INDIANAPOLIS — Clarence Mathurin has been a full-time truck driver for three years and said the most stressful time of his day often isn't heavy traffic or anything on the road at all – it's simply finding a place to park.
“It’s very bad,” said Mathurin as he refueled at a truck stop in Boone County. “You can show up at like 2 or 3 in the afternoon, or (if you show up later) you cannot find parking.”
The trucking industry says, on average, drivers are spending 56 minutes a day searching for an open space. According to the Indiana Motor Truck Association, the “shortage of truck parking spaces in Indiana, along with most states, has reached critical levels.”
Spokesperson Jennifer Piatt said there are about 3.5 million truck drivers in the United States and approximately 313,000 truck parking spaces nationally. That means, for every 11 drivers, there is one truck parking space.
And time is ticking. Safety regulations require commercial drivers to pull over after a certain number of hours on the road or face fines.
“These fines go anywhere from $150 to $1,600,” Piatt said. “ When they park in exit areas they shouldn’t, parking lots they shouldn’t, it’s because these drivers don’t have anywhere to park at the end of the night.”
Piatt said that’s why we see semis parked along interstate exit ramps, despite safety concerns.
“I hate doing it,” Mathurin said. “In the back of my mind, I think another truck could take me out.”
It’s happened before. Just this week, Indiana State Police said a semi slammed into three others parked along an interstate off-ramp in Clark County.
One person was killed, and three others were hurt.
Before that accident, the National Transportation Safety Board told 13News it was investigating two other cases across the United States, including one in July. A Greyhound bus had left Indianapolis, bound for St. Louis, when it crashed into three parked semis along an exit ramp.
Three people died. Mathurin said he’s hoping for help soon.
“There’s nowhere else we can park right now,” Mathurin said.
Indiana's solution
The Indiana Department of Transportation has launched a 10-year, $600-million project to revamp rest stops and add more than 1,100 additional truck parking spots. The Kankakee Welcome Center in northwest Indiana recently opened with more than 200 parking spots, up from about 40 before.
Additional projects include the Boone County rest stop, which will have additional parking spaces on both sides of I-65 when the project is completed. According to INDOT, 21 rest stops will be renovated and improved over the next decade.