Experts once again point to lack of truck parking as cause of serious semi truck wreck

No truck parking caused serious wreck in Kentucky earlier this week and serves as another reminder of the importance of safe and plentiful truck parking. 

The accident happened on Tuesday, October 17th in Madison County, Kentucky on Interstate 75 near Frankfort when a trucker fell asleep at the wheel and smashed into a line of three other semi trucks parked on the shoulder of the interstate. Now, experts are speaking up to remind the public and officials that a lack of safe truck parking can be blamed for the accident that injured two drivers. 

While Kentucky law bans any vehicles from parking or stopping on the shoulder or ramp of any highway in the state, people like Kentucky Trucking Association CEO and President Rick Taylor say that sometimes drivers don’t have any other options. 

“The issue is that they have hours of service rules, which is a 14-hour day, but no longer than 11 hours driving, so they do have the need to park,” Taylor said to WKYT News.

“In the country, there’s only 313,000 commercial truck parking spaces, but we have 3.5 million commercial vehicles, so obviously, the math does not add up,” he said. “That’s about one space per eleven vehicles.”

Taylor says that this parking issue can force drivers to stop driving early in order to find parking, which can cost them thousands in profit a year. 

“From a making a living level, they’re losing about 5,000 dollars per year by parking an hour early, but sometimes that’s the best option they have to go with,” he added.

‘Having adequate truck parking for a professional truck driver doing that job for us is important, and I think its something that needs to be addressed.”

The Truck Parking Safety Improvement Act was reintroduced in Congress back in March in an attempt to provide millions of dollars worth of funding for new truck parking facilities. Similar legislation has been introduced every year since 2020. Truck parking has once again been named a top concern for truckers according to the ATRI’s annual report.