Truck drivers lose $4,600 per year looking for parking, says expert

A transportation industry expert recently spoke about the eye-opening cost of the truck parking crisis in America.

At the National Association of Truck Stop Operators (NATSO) convention in Orlando, Florida on February 10 – 13, transportation industry experts gathered to discuss truck parking problems, according to a report from Transport Topics.

The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) Vice President of Research Dan Murray spoke at the convention and said that truck drivers are losing nearly an hour a day — 56 minutes to be exact — to the search for safe truck parking.

And as any trucker knows, lost time is lost money. Murray went on to explain how the lack of truck parking is harming truckers financially and even forcing some drivers out of the industry for good. “Basically, they’re not getting paid, it’s frustrating time and costs the average driver about $4,600 in direct lost compensation looking for truck parking. It’s not just a safety and compliance issue; it’s an economic issue for some of these drivers, and our data shows for some of these drivers it’s the last nail in the coffin, and they’re out of here. It’s costing them time and money,” Murray said.

NATSO CEO Lisa Mullings also spoke at the conference and said that she believes that having companies pay for truck parking is the best solution to the truck parking crisis. “I can guarantee you, the truck parking issue would be gone if people were willing to pay for it. It’s a cost of doing business that the truck stop industry has,” she stated.