Independent owner-operator Debbie Desiderato, long long-hauling with her authority as Walkabout Transport, probably needs no introduction to regular Overdrive readers. Her insight around customer relationships and so much more has featured in Overdrive multiple times through the years, and last year she was one of our Truckers of the Month in the Trucker of the Year program.
At the top of this week's edition of Overdrive Radio (above on Youtube and in embeds below), Desiderato describes the seven years that have elapsed since she first met photographer/author Anne-Marie Michel for the first time. Owner-operator Desiderato's one of 40 female truck drivers/owners interviewed for the Britain-based Michel’s “Sisters of the Road” book. Long in the making, as owner-operator Desiderato made clear, the book's been out for a couple of years, yet it's making something of a splash around the country right now with a photo-exhibit trailer being pulled behind Desiderato’s Western Star. She's run with the exhibit clear across the country from an origin point in San Francisco to start Women’s History Month on the way to the Mid-American Trucking Show, coming up this week Thursday-Saturday in Louisville, Kentucky.
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In the podcast, hear my talk with Debbie about the experience thus far on the tour, which to date has offered up no shortage of opportunity to school the uninitiated on the ins and outs, the struggles and triumphs, of trucking and truck drivers of all stripes. Plenty share-the-road talk, too.
"The blind spots," Desiderato offered. "and how I've got a hood on this truck. They can see now if they're by my passenger steer tire how I couldn't see them if they're driving a small car. They got a big education."
