimes.
[00:06:47] Lyndal
I think one of the biggest things that people should understand are the blind spots in a heavy vehicle. That’s where the truck driver can and can’t see you. All along the passenger side of the truck. It is difficult to see the vehicles. So don’t hang around. In that area at all, keep away from the passenger side of a heavy vehicle along the trailer as well. And the other thing is, if we can’t, if you can’t see our truck mirrors when you’re behind us, we can’t see you. So we don’t know that you’re behind us, so stay back. Stay back and you know, if you can see our truck mirrors, we can see you. And last but not least, if we’re slowing for traffic lights, don’t go in front of us to take that space. We need that space to slow down and we’ve left that gap there because of the sheer size of these vehicles. It takes them longer to slow down, so please do not take that gap in front of the truck at traffic lights.
[00:07:54] Josh
You say that a lot actually don’t you people think Oh, come in here and get the lights.
[00:07:59] Lyndal
Yeah. And they just risk. They’ve got no idea of no way. We’re trying to hit the brakes and we can see small children in the backseat of that be cool. And we’ve got nowhere to go, so please don’t take that gap.
[00:08:14] Josh
Now I think this is a nice opportunity to get these kind of advice because Lyndal, you’ve been in the same situation as the people at these tips and advice of that you were a road user for a small vehicle with a normal everyday card. I might call it and you experienced some issues with truck drivers. Can you take us back to the start? How. How did you get into trucking in the first place?
[00:08:41] Lyndal
Well, I guess I probably probably should preface that. The fact that if you’d told me, you know, 15 years ago that I would be a truck driver, I would have wanted to know what sort of drugs you were taking because I’m very definitely I freely offers type girl who enjoys coffee and shopping. So my mechanical skills are stretched, if I have to put staples in a statement. In 2007, I lived on the new South Wales, North Coast and that Pacific highway is the major freight route between Brisbane and Sydney. And there was something like 25000 heavy vehicles a week on that highway for me to get to the offices that I was was managing ballina borrowing these small casinos. I’d be out on that highway. And for the third time in 12 months, I was tailgated, horrifically by an aggressive heavy vehicle drivers. So there are a number of things that had happened to set up that culture of lawlessness type delivery schedules. If those drivers were travelling in Brisbane to Sydney and missed their deadline, then they might have to wait two days to make that they could get stuck down there for the weekend. They were paid by the kilometre, so the more kilometres they travelled, the more money they earned. So it was, it was just trying to push motorists off the highway all the time. So I was tailgating for the third time and I actually wrote a letter to the local newspaper just outlining this, this truck was in the right hand line. It should have been in the left. I couldn’t overtake it. So I went up the left hand side of it and I just said to stay away from the left hand side of trucks. I don’t know whether he knew I was there or he didn’t. But he then proceed. I was halfway down his trailers and he moved to the left and there was a rock face there, so we were very lucky my son and I not to be crushed. So I wrote a letter to the local newspaper and the editor printed it and rang me a couple of days later and said that the response had been unprecedented. It seems like every body of that new South Wales, North Coast had a, a horror truck story. So I set up a community, a grassroots community campaign where people could report aggressive heavy vehicle drivers. I wrote to every trucking company and I said if your drivers drive aggressively through this North Coast, new South Wales area, we will report them to you and police and the industry was incredibly supportive. I thought that they wouldn’t be the response from the heavy vehicle industry was phenomenal. I was quite surprised and I learned that they don’t want those drivers on the road either. That said, because of severe heavy vehicle drivers shortages, they were employing truck drivers that really shouldn’t be in charge of a shopping trolley. So, you know, you end up with these aggressive drivers trying to push motorists off the road. So I ran that campaign for a couple of years and that seemed to change the culture not only in that North Coast area, but nationally. But I was also like a lot of people in the community. They think that all truck drivers are monosyllabic morons who are aggressive and that honestly Josh, that just could not be further from the truth. It’s a very small percentage that behave like that. And the majority of truck drivers are professional men and Women, family, people who want to get home to their families and friends as much as other road users do. So I decided that I would get my heavy vehicle license and go and take a look behind the Iron Curtain, so to speak. What was going on in the industry that was making them employ drivers like this?
[00:12:56] Josh
That’s pretty incredible. And can I just ask, was day one of getting your heavy vehicle license a bit like in legally blonde you know, there really lady comes and is in an area that perhaps others aren’t really accustomed to seeing that type of person.
