INDUSTRY
MOTHER TRUCKERS Theresa Scott has been driving trucks of all colours, shapes and sizes for a decade. Coasting through 18 gears on a road ranger without using the clutch was not where she started, but it’s where she is now. Interview: darcy watt with Theresa Scott
After years of working FIFO and living in tents, Theresa Scott started applying for jobs driving trucks. But it wasn’t an easy road. “With all my experience from working in the bush, no one would hire me,” Theresa Scott says. In the end she accepted an offer from her boyfriend at the time, who was working in transport. They’re now engaged and work a two-up schedule together hauling fresh produce in triple road trains in Western Australia.
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“I’ll never forget my first day,” Theresa says. “They chucked the keys at me and told me to have the such-andsuch trailer on the Woolworths dock at 9am, and that was it. I’d never backed into a dock, let alone knew how to undo a tautliner. By day three, I was in tears.” Theresa describes herself as stubborn and independent. She stuck with it, and as the days went by she gradually found her feet. “I used to joke that Perth lived off HarleyDavidsons, TVs, Pottery Barn
