IC1118

Independent Contractor
NEWS
spot. This year, the share is up to 48 percent.”
Also, the report said, 80 percent of 5,400 respondents
to the Trucker Path study reported the ELD
mandate has made it more difficult to find parking.
Anecdotally, truck drivers have told The Trucker
they have to get to truck stops earlier and earlier
to find parking since the ELD mandate went into
effect.
Trucker Path said this year, 89 percent of drivers
surveyed reported they start to look for parking an
hour or more before hitting their HOS limit, which
indicates “there is likely very little drivers, themselves,
can do to improve the situation.”
They went on to say that 85 percent of drivers
said finding truck parking was their No. 1 job
stressor, followed by the ELD mandate/HOS; shippers;
other truck drivers; brokers; and dispatchers.
Seventy-two percent of drivers surveyed by
Trucker Path said they sometimes park in abandoned
commercial property; 75 percent sometimes
use store parking lots to park; 56 percent sometimes
use off-ramps to get their mandated rest; and 26
percent sometimes use residential streets or highway
shoulders to comply with HOS.
The Trucker Path report said the safety implications
are dire, ending in drivers, themselves, getting
killed and/or trucks parked on off-ramps and shoulders
causing wrecks with other vehicles.
It quoted American Transportation Research
Institute data showing that a driver wastes about
$500 a month searching for available parking and
a fleet of 1,000 can spend an extra $6 million in
unproductive driver time looking for parking.
Trucker Path says its app has around 11,000
locations which are dedicated truck parking locations
such as truck stops and rest areas, with the
remainder being unconventional parking spots like
weigh stations, commercial shopping centers and
truck scales.
The organization said the estimated truck parking
capacity in the U.S. is about 330,000 individual
spots, with most (274,00) located at truck stops and
the remainder (43,000) located at rest areas.
Trucker Path used data from surveys it conducted
from May 1 to August 31, 2016, from May 1 to
August 31, 2017, and from May 8 to May 15, 2018.
Editor Lyndon Finney also contributed to this
report.
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