[00:13:15] Lyndal
Yes, because I think I stand up for my first day of trading and something I had, I had The lowest heels on that I could possibly find to do my license, my training stop and training and the heavy vehicle driver trainer kept assuming that I would have had knowledge to a certain level and I kept saying to him, you’re really going to have to dumb it down because I just do not know anything about this. So he and I parked on an eight week driver training course. I was spending time with him once a week it was hard going and we both learned a lot. I learned a lot about trucks and he learned a lot about the fact that some people just know nothing about it because yeah, so I spent a number of weeks with a driver trainer and Finally got my heavy vehicle qualification. And then went looking for work and it was then that I discovered the age-old industry mantra come back when you’ve got three years experience. So obviously you can’t get three years experience if nobody will give you a go. So I had a few contacts from my, my couple of years with my community campaign and I was invited to head to the northernmost part of Western Australia. So I flew into the Pilbara in my frilly dress and my stilettos walked out of the plane into almost 50 degree heat into the middle of the it’s long been in the nation’s history. So that was an Absolute baptism of fire because there were so many so much Iron ore to get out of the ground. And so few truck drivers, I found myself doing work that a normal truck driver wouldn’t be able to do for a number of years. So it was an incredible adventure. It was incredibly, a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear I learned very quickly to become quite resilient. I also learned that tears and crying didn’t make any difference. I just had to take a teaspoon of cement and harden up. One of the Funny things that happened up there, and there are a million Funny things was that every time somebody help show, they say might that cost you a carton? So I thought what I should end up doing is just transfer my entire wage to the local bottle shop. And I would just send people into the bottle shop to get a carton. So I just was so heavily reliant on people. But, you know, over the three Year period that I was up there, I honed my skills and went from semi-trailers to double road trains right up to driving the massive Super quads that are fifty three metres long, more prevalent to 12 families task. Well,
[00:16:37] Josh
it’s fair to say that you probably compressed a lot more than three years worth of experience into that time.
[00:16:45] Lyndal
Oh, absolutely. I think in, in city areas in Adelaide here we have new drivers. They, they just do work very close to the depot. They’re around truck drivers all the time. There. You know there’s driver trainers there. They’ve really got their training wheels on. I was running Karratha to Darwin, Karratha down to Perth through the centre. It was incredibly isolating work. It was, you know, it was just unbelievable. Being a female by myself, I remember heading out to one of Gina rinehart’s rail camps just out of marble bar and they were decommissioning that rail camp because the line had been finished and I followed a huge cry out there and an escort vehicle. And I had a double road train and the crying, crying the accommodation that’s on to my two trailers and it was Friday afternoon and both these fellows said, well, spirit o’clock, we’re heading off. So the crane driver and the escort left. And I was somewhere in this remote mining camp out of marble bar by myself, training these accommodation truck huts onto a truck. And I just stood there and thought, how in the hell did a city girl get out in the middle of nowhere by herself doing this? ? So it was just, you know, it was things like that. It was quite surreal. On a number of occasions and still today, you know, I pinch myself sometimes. I was driving doing border runs at the moment Adelaide to Victoria, and I was in a line of about I don’t know, 10 bad apples and I thought, you know, in 2007 I was giving these people a hard time. And here I am driving as part of a convoy and we’re all heading South to Melbourne, so it still seems quite surreal to me sometimes.
[00:18:56] Josh
Well, that’s cool that you can look at those moments and be present in them and appreciate just how different it was to another stage of your life.
[00:19:06] Lyndal
It is and look really, I finished school a very, very long time ago and went straight into, you know, Working in radio and television and, and I’ve got a fairly broad skills base. I worked with. I had a hotel in my life and for 10 years before I went truck driving, I worked in a Christian organisation, which was so there was a stark contrast between Working in a Christian organisation and becoming a truck driver the first day on the job as a truck driver. I had swear words that I’d never heard before. I heard more than before morning trade that I had in my entire life. So as a female, Working in a male dominated sector, you need to be quiet, resilient, political correctness, truck drivers. And myself included, I’m not a big, you know, a huge follower of political correctness either. But men normally say it as it is and they don’t dress it up. So I’ve been called a lot of things during my time. A lot of them are Lovely and a lot of them not so Lovely. And you just really just need to be able to manage that and cope with it.
