In The News

Hope Rivenburg urges truckers to complete parking survey by Aug. 1

Since mid-May, more than 3,000 truck drivers have taken a few minutes out of their day to complete an online truck parking survey to outline their daily struggles to find critical parking across the U.S.

Hope Rivenburg told Land Line on Monday, July 15, that her personal goal is to have at least 5,000 responses to the 33-question survey by Aug. 1, which is the deadline. Rivenburg is a truck driver widow, a mother, and safety activist from New York.

Once the survey is completed, she plans to schedule a meeting with Tom Kearney, freight operations program manager for the Federal Highway Administration, to share the survey results.

In mid-June, FHWA announced it was also moving forward with its truck parking survey plan, filing a Federal Register notice, the first formal step in the agency’s plan as directed in the current highway law known as Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, or MAP-21.

The provision on truck parking in MAP-21 is known as “Jason’s Law” – named for Jason Rivenburg, who arrived too early at his delivery point and was turned away. Instead he found a place to park in an unlit, abandoned lot in South Carolina where he was shot and killed for $7 in March 2009.

“The lack of truck parking is a huge problem,’ Hope Rivenburg told Land Line in May. “Even if the bill wasn’t in my husband’s name, I would still be fighting for it because what’s right is right in my opinion.”

Hope is also encouraging drivers to take part in a focus group she is moderating on truck parking. So far, approximately 25 drivers have emailed her about what they see out on the road.

“I firmly believe that the drivers should have a say in this issue because they are the ones who deal with it,” she said in an interview recently. “Drivers can email me every week where they have had troubles finding parking that week.”

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