Don’t read this article if you are a pussy.
Keep them damn rigs out my neighborhood and have the shelves down at the Wally Stop full.
I would like to implore you Professional Truck Drivers to stop parking where you shouldn’t park and make it a problem for areas like Charlotte. The problem they should have right now is why no trucks are delivering or picking up product in their area. Go ahead start making up all the excuses, we hear them all the time and they are not valid for the most part. The hell you say, read more motherfcker?
The Government sets regulations that we must adhere to, but the same Government does not build required parking spaces. This is like setting speed limits where there are no roads and sending us a speeding ticket. So instead we have places that charge us anywhere between $10-$25 to park a night and parking membership lots opening up all over. This is abuse and the Government is to blame for it, people are going to make money any way they see fit even if it is immoral .e.g. paid parking schemes. I could go on all day about this for a personal point of view as an OTR truck driver, but nope instead I would like to tell you what I do.
I pay to park very rarely, sometimes it’s due to being in an area where parking is hard to find but I wanted to be there for some odd reason. My goal is to never be in this position when I can, you too can do this but it’s going to hurt your pocket book at times. One thing you will never see me doing is parking on the shoulder, off ramp, residential areas, and anything similar. I have in the past when I was a rookie with maybe 15 years of experience.
Well how do we not get into this scenario where we have nowhere to park?
- Trip Planning driver, ok I just needed to troll a bit there but it is still true.
- You accepted the load and the times on the load, as a professional driver you should know how the parking and traffic situation is all over the county, it is your job. This assumes you have a few years experience and have been around.
- To avoid picking up or delivering a load in an area where there is no parking when you are there is very simple.
- You don’t accept or go to the customer in the first place, problem solved.
- It is that simple, that is trip planning 10 moves in advance.
- Trip Planning, Truck Driving Safely, are both like playing Chess. If I move there what happens next, or what is the typical response of the opponent.
- Pattern recognition works, every time I go to Charlotte I’m driving around for hours looking for parking or driving 100 miles west. That should only happen a few times then you should be refusing it.
- So if right now my company sent me a pre plan load with Charlotte, NC as the delivery spot and the time shows live unload at 20:00 hours. You damn sure I am not accepting it, guess what I’m not on some news footage with my truck parking on residential side streets either. I wouldn’t accept that damn load anytime after 14:00 hours considering live unload add 2-4 hours as a typical unload time. Then that puts me needing a parking spot at 16:00-18:00 at the earliest, you might get lucky here and there but it’s not reliable.
- For you new truck drivers, there is no such thing as forced dispatch. Tell them no and it’s because you had no place to park the last time you went there and that is a very valid reason.
- Parking when not in a legal safe parking spot is also dangerous, you are putting the spotlight on yourself, some knuckleheads might mess with you even more. For company drivers you are the face of your company, “Oh look there’s another BadTeuckingCompany truck parked on the neighbors car again, they got great drivers over there”.
- I live in a city where they banned trucks from parking on city streets recently, I am all for it though. These problem trucks were in fact making it unsafe just moving around streets because you could only fit one car or they blocked the stop signs. I recognized some of these trucks, typical lazy shit stains of the industry though.
- Now straight up many of these truck parked where they shouldn’t be are just plain lazy, we see it all the damn time as truckers. Parked on curb that is marked no parking when lot if full of empty spots, then we have drivers who actually can’t even back up there trucks so this is the only way they can.
- The best solution is to stop going to these locations, back in the day drivers refused NYC from all over the country. So companies began paying the drivers more to deliver there and they could charge more to take those loads. Good luck finding a parking spot at the Vince Lombardi area after, it was t worth it to me after a while. The curse of knowledge.
- The problem should be the actual one, there is no safe legal parking areas for trucks at many locations across the nation and it has gotten worse. Some days I don’t even want to leave my parking spot at 9am, they are valuable.
- Let the fucking stores run low on product and have them investigate it. Why aren’t these damn trucks coming with our product anymore? I’d rather it be that way,
- No parking in your area, I don’t deliver to your area then. I’ve had this approach for the last 10 years or so and it has drastically decreased my miles and lifestyle. I give a damn though, seems to be a rare trait to have a backbone.
- Trucks parking in places they shouldn’t be is typically a symptom multiple bigger problems and these drivers should take upon themselves to adjust accordingly. It’s what I do.