Just where can I park?

[kscarbel2]

Big Rigs  /  April 9, 2017

IT'S LATE, you roll into a large regional centre not too far from one of our capital cities.

The log book, but not always your body, tells you it's time to sleep.

You pull up on the edges of a known industrial area, no houses in three directions for several kilometres.

You pull off the road onto a broad, very broad, verge and park next to a couple of empty trailers.

Visible around the corner on a side road are several other similarly parked trucks.

Unbeknown to you, you've been spotted by a police patrol who for reasons of their own don't stop and advise you that you can't stay parked where you are, for any longer than an hour.

At 1.30am, the following morning loud banging on the driver's door wakes you up.

It's the same police patrol who drove past, by their own acknowledgement, many hours earlier.

You are advised that you can't park there for more than an hour and you are instructed to move your vehicle.

As you build up air, you are issued with a $121 infringement notice. You explain that the only two commercial truck stops in the area and the two nearby road train assembly areas are full.

You ask where can you park and get some sleep.

There is no answer to your question but you are reminded you've been told to move your vehicle.

The police move on, ignoring all the other parked vehicles.

It's a common scenario that's arguably played out every night right around the country.

But where can you park up and grab a few hours sleep when the welcome, but size-limited commercial facilities and the sign-posted, but invariably scarce, parking bays are full?

Not in a built-up area in any city or town anywhere in the country it would seem.

The Australian Road Rules 1999 (ARR) define a built-up area as: In relation to a length of road, means an area in which either of the following is present for a distance of at least 500m or, if the length of road is shorter than 500m, for the whole road: buildings, not over 100m apart, on land next to the road; street lights not over 100m apart.

The ARR have been adopted by most states and territories, with variations of course.

Local government areas, the city, local, regional and shire councils, right across Australia have their own variations on that too.

Generally it appears built-up areas are defined in the various state and territory traffic acts, traffic codes and related regulations and provide the legislative authority under which police can act.

When Big Rigs spoke to our driver's boss, himself a regular inter and intrastate driver, he was furious and was contemplating a formal complaint to the police.

He wasn't so concerned with the fine, although the $121 was a bit of a waste, as he acknowledged his driver had arguably done the wrong thing.

He was more concerned for the impact of the disruption to his driver's mandatory fatigue management break.

His driver is just like most of you out there who are regularly reminded of the fatigue management provisions by industry bodies, legislators and enforcement agencies who preach the benefits and wisdom and the need to observe the requirements.

And yet provide few if any facilities where a driver can legally and safely park without being disturbed at some crazy hour of the morning to be pinched for a parking offence and to basically be told to move on.

It's one thing to lecture and preach and harp on about fatigue management, but it'd be a better idea to talk less and to direct energies and efforts, and our tax dollars, into providing adequate, regular and well-sized truck parking bays.

And our driver?

Tired as he was, he meandered about the regional centre for several hours looking for an unlit parking spot.

He eventually found one when he spotted another rig pulling out of a roadside parking bay around sunrise.

Chased up by his boss, and after barely snatching an hour's snooze, our driver hit the road, to then run late and arguably, still fatigued, all day.

[BillyT]

KSB,as most of our members know, I've been harping  on this situation ever since I discovered this website! It would seem for once the driver and his employer or the company he is leased to would be 110 percent on the same page!! There are few industries where safety and bottom line are so closely related! While the ATA and the major carriers they represent are lobbying their a###s off for 33' doubles, which equal more freight volume and potentially fewer drivers which contribute to bottom line,which is the holy grail of the major carriers,if not most corporate entities! Are they completely blind to the obvious safety issues of sleepy drivers?! Why don't they use their considerate political influence to lobby for more truck only rest areas? How about offering truck stops tax credits to add more parking? Do the same thing for the individual states! Put as much effort into this issue as they put into the "Dont drive in the no zone" posters we used to see on truck trailers! I've always thought it would be fun to take a truckload executive with me on a run into one of the areas with limited truck parking like south Florida or the east coast, and every time he dozes off wake him up! I suspect one reason so little has been done to address this issue is the carriers don't want the general public to know how many sleepy drivers There are in commercial vehicles! One thing for sure this problem is only going to get worse until it is addressed! Anyone who has driven for any length of time has seen those terrible crashes with no skid marks where it is fairly obvious the driver fell asleep!

[Red Horse]

Well on this subject, as anyone who runs Mass. knows the toll booths have been eliminated on the Mass Pike and all billing is now by  ez Pass or if you don't have one, cameras capture your vehicle.  So they say.

 In the meantime they are demolishing all the toll facilities.  At the major interchanges (I90/I84, I495/I90, I290/I90) while the booths are gone, major work is taking place to rip down the admin offices etc.  In driving by it looks like they could provide a pretty good number of parking spots.  for example the toll plaza at 84/90 must have had 12 lanes-it now must accommodate say 6 travel lanes.  So add those 6 "available lanes", plus the space where the buildings were, and you could construct some pretty good parking.

Makes too much sense however.  they will probably spend a fortune in new "designer plantings" instead.