Feedback on truck parking?

For over 20 years truck parking has been an issue,,used to be east of the Mississippi and north of Virginia ..
Every where in US especially the east and west coast as well as anywhere near a major city,,there is and has been a serious shortage of truck parking,,
The CVSA along with the ATA and the truck stop owners assoc has determined there is for years there is no problem,,the truck stop operators don't want additional truck parking especially any funded by state governments,,
One of the big problems is driving local and OTR that do not have trucking parking at their homes or there are no local terminals for OTR drivers who take time off at home,,
In November 1999 the Washington Post newspaper did a from page story about me getting a ticket and forced out of a Virginia rest area along with 9 other drivers at 4 AM in the morning,, The article was titled "No Rest For The Weary"
The reported Linsey Layton did a good story and it hit the wire services, newspapers and MSNBC.
One other major problem with the limited truck parking is a quiet and safe place to park,,
Many rest areas are next to highways and there are many trucks stops near railroads,,It is difficult to get quality rest almost every where where a driver can park for his 11 hour break.

 

Parking is an ongoing problem, with the Hours of service being very inflexible, and electronic logs not helping matters. Most drivers are parked at the truckstops by 15:00 in the afternoon, if you are not parked by 17:00 in most places good luck finding a spot. When the sleeper birth split (the old rules) was allowed, there were more available parking areas. There were more trucks on the roads at night, thereby reducing the congestion that is seen today.

Rest Areas are closing down reducing parking.
Scale Houses are putting blockades up reducing parking.
Shippers either do not have adequate space, or want the trucks off of their property as soon as they are done unloading.
Their are not any advances in technology that have helped reduce the parking issues, as of yet.
Truck Stops are now charging money to park because they see an additional income stream for their property.
More and more drivers are parking where ever they can find a spot.
More and more states are putting up no parking signs on the on ramps, further reduction in parking.
I have seen trucks parked on the shoulders of the Interstate due to lack of parking.

In the end, nobody really cares as long as their products get where they want them and when they want them.

The Federal Government is spending money on studying this issue as we speak. Do you think they will find a solution? We told them that if they were just to implement the old sleeper birth split, this would solve a lot of the problem. We truckers don't think they want to solve the problem, they would rather spend our tax dollars on study's that result in little to no results.

All you have to do is google: Truck parking study and you will see that this is a major problem.

So you will have to do like the rest of us, get creative and hope you don't get woke up in the middle of your sleep to move your truck to another area. Been there done that, there is no winning the argument when Johnny Law says move he means move. We choose not to argue with the guy with the gun, even if we believe we are right.

 

Teams don't park very often. But when we do it is almost always a headache.

I've driven over 300 miles to find safe and legal parking - (coming out of NYC Burroughs). Since we are a team truck, it's very hard to corner us with no parking. One of the two of us almost always has a few hours left. Mitigating a bad parking situation is tricky - sure we can run out far enough to find a spot, but what if our pickup is in that town? Burned fuel, burned hours - and we used to eat them both.

You can call ahead to your pickup shipper. You can talk to your consignee. You can try to find a WalMart, you can ask local cops, or even over the CB. We've snuck around behind grocery stores, left an empty trailer at a consignee to p/u in the morning... you get creative as a team. You have to. Most of the time when our day is over all the solar powered guys have already taken all the obvious spots. You can pay to stay at some truck stops, but that is ALWAYS a last resort. Mostly you wind up in a somewhat abandoned area, praying the thugs aren't out that night and your "Pitbull on board" sticker is enough.

Shippers can do several things: first and foremost keep their appointments. A pro driver already has his route planned out when he gets to a shipper. Delays muck up his parking plan. Second, if you can't do the first, allow a driver to take up to a 10 hr break - IF space is available- and not automatically boot everyone off property. It's not like drivers *want* to stay there with no amenities, but in some cases we have no other option. And be a team player. If a driver calls and lets you know he can pick up, but needs a place to take his 30 minute break, or 10 hr break, try and accommodate him.

Technology advances? I've seen one. In one or two states they have sensors telling a driver how many spots are left at a rest area or parking area. I have no way of knowing if they work, we don't generally stop that much anymore.

 

Let's put that in perspective shall we
1 A truckstop is a private business who's sole purpose is to make a profit
2A truckstop spends money to maintain the parking area ( trash removals, asphalt repair, line painting, etc)
3 A truckstop receives NO government funding
4 A truckstop has an enormous liability when Billy big Rigger comes in to use the microwave to heat his ramen noodles and trips over his feet and sues.
So exactly how much do you think they are making?

