Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

Park n View…..latter to call them selves PNV.net was a forerunner of today’s IdleAire

in that it provided communications to trucks in the parking lot. They, like Bear Stearns recently, and Enron a few years ago suffered a liquidity crisis and went bankrupt. Their bubble burst along with the dot-com bubble in the late nineties.

You still see remnants on occasion. The yellow, iron “parking lot turtles” that they used in an attempt to protect their service outlets.

I was right there with em. I remember many a night traveling somewhat illegally just so I could get to a “Park n View” site. And when I got there I’d change parking spaces until I found a service connector that would work.

I remember one time I got shut down for two days in a snow storm in Effingham Illinois. I got there JUST as the blizzard rolled in..connected up my cable..and stayed the duration. When it quit snowing and the roads were clear and I was ready (allowed…oversize have different rules) to go…….I couldn’t get the park n view cable out. It was froze in place. Made me angry.

Yup.. I remember talking to the Park N View dudes over they phone. I TOLD them that the little iron parking lot turtles wouldn’t hack it. Any low trailer (like lowboys or car haulers) would and did scrape em loose. Then as now there were the drivers that you wonder how they dress themselves with out mommies help…..you know….like the ones that park along side the Catscale at night…the one’s who park in the driveway….? Them. Well back then one of their favorite screwups was to drive off with out unplugging from parknview.

Is true. I saw it. Most times it’d just snapped the cable but ocassionally it’d mess up the service outlet. More exspense for park n view.

And rain. Rain was NOT park n view’s friend. Put it out of service most times.

I TOLD the Park N View dudes that….did they listen? noooooo…… I told them that this new fangled thing. Wi-Fi I beleive they call it….that’s the ticket. Did they listen? Well maybe they did. Last I heard they were going to install Wi-Fi “any day now” I called about once a month for half a year and it was “any day now” . Then they went bankrupt.

By that time or shortly thereafter Flying J had their WiFi up and working. Just a few years later Cellular Wireless AirCards and service became available and cheap enough to use. No place at the table for poor old park n view…..even if they weren’t bankrupt they’d be obsolete But still……… Seems like it was a HUGE investment to dig all those trenches. Install all that under the pavement conduit full of wires. All those little parking lot turtles.

Suppose….just suppose …some bright young fellow would acquire the “right” (if it’s still available) to that “already in place” infrastructure……and install electric lines. Compete with ShorePower…..only cheaper since a lot of the work’s already been done.

Possible? I doubt it. But it’s a thought.