Agnes Casenave, the lady with the Actros tattoo

It's a real looker: the Actros which Agnes has brought along to the trucker festival which runs in parallel to the "24 Heures Camion" race in Le Mans. The tractor unit bears large airbrushed images on the topic of Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport. The front end is adorned by the legendary "Silver Arrows" of the Formula 1 team.

A truck tattoo on her leg.

The extraordinary truck belongs to a colleague at her employer BFT Transport in Lyon. But Agnes has a fascination for stylized trucks – so much so in fact, that around two years ago, she had one tattooed on her leg. Destiny is a wonderful thing: the tattoo depicts a truck from BFT Transport's fleet, where, just a couple of weeks after having the tattoo done, she managed to get a job and she's still there today.

For her daily work, Agnes has recently started driving a pearl white Actros 1863. "It's absolutely amazing," she says excitedly. Her daily routine involves transporting containers from the Fos-sur-Mer port in Marseilles to Lyon. Every now and again, she transports trailers from a French manufacturer to their clients.

In the past, Agnes worked in regional haulage and had to load or unload the pallets herself when she arrived at destination. Now, she only has to help with coupling and uncoupling the semitrailer. "The first time I got to the port with a container, I wanted to unload it myself. The dockers just laughed at me and sent me back into my cab," she explains with a grin.

A completely different relationship with the road.

By switching to long-distance haulage at 48 years of age, besides the change in role, Agnes' relationship to the road and with driving itself both changed. The whisper of the engine, the humming of the tyres on the asphalt: for Agnes, those are all part of the music of the road – music which she particularly loves hearing. "I often don't even listen to the radio."

In short, Agnes really wanted to get out onto the road – and today she can confirm a couple of things: "I made the right decision. I'll be sitting behind the wheel for as long as I can. It's my whole world and my passion."The Actros is her castle – it's where she lives, works, eats and sleeps.

"When I'm behind the wheel of my Actros, I don't need anyone or anything else," says Agnes. But she does like to chat with other truckers from time to time too. That's why she's a member of the "La Route au féminin" association in which around 500 professional female drivers have clubbed together. There's a sense of familiarity, whereby people know each other and their respective vehicles. "If we see each other while we're on the road, we always wave to one another."

Photos: Alex Kraus