Jason’s Law?
Posted on May 25, 2009 - 6:34am by Terence Smelser in Trucking
Who is Jason?
Most professional drivers, especially the long haul and /or Eastern regional drivers are all too aware of this issue.
For others I will summarize.
Jason Rivenburg was an interstate trucker from New York State. Family man, husband, father, just a guy trying to do for his loved ones and himself. Jason was brutally murdered as he sat in the cab of his truck, for approx $7. His killer walked up on him as he sat in an abandoned gas station, off of I 26, waiting for his unload in the morning.
The saddest irony of the whole thing is that Jason had recently been laid off from his job around home and had just come back out to pay the bills. He left behind a 2 year old son and a wife carrying twins. As professional drivers, our world became just a little more dangerous and a little more empty.
The movement, “Jason’s Law” was started by members of his family to bring some awareness of an age old issue to the public and hopefully to the people that could do something about it.
I’ve kept a close watch on the issue as it’s momentum has built. In the beginning a Google Search for “Jason’s Law” returned in excess of 14 million hits. NO, only one or two of those hits had anything to do with Jason RivenBurg and those were not even on the first page. There are many “Jason’s Laws”. Today, the same Google Search has a much better return, with an excess of 13 million hits and the first 5 ALL being about Jason.
The parking problems for commercial equipment has been around for a long, long time. It was here when I started driving over 20 years ago. It’s not going to go away and with the present mindset of states like Virginia, it will only get worse and even more expensive for drivers.
Many people attached themselves to this “cause” in the beginning, mostly trucking bloggers looking for some self promotion or to bring attention to unrelated items they were selling. Fortunately some of the bigger players in trucking stepped up and “Jason’s Law” became what it is today, an actual attempt to create a safer environment for the men and women that deliver the goods we all enjoy or just plain have to have.
Read the text of Senate bill S.971 and House bill H.R.2156 (Google S.971 and H.R.2156). Decide for yourselves and then contact your representatives and ask them to support these bills. If you see something in these bills you don’t like, MAKE A SUGGESTION to your representatives.
Its a shame that it takes the brutal murder of one of our own to even get the ball rolling on this.
Ignore the so called Trucking Advocates and bloggers that would sell you a book fill with their opinions or other unrelated gibberish or that would attach their “star” to one that has blinked out, simply in the interest of self promotion. I find the behavior of these people offensive and even a little sickening.
Please look these bills over and get with your Congressmen and lets try to make a difference.
For ourselves, in memory of one that fell.
Jason’s Law
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Good post. Unfortunately HR2156 and S971 is a “pilot” program that “provides” ONLY for $20M from 2010 to 2015. The money must be applied for. A “typical” interstate rest area costs approximately $6.5M to build. The FMCSA and CVSA should be “spearheading” the safety “rationale” behind more and “better” truck” parking. But $20M is a drop in the bucket. It’s just not enough. You’re right about Virginia – they’re an embarrassment. Left to the individual states, truck parking will remain a low priority “unsexy” issue. As I said in a earlier post, the state of trucking was, is and will be a case of EYES WIDE SHUT. Look forward to your next post.
PS/And yes I’ve written my “Rep” about Jason’s Law, NAFTA, cross-border trucking, speed limits – and I hope everyone else does the same.
MY rep heard from me on this as soon as I heard about the bill. The only way anything will ever be done about the parking situation is to attack it on every front. Any money devoted to the issue AT ALL helps! We just have to keep hitting it every chance we get.
I remember one night, pulling into some abandoned gas station with a little truck parking and a couple of trucks already there in SC. While I ate my dinner out of the stove-to-go, I realized that the other trucks were empty-some locals had parked there for the week-end. . .and this car kept driving in and cruising the parking lot. I finished eating and went on down the road. . .it just didnt feel right. Something about being an old-lady solo trucker, you learn to follow your gut. I dont remember where I parked that night-I just knew it wasnt gonna be there! Much as I hate truck stops, I wanted the security that other truckers would provide that night. When I heard about this incident, I hoped it wasnt that same abandoned gas station. My prayers to Jason’s family.