Life on the Road – Trucking News Blog

Linda Sunkle-Pierucki and I have been giving you updates on the rest area closings in Virginia. Be aware that these closures occur beginning the week of July 20th. If you are a OTR truck driver, you had better take a few more minutes before you start out in the morning pre-planning where you intend to stop, if you’re going through Virginia. There are currently about 40 “real” truck stops throughout the state. But, like the Love’s off I81 at exit 84 in Max Meadows, a few are remodeling their facilities or doing work on their parking lots, and have fewer truck spaces than normal.

I want to focus this post on I81, the 324 miles of interstate heavily used by trucks 24/7 that begins in the North from the West Virginia line and ends South at the Tennessee border. The Welcome Center on I81 in Tennessee is actually the only rest area since leaving West Virginia that has ample safe truck parking day and night. And there are no restrictions, as exists in Virginia, on overnight parking. Many only allow 2 hour parking. I began my day today at the Pilot in Hampton NJ. That location, by the way, is also presently being remodeled and is frustrating as heck to get in and out of and parking is limited.

Now permit me to take a slight diversion – and let me ask you a question. You manage to graduate high school with a 2.0 GPA. You make it into the local community college. Perhaps you enter the military and have a short and undistinguished record. You get out and work in a small local golf shop – until – in better times – there is an opening at the Virginia State Police Academy. With me so far? Good.

You manage to get through the training without shooting yourself in the foot. You’re assigned one of those shiny “used” 2006 Dodge Charger patrol cars with a “HEMI.” You get one of those wide brimmed forest ranger hats and a shiny badge. And for the next 20 years you sit under a tree, in the middle of I81, waiting for some schnook to come flying down a hill at 68 miles a hour. And after you retire, you get to to work for OOIDA in Missouri sitting (once again) under a tree doing whatever OOIDA does. How does this all sound to you? Did you say idiotic?

Well as Shakespeare wrote, therein lies the rub. Because my friend, Virginia is idiotic. Never a friend to truckers, it has become the latest State to pass through and park your rig in TN or WVA or anywhere else but there. Today, every “trooper” or whatever they call themselves in Virginia, was out trying their “worst” – hiding in the bushes, under trees or behind hills, in their feeble attempt to collect revenue to help their State from going bankrupt. And judging from the constant flashing lights coming from cars going in the opposite direction, everyone knew where they were. But, these “troopers” (who should be on commission) know that after the 20th, innocent 4-wheelers and desperate truckers will be speeding down I81 just to get to the state line to pee and poop. 

And that my fellow Life On The Road readers is the pathetic state of Virginia. And I, for one, have placed them, in my book, on double secret probation and will avoid at all costs stopping or spending my money there. And be advised, slow down – the speed limit on most of I-81 is 65 mph. Don’t feed the bears!

PS/If you plan to drive through Virginia here’s some help: http://www.wikihow.com/Hold-in-Pee-when-You-Can%27t-Use-the-Bathroom

Photo credits: http://www.vsp.state.va.us/Employment_Trooper_Recruitment.shtm, www.walletpop.com/…/, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_81_in_Virginia, http://www.starpulse.com/Movies/Animal_House/gallery/ANIMALHOUSE033/, www.everyday-education.com/