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Are truckers being driven to exhaustion? Some states have shortage of rest areas Wire and staff reports It was nearly midnight when Richard Marsh pulled his green 18-wheel Peterbilt tractor-trailer into the public rest area off Interstate 64 near Charlottesville, Va. He was tired and nearing the 10-hour federal daily driving limit for commercial truckers. He parked his rig in the only open space, settled into the sleeping compartment in his cab, watched a little television and fell into a deep slumber. Four hours later, he was roused by a state trooper shining a flashlight into his bleary eyes. The trooper told Marsh he had to leave. "I said, `You got to be kidding me. I'm too fatigued to drive,"' Marsh recalled. Marsh said federal law required him to take an eight-hour break after 10 hours of driving, but the trooper was unmoved. He was enforcing a Virginia law that says cars and trucks can stay no more than two hours at the state's 41 rest areas. The trooper issued a $60 ticket to Marsh, 15 other truck drivers and a motor home operator before ordering them all back on the road into the night, Marsh said. Marsh wouldn't have been bothered in an Oregon rest area, says John Vial, southern district manager for the Oregon Department of Transportation. Oregon administrative rules say drivers may park in rest areas for up to 12 hours -- as long as they don't set up camp. "You can never set up a tent," Vial says. "We're not kicking people out of the rest areas," says Oregon State Police Sgt. Ralph Nelson. "We'd rather they get some sleep." But Marsh and other truckers say his early-morning eviction in Virginia is part of a dangerous, national problem: a shortage of rest areas for truckers. This, plus driver fatigue and an increasing number of commercial truck drivers, is raising concern among highway safety advocates. Truckers like the public rest areas, usually located along major highways, so they don't have to detour in a business where time is money. Motel parking lots often can't accommodate big rigs, and drivers feel uneasy about leaving a fully loaded truck unattended. They also dislike absorbing the cost of a room. A 1996 study, performed by the trucking industry and funded by the federal government, said the country has 24,697 public rest spaces set aside for trucks but needs another 28,412 spaces to meet current demand. The study estimated a deficit of 36,264 spaces by 200. About 42 percent of public rest areas nationwide have time limits or bans on overnight parking, but in most places the restrictions are rarely enforced, according to the 1996 study funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Virginia plans to keep its limit. "The two-hour time limit was set so that everyone has an opportunity to use the rest area for the purpose it was intended for -- brief stops," said Lt. Herbert Bridges, who runs the Virginia State Police office of motor carrier safety. More than 5,300 people died last year in truck accidents, and the U.S. General Accounting Office predicted the figure will rise to 6,000 next year. Last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill to create a new truck safety agency. A recent federal survey estimated that fatigue is a factor in 18 percent to 40 percent of all fatal crashes involving long-haul truck drivers. States use federal highway dollars to build public rest areas, and the trucking industry is lobbying the federal government to expand the rest areas. But operators of private, for-profit truck stops say there's plenty of room for the nation's 3 million commercial truck drivers. The private operators, who own about 250,000 spaces and stand to lose business from additional public rest areas, say the trucking industry is trying to get taxpayers to pick up its cost of doing business. Few charge for overnight parking; many offer it free with a fuel purchase. They earn their profit from the food, showers and supplies they sell to truckers. They're open 24 hours and usually have no time limits. But they're often farther from the highway than public rest areas, which many truckers opt for in the pressure to stay on schedule. The Federal Highway Administration is to make a recommendation by June 2001 whether additional public rest areas are needed. Research engineer Ray Krammes said there are some indications of a shortage of spaces, such as truckers parking overnight along highway shoulders and exit ramps. And he said the parking problems are acute in congested regions such as the I-95 corridor through Baltimore and the highways around Los Angeles. "The whole object is to get from point A to point B safely," said Marsh, who was traveling from California to Rockville, Md., on the night he was ticketed in Charlottesville. "I drive until I'm tired -- and not beyond. But this problem with parking is not going away." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA