Faye Lougher spotted Tania Rawson as she pulled in at Shannon. Driving a bright yellow 2014 Volvo FH 540 in CourierPost livery, she was pretty hard to miss.

Tania works for C Johnson Carrying.

Having left Taupo that morning, she was on her way to Wellington.

“I‘ve wanted to be a truck driver ever since I was about eight years old. My mother didn‘t think that was a job for a woman so I did engineering and steel fabrication instead. After 15 years I‘d had enough of the indoors and felt it was time to get out so I chucked that in.” Tania started driving trucks about five years ago and has been in her current role for three and a half years.

“I had been working for Craig Johnson for a few years and he had no problem letting me loose. I love being in the truck and driving, and people‘s reactions when they realise it‘s a woman driving.” Tania says the main problem in the industry isn‘t actually an industry problem, it ‘s more to do with people not being aware of trucks, and the state of the country‘s roads, which she says aren‘t always that flash.

No contest when it came to the vexing question of sausage roll or wrap – Tania chose the sausage roll.

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