Truckers circle Indy’s I-465 in ‘peaceful protest,’ preview for April event

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Updated Mar 11, 2019
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A convoy of trucks, many of them bobtail and part of an organized protest effort, took two laps around Indiana’s I-465 loop on Thursday, with the Indiana State Police estimating that about 75-100 trucks participated, though some have pegged the estimate as high as several hundred, including trucks operating on the I-465 loop that joined the protest.

The event, organized by the Truckers Stand as One group and largely promoted on the Facebook page Black Smoke Matters, was meant to garner publicity for a larger protest organized for April 12, the day the Truckers Stand as One group is calling for a nationwide truckers strike. Overdrive explored the planned protest efforts in depth in January, including interviews with organizers and a few dissenters.

Sgt. Matt Ames of the Indiana State Police said Thursday’s effort was “a peaceful protest,” and that there were “no incidents to report.”

The drivers took two laps around the roughly 50-mile loop, operating at about 45 mph, says Daniel Davidson, one of the organizers of the “slow roll” protest and owner of the small fleet Davidson Trucking out of Bradner, Ohio.

He estimated “around a couple hundred” participants in the convoy, counting trucks that joined along the way who were operating on the loop already. He also said the group stayed focused on the slow roll and that there were no incidents.

He spoke with Overdrive while the protest was ongoing, and he said the group planned to meet back at a TA truckstop off of I-70 in Clayton at the conclusion of the event. Many participants met there in the morning, he said, where “a lot of media” was present. He anticipated media coverage after the protest, too.

Participants and local news outlets posted photos and videos of the event on Facebook and Twitter, some of which can be seen below: