Craig Witzke approached the truck idling within the parking zone of his enterprise in Catonsville, Maryland, on a current evening with a query.
“What are you doing right here?” the director of the Candle Mild Funeral Dwelling requested.
The motive force advised Witzke he can be only some minutes. He was ready to choose up a load from one other truck, which was on its means.
“I mentioned, ‘Nicely, not right here, you are not,’” the funeral dwelling director mentioned. “They had been utilizing me as a switch station.”
The incident underscores the rising desperation of the U.S. truck parking scarcity, which has grown to only one spot for each 11 vans on the highway, in line with the Proprietor-Operator Impartial Driver Affiliation.
Parking was the trucking trade’s third greatest concern prior to now yr, in line with the American Transportation Analysis Institute, and drivers ranked it above hovering gas costs as their prime fear.
To handle the problem, OOIDA is supporting a bipartisan invoice within the Senate that may make investments lots of of thousands and thousands of federal {dollars} in truck parking.
Witzke has handled different problems with vans parking at his enterprise. Building crews have utilized his spacious lot as a staging space, and a repo crew towed automobiles there lately.
Some won’t even notice the place they’re parking, because the Candle Mild retained the title of a longtime restaurant that operated in the identical constructing earlier than the funeral dwelling opened seven years in the past.
“I actually simply assume they see it as an enormous, empty parking zone and a chance,” Witzke mentioned.
Witzke sympathizes with truck drivers in the hunt for a spot to park, particularly as an RV proprietor acquainted with the wrestle of discovering an open parking house whereas on the highway.
“I have been chased away as properly,” he mentioned.
However he additionally spent lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} on the parking zone. So he was annoyed, for example, when the repo crew left it scraped up.
“My parking zone’s not even a yr previous,” Witzke mentioned. “If it may get broken, I might prefer it to be broken by individuals patronizing my enterprise.”