TRUCKER Jenny Wyrill is driving home the message that women are better behind the wheel than men - and she has a 44 tonne vehicle and 31 years of experience to prove it.

Jenny, 54, of Heworth, has rubbished recent German research which showed that women's spatial skills, such as parking and map reading, could be deficient because they were exposed to too little testosterone in the womb.

She contacted the Evening Press after two of our reporters tested the claims about spatial awareness among women.

The mother-of-three girls, who she claims are all good car drivers, said she had to parallel park her articulated lorry every day as part of her job with Millfield Haulage in Millfield Lane, Nether Poppleton.

Although she had seen less than a dozen other female truckers in all her time on the road, and she is the only female driver at her company, she said there was no reason why more women could not get behind the wheel of a lorry.

Jenny said: "My father bought a business and I decided to learn to drive to help him out and it went from there. I went to work for other people and I did continental driving. It's one of those jobs that if you don't like it you can't do it.

"Some people don't like it because of the traffic and the motorways and the odd male driver who is not that nice.

"But I like it because I get out and about. I see different places, do different things every day. But it is long hours." Jenny said she had never had any problem parking her car or her lorry.

She said: "From my point of view I have to be better than the men because they will stand there and say 'typical woman driver' if I'm not, whereas I've watched men try and reverse into a space they will never make it into.

"I don't get much stick because I can prove that I can do it. Also, I'm not particularly big but I have to drag the load to the back of the vehicle to unload it, so I think I'm reasonably strong. You have to prove you can do the job yourself."

James Chambers, operations manager at Millfield Haulage, said more and more women were getting into the business, particularly after they leave the Army. He said: "Jenny can do anything the men can do, she's fully capable."

York has another Jenny who is able to get behind the wheel of a truck.

Jenny Horsley, 23, who is promotions and publicity manager for York & County Press, gained her HGV licence two years ago when she was one of the youngest women in the country to achieve the qualification.

It fulfilled a lifelong ambition, nurtured by her father, Trevor ,and his Newton-on-Derwent haulage firm.

Jenny, who lives in Pocklington, said she still helps her father out at weekends and still enjoys driving trucks.

She said: "I'm getting more confident and feeling like one of the boys. Some people do look twice when they see me at traffic lights and you can see they think 'God it's a woman driving that thing next to me'."

Updated: 09:41 Saturday, February 05, 2005