Shortage of overnight truck parking contributed to deadly Greyhound bus crash, regulators say

I knew they would find a way to blame it on the truck drivers.

 

"The Greyhound bus exited Interstate 70 onto a rest area ramp east of St. Louis and struck three semitrailers parked on the shoulder."
Usually you're not allowed to drive on the shoulder.

 

If the trucks weren’t there the bus would’ve hit the cars if not the building too

 

Ok so there's holes I'm about to poke in this article. For the record, I see nothing wrong with parking on the shoulder for a break. Truckers gotta do what they gotta do and think unconventional in an unconventional industry. Here's what matters:

"The board, meeting in Washington, cited the bus driver’s fatigue and “deficient driver oversight by Greyhound,” including the company’s failure to address the driver’s “recurring unsafe driving behaviors.”

Records compiled during the investigation showed the driver had been involved in four prior accidents, two of which were deemed preventable, and an electronic monitor caught him driving over the speed limit on repeated occasions."

All a trucker needs is 63 feet of space minimum for parking. Specialized hackers may need more. There will never be enough traditional space to accommodate trucks so we will have to indulge in Creative Parking 101. You can't have that receipt on the Greyhound driver, then turn around and blame lack of truck parking. They need to accurately place the blame on themselves for keeping around an inadequate driver.

 

I think they should make a federal law that it's legal for a truck to park on an on ramp at the very least. It would open up alot of parking. Out west some states accommodate it .Colorado puts trash cans out there for you on the ramps and huge wide dirt areas to park along. Utah is the same way. Arizona, cali, Nevada. Lots of good spots to get 20+ft off the road. Chp sometimes gets a hard on and will make u move. Although I've noticed some states , mostly east of i-35 don't have wide enough areas to be safely off the road

 

This is why I preferred to drive out west more than the east…

 

I would love for that law to be passed. That would reduce the stress level of drivers. Then there might not be that crazy urgency they have to fill up the corporate truck stops. I do like that Colorado has the trash cans on the rest stops. To me it isn't tremendously hard to find parking east of 35, except North Carolina and going up 95. You make a good point about states that don't have wide enough lanes. Many spots in Missouri is like that. In Tennessee, some ramps are blocked off now.

 

I’ve been seeing more overcrowding than ever in the last couple years alone, especially since the pandemic.

I went through New Mexico a couple weeks ago between Gallup & Santa Rosa in the very early morning hours and had to find a place to park for my 30 minute break. Just about every on/off ramp was clogged, and most of the truck stops were packed like sardines.
I’ve also been seeing more instances of drivers going into places with “pull through” spots, and parking to either side of those rows, blocking them off and even blocking trucks already parked.

Not to mention there are more “1 truck” foreign outfits these days, especially the ones leased to companies like Super Ego, McKinney, TEL, Blue Sky and the rest of their ilk. Just look up the DOT numbers on the trucks and you’ll find the “companies” are all out of abandoned gas stations, some office/po box rental, our someone’s house/condo. And it’s been found that a lot of them are running several fake DOT numbers.

Basically there’s too many trucks and drivers and quite a few of them bogus. It’s sinking rates and severely thinning out what ever good paying freight is left.

 

He wasn’t easing through to park. Not at the speed that happened due to damage. I’d say he was ‘sleep driving’ following tv lights of one parked and sideswiped not looking to park.