Gone are the days of the little woman sitting at home kowtowing to their driver’s every whim and being bored and neurotic.
The partners of drivers have had have it rough too, and still do. Apart from military and emergency services partners, who else would have an understanding of the life of a truckies wife (partner)?
Simple, no one… not that anyone seems to care.
Twenty years ago, we were seen but not heard from. Today we are partners, whether it’s a small business, owner-driver or driver. In general, with all the safety initiatives and red tape aside, partners have to be supportive, knowledgeable and vocal, or it doesn’t work.
We deal with our drivers being tired, pushed to comply with customers’ wishes regardless of CoR, held up in road closures, budget juggling, relationship issues, children, our own work, friends and extended family.
We have to scrimp and save, forego family holidays, educate ignorant family and friends about a truckie’s lifestyle, manage illnesses, frustrated and/or depressed partners who may become suicidal, running the household, etc. For interstate families, we are, more-or-less, sole parents.
For small business and owner-drivers’ partners it’s not just groceries, mortgage or rent we stress about. We also have the truck expenses which are constant, often unpredictable, varied, and many. When we have this ‘much discussed’ Amazon effect happening and we then have the added mental health stress of our drivers and the subsequent inevitable strain on our family unit.
For the most part we wouldn’t have it any other way, but every once in a while, we’d love to step off the merry go round and breathe… but who are we kidding?
We try not to complain, we mostly manage, we forge friendships with other like-minded truckies partners – because we know they understand.
There is no room in a trucking relationship for a ‘cake and eat it too’ partner.
These ladies rarely survive the relationship with their driver, let alone with other partners in the Facebook groups.
We all struggle financially from time to time, this includes small business, owner-drivers and drivers, so when you get fined because you spelt something wrong it reverberates all the way down the line to home. A pedantic fine is an imposition on the whole family.
NHVR have said it is not interested in fining drivers for administrative errors. There was a collective sigh of relief from many partners. Yay, more money for groceries, unless you’ve got a driver who’s frustrated for whatever reason.
This is when enforcement will likely fine the driver anyway, not for any other reason than the driver failed the attitude test. Neither side gets paid enough for the work done, but the suits that contributed to the issues remain unaffected.
We’ve let some of the ladies have the last word, as per normal. See extracts above.