While it might be far from the shenanigans that went on in North Carolina last year, there’s an all-too-familiar scenario playing out in Lackawanna County in Pennsylvania (home to Scranton), through which truckers on I-81 roll:
**Truck parking pickings are slim around the Dunmore area specifically, near the center of the county, though areas south and north do have a stop or two available.
**Dunmore residents call state police to complain about trucks parked on ramps.
**According to the local ABC News affiliate, police issue news release warning truckers parked on ramps that fines of $50 or more would be issued.
**State police increase patrols.
(You can read the original ABC story about the situation there at this link.)
Pennsylvania ranks high in Overdrive‘s worst states for truck parking analysis (No. 17, where No. 1 is the worst), based on our own surveying of readers as well as data from the federal Jason’s Law parking study, so the profusion of ramp parking in some areas is probably no surprise to you. And it ought not be much of a surprise to officials in the state, either.
Nonetheless, there’s another aspect to this story — it has the sort of ending that, in some ways, is itself getting pretty familiar as the heat has been turned up on the need for adequate, safe parking over the past several years.
“Usually, it’s when the sun goes down. I try to find a place before the sun goes down, and after that, it’s really playing the lottery.” –Trucker David Realffe, who told ABC he’s been fortunate and hasn’t had to park on a ramp
