Drivers who pay to park at truckstops.

Instead of the post being called Pay to Park it should be Park where you Fuel.

 

if I don't spend it on parking
Patty will spend it at Kohls

 

i paid 10.00 in parking fees in Roswell NM but they give me 3, free meals and a shower. or was it 3, shower and 1, meal. i don't recall in fact i was never their they told me to tell you that. who are they you ask. well let me tell the real story

 

I'm the wife, and, when Forrest is running out of "go" or running out of clock, and every truck stop, every rest area, and every pull-off has no space, I push him to pay for parking, even though the company won't reimburse him. Why? Because I don't need him stressing about that, too. I want to keep him as stress free as possible, and, when in the NW I-5 corridor, sometimes the only way to get a spot to park is to call ahead and reserve one. He hates it, but money isn't as important as he is, and that's just the way it is in my book.

 

hey now thats a real nice store GO Patty!

 

Asked and was shocked when the answer was no!

 

If you are fueling there or going to spend $20 in the store then the parking fee is waived. no big deal.

 

how is anyone ripping anyone off????? its a choice , no one forces anyone to pay for a space, there is no law that says you are allowed a free spot to begin with.

many of us who don't mind it are owner /ops. apparently some of us aren't as broke as company drivers. and before you would pay 11 bucks for a spot you would park in a pile if dog poop, I guess that says it all.

It seems as if there is some sort of hidden anger at anything that one has to pay extra for, that makes some feel it belittles them because they cont afford it, or wont pay it. it seems to akin to the prevailing notion of the times of the rich keep getting richer. or that everyone should be on even financial terms and no one should make more than anyone else.

the ones who are against pay parking seem to be angry that the spaces aren't theirs for the taking, and someone who willingly wants to pay for a spot is high fallootin" , folks , that's life. if ya don't like where you are financially or career wise work on changing it.

save ya money, buy yer own or find a better company to work for.

just don't expect all the rest of us to live down at the level you THINK you are at.

folks end up where they are , because of the decisions they make throughout their lives. if ya don't like where you are at, make better decisions.

me, I don't feel the pay to park is a rip-off at all, its my choice to pay it or not. trust me, everytime I back into to one of them pay spots I don't ever think about the poor dude who cant or wont pay for one, I just watch em circle the lot. I paid my dues long ago in a 4070b cabover with no a/c and no power steering.

everytime one of threads gets started it doesn't take long before it comes to light the complainers are the ones who cant get reimbursed or don't make enough to pay it without crimping their style.

ya just need to get over it and plan yer day better.

 

Lets see. A tractor trailer takes up about 700 sq ft of real estate when parked. In the business model of yore, (before deregulation 1980ish) truck stops had large parking areas that were paid for by the profits obtained from the restaurant, garage, and fuel sales. If you give them a parking lot, they will come. The typical truckstop had maybe 25 spaces of parking per pump, 8 pumps maybe 200 spaces. And lots of trucking companies had their own terminals so they didn't have to depend on truckstops for space to park their equipment.
Fast forward to the present: A typical travel center built today is lucky to have 8 spaces per pump, maybe 80 spaces. Plus the number trucking of companies that own little or no real estate to park their own units has skyrocketed. They have shifted that cost to the truckstop, in lots of cases not purchasing anything from the truckstop, who in turn simply went out of business. Look at the number of closed independent truckstops all over the country.
Add to this mix the stricter HOS regulation and enforcement, plus the large increase in the size of the nationwide truck fleet, plus fewer and fewer alternatives(on street, abandoned lots, back of shopping centers etc)and it is a very basic law of supply and demand. Fewer spaces, greater need equals someone is going to be able to charge for something that was free.
In 1975, this guy named Ted Turner told the TV industry "I'll bet I can get people to pay for something that they get now for free". They all laughed heartily. He started the first nationwide cable TV network, then CNN in 1982. Now 80% of the American public pays to watch television.
You might think it a ripoff, but it is the future. Structure your charges and revenue needs accordingly.
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