[00:20:25] Josh
Having been in industry now for some time. Are you seeing more Women come in? I guess it’s a two part question. Will you sounds like you were the only woman just about not being curator and doing those kind of mining jobs? Is that changing? Do you think
[00:20:41] Lyndal
the culture is slowly changing? A lot of the attitudes, you know, come from some way back a century ago. Gender bias is still raw and dominated and you find the recruiters picking people like they are similar to them. Another issue that Women have too, is that if you’ve got a male and a female truck driver going for a job, and they’ve both had exactly the same amount of experience, and it’s limited, the male will oversell himself and the female will undersell itself every time. So the male recruiter, if he’s faced with a bloke who said they might have done that a lot. Yeah. No wrongdoing and a female who said look, you know, I’ve done that a couple of times and I’m fairly confident with we’re still only six percent of of the the total heavy vehicle driver workforce. And the higher the licence qualification, the less Women there are. So in South Australia, for instance, there’s something like 10000 mile road train drivers and about 250 of bus girls
[00:21:53] Josh
which makes the work of Women in Turkey, Australia, all the more important. So are you, you know, we’ve covered the bio and at the start some of the safety work you’re doing, which is incredible. What kind of work do you do? You know, helping and supporting Women, whether they’re getting into the industry or perhaps the already established industry.
[00:22:16] Lyndal
Women in trucking, Australia which was set up by a female truck drivers to support each other, but also so that we’re all available. We’re all there. We’re all accessible for Women who are considering trucking careers. So we have a very successful Facebook page that has 30000 followers, and we’ve built those up just in a couple of years and we have Women contact us and I put the questions. We have asked the truck, we ask the truck key on there. And the Women will what they need to do, how they can get their foot in the door. And we, you know, we had huge buy-in from the male drivers too. It’s fabulous. So they’re on there as well. So it’s a great place that these new drivers can come to get advice on how to get in the, in the industry. So we have a four, a three phase growth plan. Yeah. And the first one was to break the drivers together. So we’ve, we’ve done that, we’ve got, we’ve got our followers that’s continuing to grow. The next step is to engage with industry and to work with them to let them know the answers to that ijo question about what Women want, what Women want as heavy vehicle drivers, what we need? Because we are still the primary care givers. The majority of us, so I did have one male truck driver, say to me that the true heroes of the trucking industry are the wives because the wives to be, they’re minding the children, they are making the lunches, they’re doing the washing, ironing that sort of thing and I said, gee, I wish I had a wife because female heavy vehicle drivers are they are the wives. So that’s another layer of complexity. They are the caregivers. They, you know, we had Women, home schooling their children in their trucks when with, with covid. So while the boys were out driving their trucks earning a living, normally female heavy vehicle drivers seem to be single mums in the mine. So they’re doing the home schooling in the trucks that you know, they’re preparing meals there during the wash, in that sort of thing. So we need greater flexibility to be able to, to do our jobs and industry needs to recognize that, that flexibility is critical to us being able to do our work. Yeah. So we’re really just there to, you know, be able to share ideas and, and, you know, support more Women into the industry and to let the industry know what we want.
[00:25:16] Josh
If there’s a, you know, young Women or older Women or any age Women for that matter, listening and thinking, what are some of the pros of getting into the industry? What would you say to them?
[00:25:29] Lyndal
It really is a wonderful lifestyle and you know, every single new female driver that I have met, it’s just an Absolute pleasure to watch her develop a strength. Females come into the industry and they, you know, it’s through hard work and guts and determination. They come to a place of quiet confidence, female heavy vehicle drivers, very confident, competent, strong Women. They’re also very caring. Funny, you know that incredible Women. So I would say always if you’re interested in looking at a career in heavy, heavy vehicles, please contact Women in trucking Australia. Have a look at our Facebook page engage with the female heavy vehicle drivers on the day. They’re more than happy to help with advice. As the fellows, they’ve got a lot of experience, so they’re happy to share it as well with new drivers. And we can normally find pathways into the industry for new drivers as well.
[00:26:39] Josh
It’s fantastic and I have heard you say separately, actually that the support from the yeah, from the males in the industry that we talked about is the vast majority has actually been really good.
[00:26:51] Lyndal
Absolutely amazing. You know, truck drivers are really close knit groups as men and Women and I guess the boys, they love having our skills in the truck yards And having Women in the industry too is Hugely beneficial to the companies and the clients as well. But I just to say to the girls, if you ask any of the boys for help, more often than not, they’re not, they’ll try to do it for you. And you just need to say to them, look, now if you can show me how to do it, you’re not going to learn by standing back. And it’s not a good lukather to be standing back and letting the boys you know, do the work for you. Hugely supportive and always very happy to share their knowledge and experience.
[00:27:43] Josh
Lyndal, I think that’s brilliant advice for anyone. Any Gender, any situation? If you let someone just do it for you, then you’re right. You’re not going to learn how you get it hands in, get involved and figure it out with guidance or someone who knows what they’re doing and you learn that next time.
[00:27:58] Lyndal
And I’ve been driving now for nine years. And every single day I learn something new, and I speak to men and Women who’ve been driving for decades. And they say the same thing. There is something new every day to learn. It’s a massively steep learning curve. Even it’s Funny, you know, truckies have their own lingo. So you know, going to the University of truck driving. I remember the first time I did, I just saw his work up in the Pilbara. I had an escort vehicle. Then a heavy vehicle in front of me and then then myself and we were carting massive accommodation huts down to a Rio Tinto site and the pilot called me up over the radio. He’s said copy Lyndal, let’s said copy and he said, mate, you’ve got two small ones at the Naval Carnaval coming down the chute. And I said, what? Anyway, two small ones and a neat enable coming down the chute, two cars and the motorbike overtaking you. So truck drivers never ever use English, they’ve got their own language. And so that was a fairly steep learning curve, learning that as
[00:29:11] Josh
well. Yep. And what else? You know, I loved that story before about how you were left out there on your own. In the middle of nowhere thinking, what am I going to do? What other kind of experiences or stories would, would stand out for you as just being, you know, absolutely bizarre or something. You’d never thought that would have happened?
[00:29:31] Lyndal
Oh look I there’s so many stories and I’ve actually written a book really just yeah, just which I’m hoping to get published. But it’s, it’s a hilarious book because it is just Funny. Working in a male dominated sector as a female. I do recall driving down a dirt road one day out in the back blocks again and came to a cattle grid. And the grid had fallen in. That meant I couldn’t go forward because so that was an interesting thing. I had to drop trailers and you know, sort of turn the whole whole set around, but I actually was able to get breaks some trees and I, I branches and stood them up in the grid so that people would know that, that the grid had fallen in I was also part of I, and this was a little bit sad. We came upon a we came upon a truck, a man. He was lying on the road and he was deceased. And bit further down the road, his truck had just run in very slowly into a train. It was idling. And we just clearly the truck had the trailer and the truck had run over him or the trailers of the truck had run over him. And he had heard a noise in his truck, so he put that truck into first gear and got out to walk alongside the truck again. On an isolated road. He got out to walk along beside the truck to see what the the noise was and it was a, it was a retread on one of the tires and it came loose, flew out, hit him and knocked him over, and his trailer ran over him. So that was, that was pretty devastating. Just just a fluke accident. And I have not ever heard of a truck driver or anybody would get out and look at a moving vehicle to see what was making a noise, but clearly not a good idea. It’s been an experience of, you know, there’s been tragedy. There’s been incredible, you know, landscapes and sunrises, and sunsets and huge amounts of anxiety, lots of laughter, and Made great friends and met lots of wonderful people. And now I’m in the situation where I can, I can try to encourage more Women into the sector and research shows that hands down across the board. Women are safer drivers. So having more Women and that’s, that’s really comes back to things like testosterone and being competitive and wanting to drive faster and taking more risks. Women are more risk adverse. We will, you know, we’re more cautious. So getting more Women into truck driving careers is, is a no brainer in terms of creating safer roads as well.
[00:32:48] Josh
Yep. And if half of the population is not being considered or is not in an industry, then they’re missing potentially half of the most skilled people that are available. So it just makes absolutely all industry to be a lot more balanced.
