It is no secret that the majority of truck drivers are male. The lack of females in the trucking industry has been a hot topic for many years, but that now looks to slowly be changing. Women now make up 10% of over-the-road truck drivers. This is almost a 30% increase compared to 2018.
The increase came after an industry-wide push to hire more female drivers. Women in Trucking (WIT) previously found that women made up around only 7% of professional truck drivers. While companies are primarily looking to attract new driver demographics to ease the driver shortage, there are additional benefits to hiring women.
A recent study by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) found that women are statistically safer drivers than men. The ATRI study found that men were 20% more likely to be involved in a crash than women. In addition, male truck drivers had 78% higher risk of being charged with a seat belt violation, 73% higher risk of receiving a failure to obey traffic signals, and a 70% higher risk of going over the speeding conviction.
Not only are women drivers safer, but they also tend to log more miles on average and stick with their employer longer. Female drivers also tend to prefer high paying trucking jobs, often taking on more specialized heavy-haul transports. WIT state that women today haul some of the most safety-sensitive loads.
This growth isn’t contained to truck drivers either. The number of women in non-driving roles in the transportation and logistics industry is also rising. Women now make up one-third of executive teams at for-hire carriers. The number of female executives at trucking companies also climbed to around 24%.
Women continue to grow in other roles in the trucking industry as well. 43.5% of the overall non-executive workforce in trucking companies, such as driver managers, dispatchers, salespeople, and administrative workers, are occupied by women.
Overall, the number of women in trucking continues to grow year-over-year. While this is certainly a step in the right direction, there is still a lot of room to grow. If you are interested in a career in trucking, TRAFFIX would love to have you on our team. Take a look at our online job board or contact us to discuss some exciting career opportunities!
