This Land Isn't Your Land: The Ongoing Struggle to Find Safe and Reliable Parking for Truck Drivers and Its Impact on Litigation and the Transportation Industry

The general lack of parking options for truck drivers, especially in urban areas, has plagued the trucking industry for years. It appears to be a problem with no signs of going away, given increasing populations, an enhanced focus on climate change and the environmental impact of motorized vehicles, and the prevalence of public and private initiatives that would shift the use of roadway space away from parking. There is repeated evidence demonstrating how the lack of safe, reliable, and permitted parking space for the trucking industry can lead directly to accidents or property damage on the sides of roadways and in parking lots (and results in claims, lawsuits, etc.). Plaintiffs' attorneys unfairly blame truck drivers as culprits for causing accidents merely due to the location of their parked vehicles.  This session will examine the shortages in commercial truck parking from several angles, including a driver’s perspective, a corporate claims perspective, a litigation perspective, and a policy perspective.