CANDICE

Brisbane-based MC driver Candice Lureman is Australia’s only profoundly deaf female road train driver.   She is also co-founder of Women in Trucking Australia,  the 2019 Road Freight NSW Transport Woman of the Year and a finalist in the ATA’s 2020 National Trucking Industry Woman of the Year Award and 2019 Women in Industry Awards.

Research shows people who are deaf from birth or a very young age are fine-tuned to the feel of their vehicles in terms of vibrations – of what’s normal and what isn’t. Research also confirms people who are deaf have better peripheral vision than hearing people.  Their eyes effectively become their ears.

Candice communicates via text messaging, lip reading, signing and body language – which constitutes 70-93% of communication for us all.  The only deaf women anywhere to have “signed” a heavy vehicle road safety ad, Candice is a tireless campaigner for diversity and has shown unequivocally that she is more than up to the task of driving heavy vehicles. 

Like her co-stars, Candice worked tirelessly to bring WiTA’s 2021 “Will YOU Be Next” heavy vehicle road safety campaign to fruition and has in fact – produced two versions of her ad.  The first is her 30 second ad which completes the trio in the current campaign and the second – a 90 sec version where she “sign’s” her message using Auslan.  This ad is the first and only road safety advertisement ever to be “signed” by a female roadtrain driver and because of her unique delivery – Candice’s message stay with viewers long after the music has faded to black.

Recently starring in the short film “Breaking the Sound Barrier” as her entry into the 2021 international Focus on Ability film festival, Candice outlines the barriers she’s faced as a Deaf woman establishing a trucking career in the Australian road transport sector.

A tireless campaigner for diversity across the road transport sector, Candice currently drives B-Doubles in Brisbane.  Her dream however is to drive road trains across the Australian outback.