Bump-Y Ride

Our driver’s tale this month is about a situation likely to become less unusual as more women become truck drivers, but hopefully that will also mean it will be better dealt with by the companies concerned

- Lucy Radley

I fell pregnant with my now 12-year-old son while I was tramping on short sea-container work, which involved the driver spending quite a lot of time in the back of the box with a pump truck. My pregnancy wasn’t strictly planned but it wasn’t unplanned either; more a case of ‘what will be will be’ – my partner worked from home so childcare was no issue.

I knew I was pregnant straight away because I started throwing up, which in turn meant I had to tell my boss sooner rather than later.

My then transport manager was female but ruled her drivers with a rod of iron, and it’s fair to say we didn’t get on terribly well – it was almost as though she tried so hard to be seen not to favour her sole woman driver that she ended up going to the opposite extreme instead. Fortunately for me, the company was big enough to have a human resources and health and safety (H&S) manager – albeit they were the same person – so I went to her instead.

Don’t panic!

You know how people always joke that H&S people love a curveball because it keeps them in a job? Ours was no exception. Within five minutes of my having spilled the beans she was panicking about everything, from red air lines suddenly leaping out of my grip and embedding themselves in my stomach, to winding landing legs potentially causing my waters to break too early, and gassing my unborn child with toxic fumes while fuelling up.

Because I had told her ‘off the record’, since it was so early – six weeks – she wasn’t initially allowed to do anything that involved telling people what was going on, a situation she clearly found agonising when there was Very Important Meddling to be done. I knew there and then that the clock was ticking, though.