In a compelling testimony before a U.S. Senate panel, the American Trucking Associations (ATA), the preeminent national trade association representing all facets of the U.S. trucking industry, emphasized the pressing issue of the national truck parking shortage, characterizing it as a burgeoning safety hazard that demands immediate Congressional attention.
At the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee hearing on highway safety, Brenda Neville, President of the Iowa Motor Truck Association and representative of ATA, passionately advocated for the bipartisan Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act. Neville shed light on the detrimental impact of the parking shortage, particularly underscoring its disproportionate effect on female drivers, who consider it a significant barrier hindering greater female representation in the industry.
Neville, who also co-chairs the ATA Women In Motion Advisory Council, an entity dedicated to empowering women in the trucking industry, emphasized that the parking scarcity has profound implications for the health and well-being of truck drivers and broader safety concerns for the motoring public. Drawing attention to the perspectives of female truck drivers, Neville stressed that truck parking consistently emerges as their primary concern when asked about areas needing improvement.
Echoing these safety concerns, a coalition of law enforcement organizations, including the National Sheriffs’ Association, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, Arizona State Troopers Association, North Dakota Highway Patrol, St. Johns County (Florida) Sheriff’s Office, Colorado State Patrol, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Washington State Patrol, and North Dakota Highway Patrol, conveyed a joint statement to the subcommittee. The statement highlighted the severe safety issue posed by the national shortage of truck parking capacity, urging Congress to allocate federal resources to expand parking options for professional truck drivers.
Sheriff (ret.) John Whetsel, the National Sheriffs’ Association’s Traffic Safety Committee Chairman, emphasized the importance of prioritizing infrastructure investments to expand truck parking capacity for safer roads. Collin Mooney, Executive Director of the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA), underscored the critical nature of addressing the truck parking shortage, asserting that insufficient parking facilities force drivers to make choices between exceeding allowable driving time and parking in unsafe locations. The CVSA strongly advocated for investments to rectify this commercial motor vehicle safety issue.
ATA Law Enforcement Advisory Board Chairman Fred Fakkema, also the Vice President of Safety and Compliance at Zonar Systems Inc., emphasized the wide-reaching impact of the truck parking crisis, extending beyond truckers to affect the law enforcement community’s mission to serve and protect the motoring public. Fakkema urged lawmakers to heed the collective call and pass the Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act to address this pressing safety concern. The voices from both the trucking industry and law enforcement underscore the urgency for Congressional action to mitigate the risks associated with the national truck parking shortage.