Crimes Against Truck Drivers - Raw Data from the 2013 Jason's Law Driver Survey

In August of 2013, the very first Jason's Law Truck Parking survey, aimed only at driver respondents concluded with an open-ended question to ask truck drivers to share an "incident" they experienced that made them feel "unsafe" when seeking a place to park. The 2013 survey took place before the 1st FHWA "Jason's Law" survey was completed. REAL Women in Trucking President Desiree Wood was the project manager of the 2013 survey; the work is cited in the FHWA final product.

The grassroots "Jason's Law" petition drive following the Murder of Jason Rivenburg in March 2009 is what led to the survey and to the bill becoming a law. There was no help from the Women in Trucking Association nor the American Trucking Assocation back then. It was a truly extraordinary "Amateur Advocate" driver led movement. Today, truck parking is an eligible activity for plenty of federal funding when states apply for it. There are plenty of opportunists claiming they are "solving the truck parking crisis" who remain willfully ignorant of the history of "Jason's Law", The current administration, as recently as June 2025 reaffirmed its commitment to the Purpose for "Jason's Law" and provided guidance for the various Federal Aid programs available for truck parking.

The 2013 survey was one of the first times data for "crimes against truck drivers while performing their job function" was collected. Overall, 83.3% male drivers and 16.7% female drivers took the survey. 1524 drivers responded to the open question asking about a specific incident they experienced that they felt was dangerous.

It was difficult to summarize in 2013 the responses because there were so many different situations.

However, the question revealed that a deeper study was crucial. Truck drivers simply trying to do their job are often left to fend for themselves with an enormous responsibility to protect valuable freight.

We have held this raw data for over 10 years, and we wanted to make it available as a resource for researchers. It is a question all new truck parking surveys should have.

Two highly biased corporate-influenced studies with elements on crime against truck drivers have been produced by ATRI and another with the Women in Trucking Association. These two studies blatantly protect certain fleets and grossly misrepresented the population of women who are truck drivers. A third important study was underway, led by a highly qualified research team. Recently, that study had the plug pulled on it. It is our opinion this is due to ATA, ATRI and WIT corporate influence since the new study specifically referenced sexual assault and sexual harassment in the commercial motor vehicle industry, may have addressed workplace violence in the trucking industry, fair compensation and the unsafe nature of using student truck drivers in team driving fleets that are required to co-habitate unsupervised as a condition for employment.

Sexual violence, violent attacks and murder frequently occur within the trucking industry among co-workers. Crimes against truck drivers also occur in truck parking areas since there are rarely security cameras or law enforcement protecting areas where freight is parked. People are parked, where freight is parked. Truck drivers are targets for crime from within the industry and from outside of the industry.

We are hereby providing This raw data as a resource. We have not purged any comments, even the smart-ass spammy ones. These are the open comments to the question: "As advocates for drivers, we would like you to share your stories about a specific problem or incident that you encountered. In your own words, tell us about a dangerous situation when parking".

SurveySummary_08122013.xls

Download XLS • 970KB

We hope that by sharing this raw data that we can help humanize truck drivers who regardless of gender are targets of crime. This issue demands further study. Not only due to truck parking concerns and rising cargo theft but personal safety since sexual predators who are CDL holders are prevalent, and they should not be able to obtain a commercial driver's license that provides them the ability to drive state to state anonymously, to become trainers, co-drivers, lease purchase drivers or "leased on" operators.