Safe parking defined?

It was never about safety, it was about $ and organizations like the ATA in bed with the megas to try and squeeze smaller fleets and independents

 

On my route, you can’t even find a ramp to pull over onto for 5 minutes anymore to take a leak. Every on/off ramp with any shoulder at all is full of parked trucks

 

... I've never not found a place to park, on ramps are for lazy bums, off ramps are for stupid lazy bums.

Edit: since that's how my life goes, tomorrow I will posting something along the lines of "help I can't find parking" followed by "someone ran into me while I was parked on an off ramp, Chinatown, will someone hire me?"

 

You guys are trying to find ways around this, drivers asked for the FMCSA to define PC and they did which screwed all.

Safe parking means where it is safe for you to park, it is that simple.

If you park on a busy off ramp, is that safe compared to driving another 15 or 20 minutes to a truck stop under PC?

 

You're over-thinking it; safe, legal parking. Is it an on/off ramp? No (although a very few have some unsigned areas suitable for parking well away from the roadway). Shoulder? No. On street? Maybe, so long as there is nothing prohibiting parking a truck there. Rest area? Maybe, it depends on the rest area. Walmart? Again, it depends. Etc., etc., etc.

 

Yeah and this is why we don't need FMCSA defining anything, before it was just you could use PC but now they put in more ambiguity into the entire question - what does it mean?

The less we have them involved, the better.

 

In the majority of my life I have tried to put the truck where is how ever I get it to fit without the Lawman telling me to MOVE IT. Is legal.

I have paid parking tickets for the times Ive made the Law stand around waiting for me to come out from Dinner to the truck to receive the ticket and a one way conversation. My last illegal parking involved my drives sitting on about 15 rusted poles with no truck parking attached to them. The police were irate. It was a 70 dollar incident. I paid it and went on with my life.

Worse case scenario I would think Ok, I am a reefer. Where do I find many reefer trucks? Bingo, pull into any industry with a row of reefers waiting for a dock call, get into line and sleep there. Since it's all radio, no one knows I am the black sheep in the property.

After Amesbury Mass Burned, the one combined truckstop, bar, hotel, dance hall etc all gone into burnt ruins protected by a sherriff at night, I simply asked him politely will my parking here bother him I need to get some sleep at the end of my workday. Did not know that truckstop was burned. He said sure. Stick it there you worry about nothing. And so I slept well. From that night on though Foxborough Truck stop on US 1 would be my base in that area. N Brandford 76 in CT was my fall back. And the Darien rest area on either side. Usually a parking spot.

In short there are places big enough with painted lines to accomodate your 18 wheeler in one box. That's lawful parking. Now if anyone can kick you off the property then that would be a different story.

Now. Time for a funny story. You will love this.

Early summer schools out. I was up in Elmira NY area in the Horseheads sysco load from McCormick (Spices, 6000 little boxes containing god only knows how many little bottles of the stuff...) I put her down next to three trucks at a shopping strip not far from there and went to bed. Since two of them were generator trucks common to carnivals and one was part of a ride I did not think twice.

Sun came up, both generator trucks were howling and alot of work is being done. I am literally surrounded by a carnival that was built in 8 hours time. What was my saving grace was the Carnies managed to build everything around me in such a manner that I can pull out with a right swing of the tandems to clear the massive Ferris wheel next to me and carefully tip toe out onto the road. They could have just built me in and there I be for a week...

Hello boss... You wont believe this... (I know I would NEVER get the rest of that first sentance out of me with him irate and lost Sysco as a account...) so I kept that one to myself.

I was much more careful where to stick that thing prior to monday am delivery up there.