WASHINGTON — As federal transportation officials mark the second anniversary of their plan to reduce deaths and serious injuries in crashes on U.S. highways, increased attention is being focused on a long-standing safety problem: A lack of places for truckers to park their rigs after a long day on the road.
“Truck parking has a lot of people’s attention,” said Zach Cahalan, executive director of the Truck Safety Coalition in Washington, D.C. “It’s not a lack of awareness or understanding. It’s the funding, it’s the details, it’s the execution. It’s encouraging to see people motivated to address this safety issue.”
Consider:
- A recent report by a Pennsylvania transportation advisory committee said state officials “must make decisive progress” in finding enough parking for truckers.
- Federal transportation officials have announced more than $300 million in funding for new truck parking facilities, including $40.8 million for an area at Lehigh Valley International Airport, where trucks now park in unauthorized locations.
- Legislation to provide federal grants to build truck parking facilities or expand existing ones continues to draw support, including most recently from U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.
The movement to address the parking shortage mirrors recent U.S. Department of Transportation efforts to require several long-sought safety measures designed to reduce fatalities in crashes involving large trucks — those weighing more than 10,000 pounds. The measures being pushed include speed-limiting devices and automatic emergency braking systems.
Fatalities in crashes involving large trucks rose 48% from 2013 to 2022 — to 5,887 from 3,981, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
During the pandemic, fatalities increased as drivers sped along emptier highways, and the numbers continued to rise as people returned to the office or took vacations. The rise in online ordering also seemed to feed the demand for deliveries. (Preliminary NHTSA figures for the first six months of 2023 showed fatalities in large truck crashes dropping by 11%, to 2,549 from 2,862.)
Pennsylvania in 2022 recorded 145 fatal crashes involving heavy trucks — those weighing more than 26,000 pounds — the most in five years, according to the state Department of Transportation.
A shortage of truck parking has been a problem for decades. The National Transportation Safety Board first highlighted the truck parking shortage in 2000, saying, “The lack of available truck parking or the truck drivers not knowing where parking would be available can negatively impact safety.”
It’s a major concern in an industry that employed 3.5 million drivers, carried 11.5 billion tons of freight, and reported $940.8 billion in revenue in 2022, according to the American Trucking Associations.
More truck drivers named the lack of parking as the biggest problem they faced in last year’s American Transportation Research Institute survey.
Federal regulations allow truckers to drive up to 11 hours during a 14-hour window, plus an additional two hours if they’re delayed due to weather or an unforeseen incident such as a major crash.
But when their workday ends, drivers often can’t find a place to park for the night.
Industry statistics highlight why:
* One parking spot for every 11 truck drivers;
* 70% of truckers violating hours-of-service rules because they don’t have a place to stop;
* 98% of drivers reporting problems finding a parking spot to spend the night;
* Truckers spending almost an hour a day — costing each driver an estimated $5,500 in lost pay each year — looking for a legal parking space.
‘Parked in every little nook’
Trucks stopped on ramps at overcrowded rest areas, or parked elsewhere that they’re not supposed to, have gotten the attention of officials who can do something about it, said Lewis Pugh, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, based in Grain Valley, Maryland.
“Enough people are seeing trucks at night parking everywhere,” Mr. Pugh said. “They’ve parked in every little nook and cranny. People are noticing that and asking why.”
The danger of the shortage was illustrated dramatically in July, when a Greyhound bus slammed into three tractor-trailers parked on an exit ramp leading to a rest area on Interstate 70 east of St. Louis. Three bus passengers were killed.
There were no more spaces in the rest area, and the NTSB investigation of the crash is looking at safety hazards posed by trucks parked alongside the road.
“Why was that truck parked there?” Mr. Pugh said. “That guy was parked there because he had no other place to park and he was mandated to take a break.”
He said the crash was “definitely a wakeup call” for the need to increase safe truck parking.
“Fortunately we haven't had more of that but it will get worse as time goes on,” Mr. Pugh said. “There are exit ramps like this all across the country every single night.
“When you're out of hours, you’re out of hours. Drivers are put between a rock and hard place. They have no choice; either we’re in violation of our hours of service or we have to park in an unsafe place.”
Driver fatigue was a contributing factor in at least 13 truck crashes the NTSB investigated since 2011.
