The issue of truck parking, or lack thereof, has been a topic of discussion for the past few years in the trade and driver publications and their online sites. We've all seen the big trucks parked on the on/off ramps on the interstates with the occasional expediting straight truck and tractor/trailer mixed in with them. There's not much of an argument about the driver's need to pull over when he's out of hours or just plain dead-tired. The big question is where?

For many professional drivers operating East of the Mississippi, there's no question that there's a truck parking shortage. With many of the truck stop parking lots filling up in late afternoon or early evening and as the evening progresses, the rest areas on the Interstates are loaded with big trucks, the expediter in his straight truck or tractor/trailer is quite often forced to seek alternative parking areas.

Given the 24 hour on-call nature of the expediting business, it's almost impossible for the expediter to plan when and where that next shutdown to get his hours back and sleep will occur. The expediter is just as likely to park for those reasons at 10 am or 10 pm, resulting in one of the most irregular sleep cycle schedules in transportation.

For the emergency freight specialist in a cargo van, the problem is not as acute. The van driver will usually find a spot in the truck stop car parking area, and in the rest areas on the big roads, the van driver can quite often squeeze into a slot even when the 18-wheelers have moved into the car parking lots. If necessary, the van driver can also find temporary haven in mall or shopping center lots, usually without drawing too much attention from security or local police. As most of us know, however, the larger the vehicle, the more likely a visit from the authorities, quite often soon after the head hits the pillow. For the straight truck and tractor drivers in expediting, they live with the same parking difficulties as their brethren in conventional trucking.

A 1999 OOIDA membership survey found that 90 percent of its members had a hard time finding parking spaces at least once a week.

The National Transportation Safety Board recently came out with a report on truck parking areas. It noted that in 1996 there were about 7 million large trucks on the highways. By 2005 that number is projected to increase roughly 19 percent, to 8.25 million.

The truck parking issue is a concern for the expediting industry just as it is for the full-size trailer load industry.

Is anyone doing anything about it?

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To address this issue, the Federal Highway Administration gathered information about the parking shortage problem in a seminar held in Atlanta, GA in June, 1999. This forum included officials from the federal and state governments, truck stop representatives, truck drivers and trucking companies.

The problems addressed included:

*Rest area parking time limits

*Truck stop expansion

*Closed rest areas

The forum developed the following proposed solutions among others:

*Eliminate time restrictions on parking in rest areas.

*Use weigh stations and park-and-rides for overnight truck parking.

*States should place rest areas no more than about an hour apart.

*Increase police presence at rest areas, possibly with on-site substations.

*Encourage shippers and receivers to provide parking for trucks waiting for morning delivery appointments.

*Get the federal government to allocate funds for maintaining rest areas, not just constructing them as is currently the case.

*Provide low interest loans to private sector truck stop operators who wish to expand parking lots

*Provide infrastructure grants or funds to local communities who permit private parking development in their communities.

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US Representative Frank R. Wolf of Virginia, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Transportation and Related Agencies has exercised his authority by putting pressure on 19 states to rescind their two hour time limits in rest areas.

Rep. Wolf contends that forcing the tired professional driver back on the road is directly linked to truck-related accidents and the congressman, usually a critic of the trucking industry, has also requested that the federal and state DOT's find a way to fix the rest area issue.

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A group outside of the transportation industry, Parents Against Tired Truckers (P.A.T.T.), has lobbied for, among other issues, the availability of sufficient, safe rest areas for truckers.

P.A.T.T.'s position on the lack of rest areas and rest area time limits is squarely on the side of the professional driver, regardless of other agendas. The organization states that "when professional drivers stop in a rest area to get much needed sleep, and are parked safely, they

should not be awakened and made to move on. That is tragedy waiting to happen! Also if those drivers are over their hours, they are being made to break the law, by moving on."

"Wake up state governors! Get rid of the truck parking time limits. Build enough safe rest areas to keep our highways safe. The motoring public is depending on you."

Daphne Izer of Parents Against Tired Truckers says, "If a truck driver is fatigued and unable to stop, he's driving tired. Drivers are calling us and saying, ‘You want us off the road, but we have no place to park.'"

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The National Association of Truck Stop Owners (NATSO) has a different take on the truck parking shortage. They perceive it to be an overblown issue, contending instead that there is plenty of parking for big trucks across the country, except for isolated pockets where shortages might occur.

"No credible research exists which accurately suggests there is a nationwide truck parking shortage," Natso says. The organization also opposes efforts to pay for the expansion of interstate rest areas and is in opposition to the commercialization and privatization of rest areas.

One of NATSO's recent proposals that has raised some eyebrows is to increase yearly truck registration fees by an additional $300 per truck with the stipulation that these special funds can only be used by states on initiatives to address the truck parking issue.

NATSO say, "States would be required to use these funds on projects that would only further enhance truck parking availability. Such projects might include, but not be limited to, the following:

Constructing and maintaining additional rest areas

Providing better signage or real time parking information to drivers

Providing low interest loans to private sector truck stop operators who wish to expand parking lots

Providing infrastructure grants or funds to local communities who permit private parking development in their communities.

Implement an Interstate Oasis program that will allow states to better target their resources away from areas well served by private sector interchange establishments to those areas where additional development is desirable."

NATSO asserts that the government should not be in the business of constructing "truck terminals," or a special service for a commercial industry and that there are no funds available to construct additional truck parking places.

NATSO: "We are strongly opposed to any change to federal law that would allow for rest areas to be commercialized. The prohibition against rest area commercialization has proven to be sound public policy that has lead to the creation of over 60,000 small businesses that employ close to two million Americans."

"Rest area commercialization would shut down most highway service businesses located at nearby interchanges, jeopardizing thousands of small businesses and their employees."

Many groups have strongly opposed the commercialization of rest areas.

NATSO is not alone in its strong opposition to the commercialization of rest areas. In the past, groups as diverse as McDonald's, the American Petroleum Institute, Wendy's, the National Federation of the Blind and Cracker Barrel, have also strongly opposed commercialization.

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Gary Green, Business Services of Owner Operator Independent Driver Association disagrees with NATSO's position. "The truck parking situation is becoming desperate now. If the delivery is going into an area where the freight can't be delivered until morning, the driver has to spend the night somewhere; the question is where?"

"The bottom line is a tired driver has to rest somewhere and many times, if he doesn't make it to a truck stop by 7:30 pm, he's out of luck."

Gary continues, "Anti-idling restrictions in various communities are adding to the truck parking problem. We need more rest areas outside of those communities, but still within a reasonable proximity to the business areas."

"We here at OOIDA can't understand why the authorities insist on enforcement of the rest area time limits for tired truckers," Gary states. "If highway safety is the true goal, why wake up a fatigued driver and force him back on the road?"

"It seems funny to me that the truck stops would charge the trucks for parking when they're already making money on fuel purchases, food, the C-store and everything else."

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Increased numbers of trucks on the road every year, proposed hours-of service rule changes which could potentially put more trucks on the road at the same time, the ever-increasing difficulty of permitting for new truck stops; all of these factors and others promise to add to the problem of.....Where Ya Gonna Park Tonight?

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