Our December Rig of the Month owner is Jody Sefton. Jody was raised on a farm north of Broadview Saskatchewan in the Qu’applle valley. This is her story.

“I come from a fairly simple beginning. I have no epic trucking family history.  Instead my parents are a farmer and a teacher. Even though I was not raised around trucks the lessons they taught me helped to shape me into a person well suited to this profession.  The long hours, working through uncertainty and dedication to always give a hundred and ten percent came from them. They told from as far back as I could remember that there was nothing that I couldn’t do if I really wanted it and put my mind to it.

I find it funny that unlike some of my friends I didn’t grow up knowing that truck driving was going to be what I would do. In fact I had full plans of being a paramedic or a firefighter, but circumstances aligned themselves in unforeseen ways and here I am.  Don’t get me wrong I am not complaining. There is way too much I enjoy and too many things that I still want to do in this industry for that.  I love my job and take great pride in my truck and everything that goes with this job.

  I took my training in Yorkton Saskatchewan. It is a short one-week course and looking back I have to say that there is a very good argument to be made for longer courses. A one week course may somewhat prepare you to drive on flat ground but there is a lot more to trucking than that. Getting my learners the first day and then being behind the wheel for less than 3 days driving around town left me unprepared for the realities of this job.

At the time I was 19 years old and thought I knew it all. My first job was with Rema Leasing out of Regina. I was running mail from Regina to Prince Albert and back with a stop in Saskatoon both ways. I would leave at about ten at night and get done around four in the morning. That can be one lonely chunk of road at that time of night. 

I learned a lot working there: including what it is like to hit a deer dead on. I was just north of Regina when I hit him and my bumper pushed back and up punching a hole in rad. I was lucky in that there was another driver in our company who worked opposite shifts to me and I would always pass him as he was getting to Regina. He came along shortly after I hit the deer so we just switched trucks. I continued on to Saskatoon with my trailer while he limped back into town with my truck and his trailer.

I learned why you don’t always follow directions if they don’t look right. Like other drivers I’ve been sent into residential areas or down one way streets facing the wrong way.

I’ve also learned the hard way why it is always a good idea to carry a spare set of keys. I was at a service plaza in New Jersey where ran into an old friend. As I jumped out of the truck my dog and best friend Reece jumped up on the door to see where I had gone and in doing so he hit the lock button. Here it was 95 degrees out and my dog was locked in my truck. I hadn’t locked my jockey box so I decided to try and get in that way. I managed to crawl in the jockey box and lifted the bed up before I got stuck. It seems that in order to get all the way through my legs had to hinge the opposite way that they did. There I was with my feet sticking part way out of the jockey box and my head sticking out from under the bunk. Luckily my friend had a screw driver and managed to remove some vent work under the bunk which freed me up enough to crawl through.

Those are just a few of the things that happened when I started out.  I swear to this day Rolly from Rema must be one of the most patient people on earth. I’m sure he wondered more than once why he took a chance on me. 

I bounced around a lot when I first started driving. I worked mostly for companies out of Saskatchewan pulling super b decks with a little van work thrown in now and then. It was definitely an education all the way around. The first time I tried to back up a set of super b trailers I’m pretty sure that everyone from the office came out to see how the rookie would do (not a pretty scene to say the least). When I was finally old enough to loose one trailer and start running down south I thought I had died and gone to heaven. That was until I hit my first major city on interstate and tried to figure out where I was going. That was a major shock to the system. At that time I was working for a staging and lighting company out of Regina and we traveled to most of the state fairs in the mid west and larger shows in western Canada that summer. It is a summer I will never forget and not just because of the places and people that I got to meet. The back stage passes were very nice perks though. Their equipment was something else altogether. They had a couple of late seventies International and Kenworth cab-overs - and they were tired.

Don’t get me wrong there are some really beautiful old trucks out there but these weren’t them. The door on the drivers side would just pop open on one and so would the jockey box door, the clutch would sometimes just fall to the floor, and good luck if you had to jack the cab up! 

I got tired of the highway in 1997 and decided that I wanted a job where I could be home every night. So I moved to Winnipeg and started to haul gravel. It was a very different life than I had ever been exposed to before. You were up early, went hard as you could all day, and then met up with everyone after work before you headed home. It put a new spin on work hard play harder for me. I had a good crew of guys there that were really great about showing me the ropes.

I guess I have been pretty lucky most of the way through my driving career so far. I have met some wonderful people along the way. I have friends that literally stretch from one coast of Canada to the other and all over the US. Many of who have had a lot to teach me. Some of them I met in very strange ways that we still laugh about to this day. It turns out that scaring a person half to death does tend to make an impression on them.

One day I had some equipment on and pulled into Swift Current to adjust my chains. I decide that I needed to move one chain to a better spot on the equipment and as I flipped it over, unbeknown to me, Bill Green was walking on the other side and the noise of the chain moving scared him half to death. He came around to see what was going on and that’s how I met him and his wife Pam. (Bill was the Pro-Trucker Rig of the Month in April of 2003.) We talked awhile and then they invited me to my first Big Rig Weekend truck show.

 I have a close group of family and friends that I know I can count on no matter what and that is a great feeling. When I started out I was usually one of the only women driving for a company and for a long time the youngest; the second part not so much any more.  I did have a few people who told me that flat decking is not for females but I am just stubborn enough to work that much harder to prove them wrong.

