Sandy likes driving INTERNATIONAL the best.

Anyone can choose to be boring. To ensure that this is not the case for her, however, Sandy Kiesche has chosen a career as a long-distance truck driver. In this respect, she drives a MAN TGX in her favourite colour – and uses lots of girl power.

Sandy has been driving her truck in international long-haul transport for ten years. “I decided that this was what I wanted to do when I was a child,” she tells us. “My biggest dream was to drive through America in a really big truck, though. The biggest trucks in Germany are 40-tonne trucks, so that’s what I drive from one country to the next.” She got to know her job through her grandfather and father, both of whom were truck drivers as well. “Maybe it’s quite simply in my blood,” says the 43-year-old. In any case, Sandy can’t imagine a better job. She loves driving through Europe, and enjoys making lots of new acquaintances, the sunsets by the sea and the freedom: “Being somewhere different every day – that’s what I love.” She is usually on the road in her truck for three weeks at a time. As a result, her family life is also a little different: she has five children, aged 11, 12, 17, 19 and 21, who don’t live with her but always get to see her when they want to and when she is there. “We like to spend time together and we organise everything on the phone and via WhatsApp.” Sandy’s husband knows her wanderlust and understands it. For Sandy, staying at home simply wouldn’t be an option: “I was quite simply born for this job. I used to be a stewardess on cruise ships, so I was travelling almost the whole year around,” she explains.

“I was quite simply born for this job.”

Driving – an adventure that is well worth a try

What might sound like a holiday romance also comes with plenty of challenges which are part of everyday life for a long-distance truck driver like Sandy: “I face new challenges each day. I have to find loading or unloading points and try to manoeuvre the truck in or out somehow,” Sandy laughs.

This can sometimes be tricky, which is something this seasoned driver knows only too well from driving in Scotland, for example. “You drive five kilometres along country lanes and think: ‘where on earth is the company?’ Until you can suddenly see it in the middle of a field. Fortunately, Sandy has a reliable partner at her side in the form of her MAN TGX 18.510: “My MAN is special because of its lovely shade of blue, my favourite colour,” she laughs. “It also has the great lion on its side and, of course, lots of girl power.” Sandy also presented herself as a genuine power woman together with her lion at the Trucker’s World WoMAN photoshoot: “It was a really superb day,” says Sandy. She felt like a model and the photos turned out great.

And at the end of the interview we return to Sandy’s lifelong dream: “I might be able to make my childhood dream come true after all, and go to Canada to drive across America in a truck.” And it is certainly a challenge that the experienced trucker from Wiedemar near Leipzig would rise to.