Jason's Law - A Call to Action for Truck Parking
- REAL Women in Trucking
- 3 hours ago
- 6 min read
Many truck drivers who have entered the industry in the past 15 years have never heard of "Jason's Law" and are unaware of how much work has taken place behind the scenes to address truck parking capacity issues.
Some 17 years after the murder of Jason Rivenburg, the trucking industry has cycled through thousands of drivers. This deliberate and constant churn of an entire new generation of truck drivers ensures that we will never understand the power we have when we work together for a common goal. The "Jason's Law" movement demonstrated this.
Every four years, we have the opportunity to reignite the movement and remember what we can achieve when a small, devoted passionate group of people work together for a common good.
Here's how you can help today.
The Department of Transportation - Federal Highway Administration has just released the 3rd "Jason's Law" Truck Parking Survey for Truck Drivers and a 2nd survey for Trucking Industry Operations Professionals.
These surveys help inform the agency where truck parking capacity continues to be in short supply. They are short and to the point and only take a few minutes to complete but you must be prepared to identify problem areas by interstate, mile marker, direction, closest city and state. Please DO NOT SAY "everywhere" (Grr). We need everyone to devote a few minutes of time to provide thoughtful responses to inform those who do not know the road like we do.
One of the requirements of "Jason's Law" is that a new national truck parking survey be conducted every 4 years to identify capacity shortfalls and progress. The information truck drivers and trucking operations professionals provide is absolutely critical for decision makers. This is our industry and if we want to improve it, we need to get involved, it is our responsibility to continue the legacy.
The Murder of Jason Rivenburg
On March 5, 2009, Jason Rivenburg arrived early to deliver a load of milk to the Food Lion distribution center in Elloree, South Carolina. He followed the common practice of most truck drivers to meet strict appointments dictated by shippers and receivers by staging as close to the facility as possible. Food Lion, like so many other shippers and receivers, do not allow truck drivers to park on their property if they arrive early or if they are run out of hours on their property at inefficient warehouses. For this reason, truck drivers often seek alternative unauthorized places to park nearby, for Jason, the decision ended his life when he parked at a nearby abandoned gas station.
Jason Rivenburg was murdered for $7.00 that was visible on his dashboard when a
teenager walked by and saw it. At the time of his murder, he and his wife Hope lived in New York State and were expecting twins within the month, the couple already had a two-year-old named Josh.
Just 14 days after the murder of her husband, Hope Rivenburg gave birth to the twins, went on to endure the murder trial of the teenager who killed Jason, commuting to South Carolina and immediately began a movement for change to increase truck parking capacity which became “Jason’s Law”. It was a heartbreaking and monumental event.
Hope Rivenburg, a young widow with newborn twins and a toddler, her family and friends immediately sprang into action in the face of devastating tragedy. Initially snubbed by the major trucking associations, told “good luck with that” and “it’s always been a problem, nothing will ever change”, Hope and her family were undaunted.
Jason’s Law, the safe truck parking bill became the law of the land because individual truck drivers, their friends and family came out in force following the murder of Jason Rivenburg in 2009 and helped Hope Rivenburg mobilize a movement until the bill became a law. They signed petitions, asked their followers on social media to help by signing and sharing the petition, they made phone calls to elected representatives asking them to co-sponsor the bill, they completed surveys, and worked together as grassroots organizers to support the family move the bill forward until it was made into a law.
REAL Women in Trucking was a newly formed protest group when we joined Hope to help her to produce the 1st Jason's Law Special Report on the lack of truck parking. RWIT President Desiree Wood ( @TruckerDesiree ) was one of the 1st people to make contact with Hope following the murder of her husband to ask her to start joining truck driver podcasts to inform the driver community and request their assistance. Allen and Donna Smith's "Ask the Trucker" blog talk radio program helped spread the word throughout early social media networks.
In 2012, the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) was signed into law, it included "Jason's Law".
Dr. Nicole Katsikides is the highly respected federal champion trailblazer that was responsible for leading on the flagship survey and engineering the FHWA federal freight program. She currently works as senior research scientist at Texas A & M Transportation Institute and has devoted her career to researching truck parking and igniting a passion to solve this problem throughout the freight research professional community who continue work on this issue today. The key takeaway -
safe truck parking impacts highway safety, driver wellness and resilient national supply chain operations.
Dr. Nicole later wrote how her life was forever impacted from her involvement with "Jason's Law" Remarkable Hope - The Eno Center for Transportation by Dr. Nicole Katsikides. and in 2021 she was interviewed by Landline magazine on why it is important for truck parking survey's to be completed to inform the feds. (Why are there so many truck parking studies? » Land Line Media).
We are proud to be cited in the 1st federal study from FHWA for Jason's Law and our longtime involvement with the FHWA Truck Parking Coalition work since its inception. This movement is historic for truck drivers and trucking operations professionals to understand and to keep supporting, we must not forget and we must continue to move the needle to solve the issue.
What did "Jason’s Law" Do?
Jason's Law made truck parking an eligible activity for funding. It required states to study truck parking and required states to complete a freight plan every four years with a commercial truck parking assessment. This was all new. Prior to Jason's Law, truck parking was not on the radar for most State DOT’s. There was a learning curve to gain insight on the issue.
Over the years, awareness, education, and data have improved. Truck parking is now more widely understood though local communities may still not understand that the shippers and receivers who are responsible for bringing tremendous truck traffic to their area have not been great partners to help. Convincing local leadership that truck parking and commerce go hand in hand remains an obstacle. We need more local truck parking advocates to help humanize the issue.
The Biggest Obstacle to more Truck Parking
Believe it or not, the biggest obstacle for truck parking IS NOT money.
Despite what some people may believe, there is a lot of money for truck parking at the Federal level though it is not “set aside” funding. What that means is that it has to compete with other projects that have more champions and advocates for that funding for other infrastructure projects. Zoning and truck bans underscore the lack of information at the local level and why it is important to overcome constituent concerns on proposed new truck parking facilities. They need to better understand the impacts to highway safety and to local economies. Government moves slow and it is frustrating, but truck drivers need to know their voice is important when truck parking surveys are distributed.
Take Action - Here's How you can help
The passage of “Jason’s Law” required states and the federal government to study truck parking every 4 years. This requires truck driver stakeholders to be respondents for these surveys. That is number one!
We urge you to participate whenever you see a federal, state, county or city truck parking survey being distributed. Truck driver input and insight is critical and invaluable. You live the lifestyle; you see what is going on out on the highway. We understand it can be exhausting to answer survey questions over and over, but it truly helps. Surveys produce valuable data that helps persuade leadership of need.
Start helping now, take the new FHWA Jason's Law Truck Parking Survey - Here is the link for Truck Drivers and here is the link for Trucking Industry Operations Professionals.
Share it with your company, your other truck driver friends and in your social media networks. It closes in February, so we only have a few weeks to be heard by the federal government on this for another 4 years.
We Thank You for Joining Us to Help