“Even the most skilled and responsible driver who is running legally is often exhausted — and deeply aware of the hazards of diminished reaction time and judgment,” the Pennsylvania advisory committee report said.
“When every truck stop and rest area within 100 miles is full, when a driver knows he or she is too depleted to drive safely — and in any case a federally mandated break is coming up, there are no good choices left.”
A Keystone state problem
The advisory board report, released in December, said Pennsylvania needed to address the problem.
“It has been well-established that in many parts of the state and nation there is not enough truck parking for this segment of the workforce to do their jobs safely and legally,” the committee said. “The Keystone state, with its strategic position on major freight routes, must make decisive progress on this issue — for the safety of the motoring public and in support of the professional drivers who serve us all.”
The panel identified 10 corridors — including two in Western Pennsylvania, along I-79 and the Pennsylvania Turnpike — with severe shortages of truck parking, and outlined where new facilities could be built with both public and private funding.
For truckers using I-79 between the Ohio River and the turnpike, the report suggested building facilities farther north along U.S. 19 on property already zoned for commercial or industrial use from Cranberry to Zelienople.
Along the turnpike between Pittsburgh Exit 57 (I-376/U.S. 22) and the interchange with I-70 at Exit 75, the report suggested building parking facilities in industrial sites in New Stanton or redeveloping land along U.S. 119 in Youngwood.
PennDOT spokesman Zachary Appleby said the agency has created a group to look at the recommendations, decide which ones are most important, and develop ways to make them a reality.
Truck industry groups, including the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association, asked Gov. Josh Shapiro in November to use unspent federal stimulus money to build parking facilities. And legislation pending in Congress would provide $755 million over three years in grants to increase truck parking.
Mr. Casey last month became the most recent senator to co-sponsor the legislation, which passed the House Transportation Committee last year and was the subject of a hearing by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in November.
“American truck drivers are part of the backbone of our economy, and if they don’t have safe places to park, their lives and livelihoods are at risk,” Mr. Casey said in announcing his co-sponsorship. “Increasing the number of places our truckers can safely rest will keep truckers safe, supply chains moving, and the trucking industry growing.”
Pennsylvania was one of the five states named by truckers as the hardest to find a parking place after their driving is done for the day, according to a U.S. Department of Transportation report. The others were New York, New Jersey, Illinois and Georgia.
The DOT report was required under Jason’s Law, named for Jason Rivenberg, a trucker who was killed for the $7 on his dashboard after he parked at an abandoned gas station in South Carolina when he couldn’t find anywhere else to stop for the night.
There are 12,020 parking spaces for trucks in Pennsylvania’s rest areas, welcome centers, and turnpike service plazas, according to the state advisory committee report.
But as many as 12,420 trucks park there.
Another 980 park on highway shoulders and ramps, with the greatest number found between Pittsburgh and Bedford, according to the report.
To help address the shortage, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission has added 194 parking spaces for large trucks at four service plazas in the past 15 years, with another 63 planned at a fifth location. And variable message signs along the eastern part of the toll road and the Northeast Extension let truckers know whether there are available spaces at upcoming service areas.
Investing in parking spaces
When President Joe Biden last month announced $142.3 million for improvements to I-376 through Pittsburgh, another $300 million of the $5 billion in federal funding from his bipartisan infrastructure law also went for projects that would add 1,000 truck parking spaces around the country and install a monitoring system on the West Coast to direct truckers to vacant spaces.
The U.S. Transportation Department previously had announced funding that would provide another 1,000 spaces for truckers.
“America’s highways are our shop floor,” said Chris Spear, president and CEO of the American Trucking Associations.
“When drivers finish their shift, they deserve to know that they will be able to find a safe place to sleep that night. These significant investments in expanding parking capacity along some of America’s busiest freight corridors will help reduce supply chain bottlenecks, alleviate stress on truck drivers and make the roadways safer for all motorists.”
U.S. transportation officials highlighted some of the new funding for increased truck parking in the 2024 progress report on the National Roadway Safety Strategy, a plan they announced two years earlier to address the rise in traffic deaths.
“When truckers cannot find safe places to park and rest,” the progress report said, “it makes all of us less safe.”
Jonathan D. Salant: jsalant@post-gazette.com, @JDSalant
First Published: February 25, 2024, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: February 26, 2024, 9:08 p.m.