[00:33:08] Lyndal
It does it does. Josh, and you know, it’s not that Women are able to do the job. The Women aren’t failing in their recruitment, it’s the system is actually failing the Women. So I had a situation where I had a young truck driver called Samantha, and she had had some experience, but she kept sending her resumes and wasn’t even getting any, any interviews, job interviews. Anyway, she decided to sit down and really work her résumé and inadvertently put Sam at the top without thinking and suddenly, you know, the emails started coming this, we’d like just see you. So I changed her name from Samantha to, Sam. Made a huge difference straight up. Obviously when she got into the interview. Oh, we thought she was a reporter fellow. But isn’t that an interesting thing that, that Made such a huge difference?
[00:34:09] Josh
I think sometimes people don’t analyze the situation with the system and as you said, it’s the system that’s, that’s broken, not the individuals can look back and think, well, what are the reasons that there’s this block in the place? And yeah, it’s very sad that things happen to poor Samantha and many, many, many Women extend it to people of colour and religion as well. And I hope through these awards through media trying to promote positive stories that we can slowly, slowly start to turn the tide.
[00:34:48] Lyndal
I hope so too, just because the more, the more exposure that wiggles gets, the more awareness that truck driving is an incredible career for Women. Of all ages, religious denominations know races, whatever. The more Women we can get out there on the roads. And of course, when Women are Working, communities are healthier, get a better education. And you know, there are so many benefits to having Women Working. You don’t need tertiary qualifications to drive a truck, but you could earn, you know, up into the $150000 mark as a heavy vehicle driver so that the wages are great. That the Gender pay gap doesn’t exist in trucking. Lots of good things out there. Great opportunities for Women looking for an interesting career.
[00:35:45] Josh
One thing you touched on at the start, and I hope you still do this to this day. Is you talked about, you flew into the Pilbara and you had your family dress on in your high heels. I hope you still you to wear those items.
[00:35:59] Lyndal
Look I every now and again I’ll put on a pair of stilettos. I always think I tend to look like a wolf like a Wolfie when I’ve got stilettos on these days. Because we used to wearing the steel cap, kept boots, but a lot of the girls me included, you know, I would never, ever get in my truck without a full face of makeup. And I was my pearls on with my high views. And a lot of the girls were like that. We like to maintain our femininity. And yeah, you’ll find that the girls, generally speaking, will, will come to work with their clothes pressed in their hair done and, and so forth. Maybe not so much the boys. So we, we had that extra little bit of sparkle to the industry. Yeah. So it’s important that we keep our femininity as well.
[00:36:53] Josh
Yeah. Well, I should clarify the reason I said that is because I love that you just, you don’t change who you buy. That’s what you enjoy doing and you’ve got the confidence to to do that. And so I think that’s kind of what I was trying to say is that what you saw at the end there, that reclaiming it, femininity, femininity, if I can say it correctly. Anyway, I’ll leave that alone, but regardless of whether you’re in a male dominated industry or a balanced industry or a female in the industry, the people in that yeah. If you’d like to say that they keep their identity through what they like to do and don’t let the norms kind of overall the
[00:37:34] Lyndal
very, very much so, and you know, I have met people from all walks of life who’ve come in to truck driving. I’ve met dentists and geologists and librarians, you know, it’s, it’s such an interesting vocation that can take you to so many places. You know, you can transport Mega mining infrastructure to remote locations, or you can take corn flakes tacos, you know, there’s, there’s a day shift. There’s night shift, there’s casual, there’s full time. There’s so many opportunities for so many people and yeah, it’s just a really colourful industry to work in.
[00:38:18] Josh
Now at the top you mentioned that you had one of the Women in trucking, which I had one that Jones out little community road safety awards. So those who don’t know a lot about community achievement awards program in South Australia. The reason they sponsor that award is they’ve dealt with a lot of insurance companies in the aftermath of road accidents. And they just felt passionate about trying to give back to that area so that any truckies at the who are listening, any people involved in the road transport industry in general. What would you say about encouraging people to nominate into a road safety type award?
[00:38:54] Lyndal
Please do the wall, he wrapped around the and if there are ways that you believe you can contribute to making our roads safer and, and it’s due to the support of wonderful businesses like Jones Harley Toole who continue to to sponsor the South Australian community achievement awards. Every Year that we, we, people out here in the community can continue to do the work that we do as well. South Australia, it has a difficult history with, with road crashes, particularly over the past few years. Death and injury remain persistently high in South Australia, so there is much work to be done. So the wonderful people at Jones Harley Toole by sponsoring the road site, community road safety work that people are doing are really making a huge difference out there on the roads.