The best advice I was ever given was; learn how to listen.  When someone who has been around longer than you speaks, there is usually something to be gained from it. Think about what they have to say and then decide whether or not it is good advice. The other thing was don’t be afraid to ask a question. The only stupid questions are the ones that you don’t ask.

   In early 1998 I got the chance to go back out on the highway as we were on winter lay off for gravel. It didn’t take me long to realize that it was where I belonged.  I went to work for R.S Harris out of Winnipeg and by the end of May had a chance to buy my own truck through their lease purchase program. It was a 98 Freightliner mid-roof. I know that most of you are saying right now those plans never work. I don’t know what to tell you other than with a little luck and a lot of hard work I managed to pay for it. There is a very good core group of people working there. 

   In July of 2003 I decided that I needed to have a brand new truck. I looked around at a lot of different trucks before deciding that I liked the classic look of a Peterbilt. I looked around at some lot trucks before I realized that I was way too picky and decided to custom order a truck. I have to say I had no real idea what I was getting into at that point.  There were more options and decisions to make than I ever dreamed of. It was kind of scary for me in a way as the day the truck was to arrive got closer and closer. I was finally going to be a true owner operator all on my own. There was no more saying I’d had enough and walking away with no consequences.

When the day finally arrived I decided to see if the grass is really greener on the other side. I went to work for a couple different companies that worked on mileage. There was good and bad to that way of paying. I met some wonderful people and also found out that other people are not always as honest as they should be.

I went back to work for Harris in August 04 and it felt like coming home.  I was nice to be back working with people who know me (all of me, both good and bad).  We don’t always agree on everything but we respect each other enough to try and get the whole story before we jump to too many conclusions.

If I had to weigh out the plus and minus to this job I still say that there is way more good than bad. It does get tough sometimes. I miss my family and friends but I try to balance it out as best as I can. To anyone thinking about getting into this career I would say think carefully before doing it, it is not for everyone. You never know what is around the next corner.

One beautiful summer day I was in the hammer lane heading south from Kansas City when I saw a northbound compact car clip the rear end of a truck and he ended up rolling right through the ditch coming straight for me.

I was sure that if he was going to hit me and all I could think of was that I had to be in complete control of the truck when I hit the ditch. I managed to stop the truck and I watched in horror as he hit the shoulder in front of me and was ejected through hole that had been torn in the roof of his car, landing on the pavement. Luckily the traffic stopped and no one hit him.

I was the first one to him and it is a feeling that you never forget as you have some ones blood on you and you are trying to help keep them alive until help arrives. It was a good fifteen minutes before any one else got out of their vehicles to help. They were all on their cell phone but no one would help. About 45 minutes later he was airlifted out. These things stay with you a long time and you never know how they will affect you in the end. The memories still haunt me; I never did find out if he survived.

I have a friend who was driving his rig down a two lane highway and as he was crossing a bridge a guy committed suicide by jumping out in front of his truck. There was a car with a family in the other lane so he had nowhere to go. The police found a suicide note in the guys house.

My friend was pulled off the highway for counseling and was not allowed to drive for a full year. Meanwhile he lost his truck and all his savings. He had insurance on all his loans but not one of them covered him for mental trauma. The insurance companies said it couldn’t be proven that it affected him enough that he couldn’t drive.

That was two and a half years ago and he’s back on the road now but he was only able to buy another tuck because Frontier Peterbilt in Saskatoon, where he had bought four trucks in the past, stepped up and helped him out.

One of my pet peeves is people in SUV’s who seem to think that they are invincible. I often see kids in the back seats without their seatbelts on. If you don’t want to wear one that’s your choice but don’t kill your kids. It’s sad that you have to get a license for a dog but anyone can have kids without having to prove that you have the mental capacity to keep them safe.

I don’t mean to sound like I am going off about only the bad stuff, because believe me I am not. There are lots of great things that I have gotten a chance to do because of this industry.  Just this year I got to participate in the World’s Largest Truck Convoy for Special Olympics. I was so great to be part of something that is such a good cause.

Then on the other side of the coin you can be bring in a load and the customer is so happy with the level of service that you provided that they buy you supper. I do remember this one time I was hauling an oversized load out of California going through a construction zone doing about 65 mph when I got to the other end I noticed the vehicle behind me had blue and red flashing lights. Anyone who has been to California knows what was going through my mind at that point. So he pulled me over and went through my paperwork. I had already decided at this point that I might as well be as nice as I can as it can’t hurt.  When he finished looking at everything I was waiting for him to bring the bad new on.  He looked at me and said, “You know you have a slow moving vehicle sign on the back of you load?  You might want to cover it being as you are definitely not a slow moving vehicle.” Then he told me to have a good day and left. You just never know. 

My story won’t be complete with out talking about the current man in my life, Reece.  He is a four and a half-year-old Shiatsu that is my sanity at lot of the time. There is nothing better to me than being able to laugh when you are having a very bad day. He is my comic relief. I will be sitting there wondering what else could go wrong and he will jump up on the seat, cock his head and look at me as if to say and what’s you problem now. You have to laugh. The best advice I can give to anyone thinking of joining this industry is enjoy what you do, take pride and laugh as often as possible