Late at night on many interstate highways, it's common to see tractor-trailers parked along highway shoulders, entrance ramps, and exit ramps. To many motorists, these trucks may simply look like drivers getting some much-needed rest. However, many are parked there because they couldn't find a legal place to stop.
Across the country, transportation officials have warned that a shortage of truck parking has become more than an inconvenience for commercial drivers. It has increasingly become a highway safety issue affecting everyone who shares the road.
The problem received renewed attention after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) concluded that a nationwide shortage of safe truck parking contributed to a deadly 2023 crash involving a Greyhound bus and three tractor-trailers parked on an interstate exit ramp in Illinois. Investigators said the crash showed how limited parking, combined with driver fatigue and other safety failures, can create dangerous situations for both truck drivers and the traveling public.
Why Is There a Truck Parking Shortage?
Commercial truck drivers operate under federal hours-of-service (HOS) rules that limit how long they may drive before taking mandatory rest breaks. Those regulations are intended to reduce fatigue-related crashes by ensuring drivers have adequate time to rest.
The challenge is that when a driver's available driving time expires, finding a legal parking space isn't always easy. Truck traffic has grown steadily over the years, but parking capacity has not always kept pace. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), studies conducted across the country continue to identify shortages of truck parking, particularly along major freight corridors and near metropolitan areas.
Parking demand often increases overnight, during severe weather, on holiday travel weekends, and near major interstate intersections. By evening, many truck stops and public rest areas may already be full, leaving drivers with difficult choices.
Why Truck Parking Shortages Make Hours-of-Service Rules More Difficult to Follow
When legal truck parking isn't available, drivers may face two undesirable options. Some continue driving while searching for another location, even as fatigue increases and the time permitted under federal regulations runs out. Others stop wherever space appears available, including on highway shoulders, at entrance and exit ramps, or at other locations that were never designed for overnight parking.
Neither situation is ideal.
Fatigue can slow reaction time, reduce attention, and impair judgment, making it more difficult for drivers to recognize hazards or respond to changing traffic conditions. Tractor-trailers parked in unexpected locations may pose hazards to approaching motorists, particularly at night or during poor weather when visibility is limited.
The NTSB recently emphasized that truck parking shortages are not simply a driver convenience issue but a roadway safety concern that can contribute to preventable crashes.
Efforts Are Underway to Expand Truck Parking
Transportation agencies, industry organizations, and lawmakers have spent years looking for ways to increase truck parking availability.
The FHWA coordinates a National Coalition on Truck Parking that brings together public agencies and private industry to identify solutions, including expanding parking capacity, improving real-time information about available spaces, and encouraging states to incorporate truck parking into transportation planning.
Several states have also begun expanding truck parking along heavily traveled freight routes. In Florida, for example, transportation officials recently broke ground on multiple truck parking expansion projects, funded by state and federal grants, to increase the number of parking spaces available to commercial drivers traveling through the state.
Meanwhile, Congress continues to debate proposals to provide additional funding for truck parking projects as freight volumes continue to grow.
The overall goal is to give drivers safe, legal places to stop before fatigue contributes to a crash.
How Truck Parking Can Affect a Truck Accident Investigation
After a serious trucking accident, investigators often look beyond the collision itself to understand the events leading up to it. If fatigue or parking issues may have played a role, one of the first questions may be why the truck stopped where it did. Was the vehicle legally parked? Were warning lights or reflective triangles properly deployed? Could the truck have been moved to a safer location? Were nearby truck parking facilities already full? The answers can help investigators piece together the circumstances that led to the crash.
What Do Attorneys Look for After a Truck Accident Involving Driver Fatigue?
Not every fatigue-related truck accident is straightforward. Brandon Smith, a partner at Childers, Schlueter & Smith, represents people nationwide injured in commercial trucking accidents and regularly investigates cases involving federal trucking regulations, driver fatigue, and other safety issues. We asked him what factors attorneys typically consider when evaluating these types of cases.
Q: If driver fatigue or a lack of truck parking may have contributed to a crash, what evidence becomes important?
Brandon Smith: Every trucking accident investigation looks at the driver's timeline. Electronic logging device (ELD) data, hours-of-service records, GPS information, dispatch communications, and even fuel receipts can help show how long the driver had been on the road and whether they were approaching their legal driving limits. We also look at where the driver could have safely stopped, what parking options were available along the route, and the circumstances that influenced the driver's decisions before the crash.
Q: Does a fatigue-related truck accident always mean the driver is legally responsible?
Brandon Smith: Not necessarily. The driver's actions are certainly part of the investigation, but they're often only one piece of a much larger picture. We may also examine the trucking company's scheduling practices, dispatch decisions, training, and compliance with federal safety regulations. Preserving evidence early is important because electronic records, communications, and other information that may help explain what happened can become much harder to obtain over time.
Truck Accident Liability May Extend Beyond the Driver
A fatigued truck driver may appear to be the obvious cause of a crash, but commercial trucking accidents can involve multiple parties. Depending on the circumstances, legal responsibility may extend beyond the driver to include the trucking company, maintenance providers, cargo loaders, and vehicle manufacturers.
Factors such as company scheduling practices, compliance with federal safety regulations, and other operational decisions may also become important when determining liability.
As we discussed in our previous article, Who Can Be Held Responsible After a Truck Accident?, determining liability often requires considering the entire chain of events, not just what happened at the moment of impact.
