A sign along the onramp at the Bellwood interchange of I-99 designates the berm as a parking area available for tractor-trailer drivers to pull off to rest as part of a new PennDOT program aimed at reducing drowsy driving for truckers. Mirror photo by William Kibler

Most people who drive a car are familiar with the ordeal of growing drowsy and struggling to stay awake long enough to find a place to park in safety, where they can finally succumb to the need for sleep.

It’s harder for drivers of tractor-trailers when drowsiness takes hold because parking spots for them are far more scarce.

A new PennDOT program announced this week is intended to reverse that scarcity by allowing truckers to park along the berms of selected freeway onramps, state police weigh stations and other PennDOT properties within the rights-of-way of roads.

“(Truck parking) is a nationwide problem,” PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll said at a news conference Wednesday next to the Bellwood interchange of I-99 — whose two onramps are now sporting signs inviting truck drivers to rest their rigs along the berms. “There are not enough safe parking options.”

The new PennDOT program will add 1,200 truck parking spaces in 133 locations throughout the state by the end of next year, according to Carroll.

“With only one parking space for every 11 drivers on the road, too many truckers (have been) forced to choose between breaking hours-of-service laws or stopping in unsafe locations,” said Rebecca Oyler, CEO of the Pennsylvania Motor Truck Association, as quoted in a PennDOT news release that accompanied the news conference.

Truckers are limited to driving no more than 60 hours over seven days or 70 over eight days, according to the website of the Paul Knopf Bigger law firm in Florida.

They are also limited to driving 11 hours within a maximum of 14 total hours, following 10 consecutive hours off duty, according to the firm. And they must take a break of at least 30 minutes after eight consecutive hours of driving.

A 2006 FMCSA study found that driver fatigue was a factor in 13% of commercial motor vehicle crashes, according to online sources.

In 2018, there were 91,000 accidents caused by truckers dozing off or sleeping, resulting in 800 deaths, according to Paul Knopf Bigger.

Sixty-five percent of truckers report at least sometimes feeling drowsy, with almost half admitting they’d fallen asleep at the wheel within the previous year, according to a 2024 sponsored by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), according to online sources.

Parking will be allowed on many onramps, but not on offramps, because motorists leaving the highway via offramps are traveling “at speed” in a way that they are not normally traveling on onramps, Carroll said.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike system plans to open up about 600 additional truck parking spaces at emergency pulloffs and along onramps at interchanges and service plazas, according to the news release.

Truckers can find the locations of parking spaces at 511PA.com and on the 511PA smartphone app.

Forty onramps in Blair County will be legal for truck parking, Carroll said.

Drivers of cars will be able to use the newly designated truck parking spaces if necessary, but it’s better to leave them for truckers when possible, Carroll said.

Car drivers can usually find places to park easily enough at places like Sheetz, Rutters and Wawa, according to Carroll.

Carroll began working on the initiative to add truck parking after noticing that truckers encountering a full-to-capacity truck stop along I-81 in Luzerne County were parking in a nearby PennDOT facility’s lot.

A little bit of work there made that facility parking better suited to the purpose, he said.

“It was also obvious we needed to do more,” Carroll said.

It’s inexpensive — costing little more than $150 per sign, Carroll said.

It’s the first statewide expansion of designated truck parking spaces, apart from specific construction projects, according to the news release.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.