“This single act of kindness changed my life. For the next seven years, the truck became our mobile home as I worked my way up to becoming a manager for a transport company.”

In 2004, Jones mortgaged her family’s home to buy her first trucks.

The prospect of setting up her own company was daunting, but she was determined.

“I spent hours every day for three months to get a bank loan, only to face disappointment. I finally succeeded by going through a finance broker,” Jones said.

Within two years, she had 16 drivers, including sub-contractors, and between 15 and 20 trucks on the road. Success Transport provides transport services to a wide range of industries, from mining and farming to shipping, but despite her success Jones has to contend with lasting prejudice on a daily basis, along with “ludicrous red tape and regulations”.

“Being a woman does put me at a disadvantage when it comes to trying to make companies pay after the job is done. It cuts your cash flow and paying bills and taxes becomes very difficult,” she says.

“I have encountered people along the way who didn’t think it was appropriate for a woman to be in this business and would refuse to speak to me or conduct business with me, and ask to speak to a man who knows.”

The global financial crisis and former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s resources super-profit tax adversely impacted on her business.

“Last year, I had to downsize by 50 per cent. Companies are now taking 90 to 120 days to pay and many transport companies are undercutting prices and making it very difficult for independent entrepreneurs like me.

“The talk of super-profit tax (which has now been changed under new PM Julia Gillard) had also begun to impact on new mining development, where most of our work is concentrated”, says Jones, who is now looking at stability and prospects for future growth.

A finalist of the 2010 Australian Transport Woman of the Year, Jones loves to be behind the wheel of her road-train truck, stretching 50 metres long, and is undeterred when it comes to lying under the truck to fix a fanbelt or change the 81 kilogram flat tyre. Her daughters, Kersti, 22, and Chelsea, 21 take care of the administration and finances when she is on the road.

She knows how difficult it is to get a foot in the door in this “boys club” where “chauvinism is alive and well” and now trains inexperienced women and helps them get trucking jobs.

“I run my business like a family and make allowances to accommodate my workforce in this incredibly demanding and risky job,” says Jones, who is known to pick up her driver’s kids from school if a job takes longer than expected.

Jones is also on the board of various committees, striving to bring positive change in the industry, including promoting road safety, improving rest and recreation facilities for drivers, educating motorists to safely share the road with trucks and fighting to protect the rights and image of truck drivers.

“We have been successful in getting the Western Australia Owner Drivers’ Act passed, which is helping owner drivers get their money from defaulting companies. This has been a fantastic step forward for owner-drivers like me,” she says.

But success has not come on a platter; a life on the road is fraught with risks and entails enduring harsh conditions – the 50 degree heat, the ochre dust that clings to your skin and hair, black flies, bugs and mosquitoes.