 

I agree, one should be able to do what one wants with their property. Another thing I forgot to add that is reducing parking at the truckstops is the new CNG/LPG fueling stations, which by the way are subsidized by the government. So now we are indeed paying for the inability to park as well as the ability to park. Pretty cool stuff Huh?

I have had to call a truckstop that was trying to drive one of our drivers out after he had just took on $400.00 worth of fuel, because he did not reserve one of those fancy prepaid parking areas, which by the way they did not have marked. Imagine my surprise when my driver called me at 01:30 in the morning with the situation. Imagine my surprise when the manager of the truckstop was more concerned about the possible loss of $10 vs. the loss of our fueling business. I quite simply asked him to purchase back the $400.00 in fuel and we would be on our merry way. Guess that shut him up, and they found out that our driver was not parked in a preferred parking area in the first place. Needless to say we don't buy fuel from that chain anymore unless we have to.

The preferred parking is kinda like that trucker that comes into the FCFS shipper/receiver and jumps in line. That is grounds for a buttwhipping, but nowadays nobody does anything. I remember back when I was a kid that there were truckstops that actually parked trucks for the drivers, filled the tanks, washed the windows, gave out free steak dinners with a fill up. I used to tell my dad, man you guys are the kings of the road.

You tell me what changed?

Here it is:

The drivers changed, they leave their trash all over the truckstop, don't patronize the truckstop, park on the fuel islands, park along the curbs, block the driveways, I could go on and on.

The truckstops changed, the food is now crappy quality, the showers are not as clean, the parking areas are more congested, they charge 3 times as much for their products as you can get it at the store for, they now have preferred parking (at least in the old days they had valet parking at some truckstops), full service is a thing of the past. Come on in driver, we will give you that greasy food that you ordered two hours ago cold, we will make sure to screw it up while we are at it, we will charge the same price as a steak house and do all this with a roll of our eyes, OH MY GOD IT'S A TRUCKER ATTITUDE!!!

No their not making any profit, when you pay $2 for that soda that you can buy at the store for .75, No wonder the drivers are eating ramen noodles, they are too broke from all that greasy overpriced underquality food, and from having to pay $10 per day or more to park at the precious truckstop.

Our trucks just choose to stay away from those type of places.

 

1) often, more than once per week; really depends where I'm running.
2) yes
3) wake up early, shut down early, or drive nights.
4) offer long term driver parking
5) no, but teaming is an easy fix.

 

One has to factor in the enormous cost shifting involved. In the 30 years since deregulation began a new breed of carrier has dominated OTR trucking, the truckload carrier. Most of them wouldn't be able to park 10% of their fleets on their own or leased property, they are perfectly happy to squeeze them in anywhere they can, without paying for it. This is part of their business model and the ATA's position is: The government requires truck drivers to rest, the government should provide(at taxpayer expense) a place for them to do it.
Until this fundamental question is answered the problem will continue to critical mass at about the same time ELD's become required industry wide.

 

Don't know about rest of you parking sucked 20 years ago and sucks still today. Only difference between then and now is guberment pushed more trucks to solar powered driving when there was a lot of trucks driving at night. When trucks would park to avoid rush hour traffic that happens no more because in most big cities there is just steady traffic all day and night more cars are on the road period. Plus because of constantly changing hos rules. And yeah I rember the old truck stops they where dives not wearing any rose colored glasses showering out in the middle of dirt lots or shower stalls so small that I would stand in hallway to get dressed sleeping on your deck plate or underneath trailer to keep cool no a/c in truck. Mud holes so deep in lots that trucks got stuck pulled more then my fair share of trucks in old truck stop lots. No drivers break rooms while your cabover got worked on so you found quite spot in shop to nap. Yeah there where some full service stops but not a lot of them. No thanks truck stops are a hell of a lot nicer these days. Big fleets have lots by some major cities but there drivers don't want to park at them thats why my truck while in west memphis got backed into to by a orange truck that has a terminal 1 mile from truck stops with plenty of secured parking there. Last time I was company driver years ago boss said I catch any of my trucks in local truck stop and not at yard you will be fired. But these days you have guys who own multiple trucks who have no property to park them and if you can't afford to own or rent a spot for them then you are doing something wrong so they use local truck stops as terminals. A lot of just plain lazy all they care is about them selves steering wheel holders. Seen truck stops at times that lot is full they could park 50-60 trucks but no room on a sat morning yet no one there trucks not running or whatever when -10 below south of twin cities is one example they use it as personal lot because of lazy or too cheap to rent a place for truck how many times you seen trailers parked that haven't been moved in months?