Keep banging that drum for truck parking funding

The problem is not new.

Truck drivers have been complaining for decades now that there are not enough safe and convenient places to park.

In last year’s Top Industry Issues report from the American Transportation Research Institute, truckers voted truck parking as the industry’s No. 1 problem.

Land Line has published multiple examples of how a lack of safe truck parking can lead to tragedy.

Jason Rivenburg was shot and killed in 2009 after needing to park at an abandoned gas station to take a nap.

In 2015, Jerry Matson was shot after being forced to park about a half a mile away from his delivery at the Oakland Coliseum.

Instead of stopping at a sketchy location, truck driver Glen Hamblin elected to keep going in 2016 even though he could feel himself becoming drowsy. Hamblin was in the not-uncommon situation of needing to decide whether to pull over in an unsafe location or to press on and try to make it to the next truck stop with an available spot. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out for Hamblin as he crashed into a concrete barrier. I’ll never forget speaking with Hamblin in 2016 and him marveling over the fact that he survived the crash.

The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has used such examples to relay the severity of the truck parking crisis to lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

Many lawmakers say they get it. Truck parking was touted as a bipartisan issue, and there appeared to be some hope that this was the year something would get done.

But as this edition of Land Line goes to press in mid-October, it doesn’t appear any meaningful funding for truck parking will be included in the highway bill.

The level of frustration is immense. How, after all these years, has nothing been done to provide the most basic needs to the men and women who keep this nation moving?

Understandably, your instinct may be to decide that the people in Washington just aren’t going to listen and to give up.

Instead, we all just need to keep banging that drum. If you’ve called your lawmakers about this before, keep calling. If you haven’t called or written a letter, start doing it now. Tell them to support Rep. Mike Bost’s Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act, which OOIDA helped craft. Coming from a trucking family, Bost is a lawmaker who actually does understand the severity of the problem. Make sure your representatives know why HR2187 is so important.

Rest assured, OOIDA also will keep banging that drum by making the issue known to Congress and to the FMCSA.

“The services that you provide are absolutely critical to the survival of this country,” OOIDA President Todd Spencer told truck drivers during a town hall event at the Guilty By Association Truck Show in September. “Some reasonable level of accommodation (for truck parking) ought to be made. It’s a serious issue, and it’s one that is not going to be solved for us. We’re going to have to be vocal and persistent and keep ragging on lawmakers. Certainly every chance we get, we want to make sure the agency is aware of the situation because we think there’s a role the agencies can play too.” LL