In the early morning of Wednesday, July 12, a Greyhound bus traveling west on I-70 struck three tractor trailers parked on the offramp near the Silver Lake rest area in Highland, Illinois.
The crash tragically killed three passengers on the Greyhound and injured 14 more. None of the three truck occupants were injured.
That same day, a team from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived to investigate the crash, but to many in trucking, the story sounds all too familiar.
The Truckload Carriers Association called the crash just one of the many "deadly consequences of the truck parking shortage."
[Related: Truck parking reimagined: Bennett's 'Large car campgrounds']
"While the trucks shouldn’t have been parked there, they likely had nowhere else to go," TCA wrote about the crash. "This avoidable crash emphasizes the importance of adequate truck parking. Truckers are often forced to park illegally along highway shoulders and entry/exit ramps," putting themselves and other drivers at risk.
But there's billions of dollars in federal and state money available for truck parking projects and precious few actual new spots being built.
