To introduce a video interview with Dennison Lubricants driver Emily Weymouth, named Overdrive’s Most Beautiful and featured on last month’s cover, Overdrive editorial director Max Heine wrote this:
It’s probably a safe bet that there’s not too many slender women drivers that every day drag around the heavy hoses used in distributing lubricants, getting plenty greasy in the process – and love the work.
Some readers seized on the “slender” reference to criticize Heine, the contest and Overdrive. Other complaints centered on Weymouth’s tattoos, her routes being local instead of long-haul, and other points.
Desiree Wood of the Real Women in Trucking group, commenting here at Overdrive Online.com, said the contest is a “very weak and inappropriate way to recognize the contribution women truckers make to an industry that rarely gives them any notice except as a token diversity photo opportunity.”
Mike Gomez wrote: “Honestly, you can’t consider an individual who is home daily to be a truck driver. Those ladies and gentlemen who live in the truck, sleep in the truck, eat in the truck own the road.”
Ira Doss: “Ship her out west, and let’s see if she can live through a heavy load off of Donner in January. Or a nearly empty trailer across Wyoming in a 70-plus mph wind. She’s never done it once, let alone every week like so many real female drivers.”
Others came to the defense of Weymouth, Heine and Overdrive:
