Long-haul truck drivers spend an average of 56 minutes per day searching for overnight parking because the U.S. has a shortage of 78,000 truck parking spaces

The 3.5 million commercial truck drivers in the United States share only 313,000 designated truck parking spaces, forcing drivers approaching their federally mandated 11-hour driving limit to circle exits, idle on highway shoulders, or park on interstate on-ramps -- all of which are illegal and dangerous. Why it matters: drivers who cannot find legal parking must choose between violating FMCSA Hours of Service regulations (risking fines of $16,000+ per violation) or parking in unauthorized locations, so 28% of drivers regularly resort to unauthorized parking on shoulders and ramps, so FMCSA data shows 4.3% of fatal commercial vehicle crashes involve improperly parked trucks, so the 56 minutes per day spent searching for parking costs each driver approximately $5,500 annually in lost productive driving time, so carriers pass these inefficiency costs to shippers through higher freight rates that ultimately reach consumers. The structural root cause is that truck parking is a classic tragedy of the commons: rest stops are funded by state DOTs with limited budgets, private truck stops optimize for fuel sales rather than parking capacity, municipalities zone against truck parking near population centers, and no single entity has the incentive or authority to coordinate a national parking infrastructure expansion despite DOT allocating only $40 million in grants in 2024 -- a fraction of what is needed.