[00:40:00] Josh
Yeah, and any road safety initiative or focus is, is really welcomed to be nominated. And what we try and do is we send out a media release to local papers to let them know about them so that even if there’s not a winning nomination, we’re still pushing out a message about road safety. And I think that’s really important to
[00:40:21] Lyndal
Very, very much so very much so. And to look at the, the caliber of the, the nominees, it was, was just heart warming to see the work that’s being done out there by various community groups in that road safety arena to Josh.
[00:40:39] Josh
That casting your mind back, it wasn’t too long ago that you were there at the awards night. What was a, what was it like to be there at the end? You know, you can be honest. Did you expect to win? Was it a surprise? Or how did it all unfold for you on the night?
[00:40:55] Lyndal
It was a Lovely, but you know, it was a dull evening and it really was, it was just such a wonderful atmosphere to be organized and done beautifully to the degree. And we, we just hoped upon hope that we would win, but you know, you just still is. So when they say, you know that they quarter and the, and the winner is. And it’s like it just sort of takes forever and you’re holding your breath. You realize that you’re holding your breath and they say Women in trucking, Australia and we were just just elated because we had worked so hard on this this television campaign. And it just meant so much to the girls. So there was a lot of shrieking and you know, if you could imagine them, you know, sweet as was wonderful.
[00:41:52] Josh
That’s brilliant. I wish I could have been there, but the borders were still closed at that point.
[00:41:57] Lyndal
Oh yes.
[00:41:59] Josh
Couldn’t get across, but you know, we missed it by three days and fortunately was, Oh, look,
[00:42:03] Lyndal
fingers crossed the next Year. josh..
[00:42:06] Josh
Yes, exactly. So looking forward to getting over and visiting again and obviously we’ve got to Lola Bright’s Emporium as a sponsor. Now understand you live somewhat close to the earth that cafe. So maybe you will pop into there. The coffee
[00:42:24] Lyndal
you know, I do, I live just around the corner from too little too little bright. So yes, we’ll be heading down there for coffee and yeah, it’d be, be wonderful to meet Tallulah herself and have a look at the great work she’s doing down there. I hear it’s an incredibly eclectic and wonderful Café, full of eclectic bits and pieces of memorabilia. So looking, exciting.
[00:42:51] Josh
Awesome, thank you for taking the time to speak with us. I know you’re very busy and you’re on the road a lot. And when you’re not on the road, you’re busy with Women in trucking, Australia. So again, just remind people where they can connect with you and Women in trucking,Australia.
[00:43:07] Lyndal
Thank you josh.. So we have a Facebook page, Women in trucking, Australia, and our website is all the WS and Witter W I T I dot com dot are you, but just Google Women in trucking Australia and you’ll find all our contact details.
[00:43:28] Josh
Lovely again, thank you for your time for all the work you do for making our roads safer, and we’ll talk to you soon.
[00:43:36] Lyndal
Thanks so much josh. you Typekit.
[00:43:39] Speaker 3
I hope you enjoyed that interview. If you liked it or any of our other episodes, it would be great if you can write and review the Inspirational Australian’s podcast. It really helps us out if someone you know, needs a little dose of inspiration. Why not let them know about this podcast? And if you haven’t already, make sure you subscribe so that you won’t miss an episode. Join us each week as we talk with ordinary Australians, achieving extraordinary things. You can always head to our website at awards, Australia dot com slash podcast for more information and details on each guest. Now before we go, I’d like to thank Annette our producer. Here’s a fun fact. Annette is my mum and our other host, Jeff is my dad. This podcast is brought to you by awards, Australia, a family owned business that proudly uncovers the stories of people who make a difference for others. We can only do this with the support of our corporate and not for profit partners as they make our awards programs possible. So do you know someone making a difference? If you’d like to recommend someone to be a guest on the podcast, get in touch through our Instagram page, Inspirational Australians, or maybe your business might like to sponsor the podcast or get involved with the awards. Go to Awards Australia dot com for more details until next week. Stay safe and remember together we make a difference.
[00:45:05] Lyndal
Thanks for joining us today on Inspirational Australians podcast. We hope you enjoyed listening and have been inspired by ordinary Australians achieving extraordinary things. So it’s goodbye for another week. Remember together we make a difference
