by Donna Smith
Tuesday October 20th at 8PM EST
Dan Rather Reports: Queen of the Road
Also Available on iTunes as a download: Listen from your computer
Join Dan Rather from Dan Rather Reports as he interviews our dear friend and fellow trucking advocate and activist TruckerDesiree. The theme of the show will be the inadequate CDL schools and the exploiting of new CDL drivers and trainees.
Almost 10 years ago my better half, Allen Smith ,wrote the book “The Truth About Trucking”, advising people on the correct paths to take and those avenues to avoid, specifically CDL school mills and trucking companies. The motive? To help folks achieve success within trucking and to prepare them for the lifestyle they would be facing.
Allen literally has received thousands of emails from people, but none so memorable as the one in September of 2008 from a new CDL driver who had just gone through the mill……CDL Mill if you will. The name of that Student? Desiree Wood, affectionately known today as TruckerDesiree.
Desiree had written Allen and I numerous times, asking questions about trucking ( as so many do). She had just been through some of the most difficult and stressful experiences during her CDL school training and her CDL company team driver training…and her descriptions were quite vivid and graphic! She would write us long detailed emails describing her encounters…some of them making me cringe. I finally asked her if she would like to share her experiences with our Blog readers and Newsletter subscribers. She said yes she would and thus “ A Day in the Life of a Lady Trucker” and TruckerDesiree was born, and the trucking industry would never be quite the same!
Well, it’s exactly one year today that TruckerDesiree made her debut in “AskTheTrucker” with the first post in her journal, ” A Day in the Life of a Lady Trucker”.
A lot has happened since then for Desiree; Talk Radio Shows, Trucking Magazine interviews, documentaries, spokesperson for the iPhone Trucker App, blogger, twitter queen, facebook diva, and most of all a very good friend and advocate for truckers … She’s made a lot of friends and many enemies (goes along with popularity) By far her interview with Dan Rather will be her biggest accomplishment to date, but we expect to see even more achievements in the future.
We’re so Proud of you Desiree!! You Give a new meaning to Women in Trucking
Allen & Desiree Oct 2009
@ Petro i75 in Florida
[…] female truck driver 18 wheels facts askthetrucker.com […]
I know these posts are dated in 09, but I appreciate the peoples input, both sides. I hope, today, 2013, things are better. I am still researching, and making a decision, if I want to do this. I am all for safety, and I don’t mind making truck driving, my career. I don’t mind being on the road 24/7. I hope the schools do care abt us, newbies, and is patient w/ us. 🙁 thanks for the info, and pls update the current things of whats happening, in the NOW… Happy trucking