Ellen Voie (Voy-a) is an internationally recognized speaker and authority on gender diversity and inclusion for women working in non-traditional careers in transportation. She has been invited to speak to audiences in Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, France, Mexico, and Canada, in addition to being a popular speaker at conferences throughout the United States. Voie founded the Women In Trucking Association in 2007, and currently serves as the nonprofit organization’s President & CEO. The Women In Trucking Association was formed to promote the employment of women in the trucking industry, to remove obstacles that might keep them from succeeding, and to celebrate the successes of its members. Voie also currently serves on the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) to provide recommendations and advice to the FMCSA on motor carrier safety programs and motor carrier safety regulations. Voie’s background in the trucking industry began as the assistant and later Traffic Manager for a steel fabricating plant in the upper Midwest. She then worked as a dispatcher for a grain hauling carrier before becoming co-owner of a small fleet. After starting a family, she used her background to become a freelance transportation consultant to carriers in Wisconsin, licensing and permitting trucks for more than 16 years. Voie also served as the Executive Director of Trucker Buddy International, Inc., a pen pal program between professional drivers and elementary students. Voie holds a Master’s in Communication degree from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, where she completed her Thesis research on the complex identities of women married to professional drivers. She also hold a degree in Traffic and Transportation Management from LaSalle Extension University. Voie has earned the Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential from the American Society of Association Executives, the leading authority in association management.

Imagine you wake up at 3 am. to a fire alarm in your hotel room on the 15th floor. The announcement from the loudspeaker instructs everyone to exit the building immediately, without using the elevator. What do you do? This recently happened to me, and after trudging down the flights of stairs and being guided to a parking lot across the street, I was not in a good mood. At least I had pulled on my jeans and grabbed a jacket, as some people were still in their pajamas and were shivering in the chilly morning air.
As you can imagine, we were all relieved, but irritated to learn it was a false alarm. The waiting line for the (very slow) elevators was long, so I decided to walk back up the stairs to my room.  Later, I asked a companion how  many stairs he had to maneuver and he told me he had just gotten into the shower and decided to take a chance that there was no fire and it was only a false alarm.
He beat the odds this time, but what if it had been a real fire? What would you do?
If you’re a risk taker, you’ll do what my colleague did and bet that there’s no fire. If you’re not a risk taker, you’ll be the person in the pajamas scurrying down flights of stairs and shivering in the cool morning air.
One definition of risk is “a situation involving exposure to danger.” Certainly, allowing yourself to ignore a fire alarm is exposing yourself to danger. Good professional drivers are typically risk averse and female drivers are even less likely to put themselves in a situation involving risk. However, a 2012 study in Norway compared professional drivers to non-professional drivers and found some interesting results.
The study looked at the responses of 1864 individuals of which 113 were professional drivers.  Here’s what they found. The professional drivers took more risks in some areas but had less risky behavior in others.
First, professional drivers were less likely to wear seatbelts, which could be identified as risky behavior.  However, professional

Ellen Voie
Ellen Voie

drivers were much less likely to operate a vehicle after alcohol consumption. (This could be contributed to the possible loss of a job, but is still a good risk to avoid.) The report also found that professional drivers were more likely to use phones or other electronic devices while driving than their four-wheeler counterparts. This type of activity is related to the job and the need to communicate with family, friends, customers and carriers, but was more prevalent in commercial vehicles and is identified as risky behavior.
It was interesting to note that the study found differences in how professional drivers take personal responsibility for road safety overall. A person with a strong safety priority will be more proactive in avoiding risks.  Professional drivers have stronger attitudes toward safety because of training and company values, however, due to the higher demands placed on them, they experience higher levels of stress and fatigue which could contribute to lower personal responsibility regarding traffic safety.
It wasn’t surprising to note that the report claims that professional drivers have a negative opinion of non-professionals as they perceive themselves as being more skilled and trained than others.
While the Norwegian study identified drivers by age and gender, they didn’t comment on any risk-taking tendencies for female drivers other than claiming that younger men are the most risk-taking group on the road. A report from the Social Issues Research Centre focusing on automobile drivers found that women take fewer risks and men are more likely to be in crashes involving speed, or those that occur while passing or on curves.
The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that male (automobile) drivers were more likely than females to report aggressive driving behaviors and the World Health Organization claims that “masculinity” may be hazardous to health and cited risky driving as one factor.
Women are driven by estrogen, which encourages bonding and connections while men are motivated by testosterone, which results in the desire to win and to demonstrate power.  Women activate the amygdalae, which is the brain’s fear center, more quickly than men.  For these reasons, we can assume the typical female drivers has less risky behavior than men.
Regardless of your age or gender, risk taking on the road is not something anyone, professional or not, should be doing. Ignoring a fire siren in the early morning hours and hoping it’s a false alarm is another form of risk, and one we should all avoid.

About the Author

Ellen Voie CAE,  President/CEO
Women In Trucking Association, Inc.
P O Box 400  Plover,  WI 54467-0400
Ellen@WomenInTrucking.org
888-464-9482     920-312-1350 Direct
Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube | WIT Commercial
Sign up for our weekly newsletter here.

Never drive alone, download the Women In Trucking app and stay connected!

Please follow and like us:

Ellen Voie (Voy-a) is an internationally recognized speaker and authority on gender diversity and inclusion for women working in non-traditional careers in transportation. She has been invited to speak to audiences in Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Vietnam, France, Mexico, and Canada, in addition to being a popular speaker at conferences throughout the United States. Voie founded the Women In Trucking Association in 2007, and currently serves as the nonprofit organization’s President & CEO. The Women In Trucking Association was formed to promote the employment of women in the trucking industry, to remove obstacles that might keep them from succeeding, and to celebrate the successes of its members. Voie also currently serves on the Motor Carrier Safety Advisory Committee (MCSAC) to provide recommendations and advice to the FMCSA on motor carrier safety programs and motor carrier safety regulations. Voie’s background in the trucking industry began as the assistant and later Traffic Manager for a steel fabricating plant in the upper Midwest. She then worked as a dispatcher for a grain hauling carrier before becoming co-owner of a small fleet. After starting a family, she used her background to become a freelance transportation consultant to carriers in Wisconsin, licensing and permitting trucks for more than 16 years. Voie also served as the Executive Director of Trucker Buddy International, Inc., a pen pal program between professional drivers and elementary students. Voie holds a Master’s in Communication degree from the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, where she completed her Thesis research on the complex identities of women married to professional drivers. She also hold a degree in Traffic and Transportation Management from LaSalle Extension University. Voie has earned the Certified Association Executive (CAE) credential from the American Society of Association Executives, the leading authority in association management.