Rest Area Car vs. Truck space.

Do they enforce the parking there? And if not, is there room for you to get a truck in and out of there? We have similar problems here, but at least in some areas we can get away with using the car parking, at least at night.

This is the Ryegrass rest area in Eastern Washington on I-90. As you can see, same story: limited truck parking, all kinds of car parking, which is pretty much empty at night. Trucks will usually line up along the yellow lines at night, especially if they're like us and pull sets with 32' trailers.

 

Most of the rest areas were built when cars outnumbered trucks probably by at least a factor of 10. I'm sure many traffic study firms were paid many millions of dollars to recommend the various ratios of parking allotments based on traffic counts.

Also when you look at holiday travel and event travel periods, these rest areas are filled to capacity with cars.

Yes, the situation and realities have changed but change to adapt always comes slow.

 

I hate to be the bearer of the truth here, but most of the rest areas on the interstate system were not intended for use as a truck terminal ( or RV or campground) for 10 hours. In some locations the states have made enormous rest areas that can accommodate long stays, but at great taxpayer cost and significant local resistance. Most rest areas were intended for short(less than 2 hours)stays for cars and trucks, not overnight . Indeed many of them still say No Camping, or No Overnight Parking or 2 Hour limit. It is not the responsibility of the state of Texas to provide a temporary truck terminal for a for profit industry such as the trucking industry., or a camping space for someone with a $100,000 RV too cheap to buy a $30 campground space.

 

Rest areas or too old. Imagine trucking when you could pull In to a rest area at 11pm and find 6 of 10 spaces empty.

 

When were these days by chance? No sarcasm I really want to know as I am just getting into the carrier side of the trucking world!

 

Not that long ago, early 90's even.

Edit: at least out west.

 

Oh geez. Do you ever go to a truckstop and there is no parking so you have to leave to find another one? And if so what happens if your ELD hours is up, would you have to park on the side of the road somewhere?

 

Yes, too often. They want the load when they want it and it becomes your problem to figure it out. It is theroetically possible to make the delivery but they don't account for accidents, stopping for fuel, load securement, or taking a leak.

If it's a tight schedule I plan out three places to stop. If I think I can push on because there were no delays, and it is still early and parking and won't be full I will skip a stop or two. Many times I have hit the bottom of an exit ramp and switched from driving to on-duty so I could have just enough time to get parked. If you can roll the truck during on-duty that is...

Sometimes you just have to shut down early.

 

Thank you so much for your thorough response! This is one thing I am worried about as a new driver. Having to shut down early before reaching a truck stop since I don't know where most of them are!