Drive tired or park illegally? Truckers' dilemma getting attention
Freight trucks on Interstate 81 rumble through the Roanoke region by the tens of thousands every week, concentrated during daylight hours. At night, truckers bed down for legally mandated breaks and the rumble is replaced by a snore.
Before hitting the pillows in their sleeping compartments, however, drivers must park their nearly 80-foot rigs. Area truck stops and rest areas fill up first, at which point drivers have limited, ad-hoc options: the shoulders of the interstate or its ramps, frontage roads, retail parking or vacant lots.
The latest in a series of government studies documented a need for 925 truck parking spaces near I-81 in the Roanoke and New River valleys in 2018, but a supply of only 300, for a gap of 625.
The gap, which Virginia State Police says is a decades-old problem, has set off a serious search for solutions.
-Jeff Sturgeon
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