As a former over-the-road truck driver for nine years, I’ve had the privilege of traveling to each of the lower forty-eight states and parts of Canada. I got the chance to experience the United States in a way that most people only read about. Driving down the road in a vehicle that is literally the size of a small house is an exhilarating experience. Sitting in the driver’s seat with one hand on the steering wheel, the other on the gear shift, and having over four hundred horsepower under my foot to pull that heavy load through a mountain pass was euphoric, remembering that the average car has between 110-150 horsepower. Over-the-road drivers experience some of the most beautiful country in the world, like Maine and the Pacific northwest, though also some of the most desolate areas, such as the desert southwest.
Although driving a big rig can be an…show more content… These are the perils of truck drivers when it comes to lack of parking. They may get to a truck stop too late to find parking and rest areas are closing, creating even fewer parking spots, so drivers resort to parking in unsafe places such as on the streets of a large city where the neighborhood is extremely questionable and dangerous, on the on-ramp of a freeway where accidents occur, or in the parking lot of what was once a gas station in the middle of nowhere.
Businesses expecting early morning deliveries would alleviate some of the parking nightmares that truckers face if they to allowed trucks to park in their parking lots for the night. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), which all over-the-road truck drivers must abide by, limits the number of hours a trucker can drive each day, so by the customer allowing overnight parking in their lot, would help with the problem of finding parking, and would also help the trucker comply with FMCSA