Mississippi park rangers ticket multiple truckers for using banned Parkway

The National Park Service says that they ticketed several truck drivers this week for using the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi, where truck traffic is not allowed.

On Wednesday morning, a Law enforcement Park Ranger caught four trucks on the  Natchez Trace Parkway near mile marker 250 and cited all four truck drivers for driving on the restricted roadway. On Wednesday afternoon, two more truckers were caught on the Parkway and those drivers were also ticketed.

According to the National Parks Service, “Despite increasing signage and enforcement, commercial vehicles on the Parkway remain a recurring problem. The Parkway is not wide enough for large trucks and the roadbed was never build for their weight. The poor condition of the Parkway is caused, in part, by overweight vehicles.”

Trucks have been banned on all 444 miles of the recreational road that runs through Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee for 80 years. In 2018, due to an uptick in commercial vehicles caught on the Parkway, park officials added “symbol signs” to existing text-based signage in hopes of deterring truckers from accidentally using the roadway.