"Jason's Law" lets truckers rest easy

Thanks to the family of Jason Rivenburg, truck drivers across the country may finally have safer places to catch some rest.

Rivenburg, a 35 year-old family man from upstate New York, had recently begun driving for a local trucking company so he could better support his 23-month-old son Josh and his wife Hope, who was pregnant with twins. On March 5, Rivenburg was shot to death in a robbery while parked at an abandoned gas station in South Carolina, waiting to deliver a load of milk. He was parked there because of a lack of adequate parking for commercial motor vehicles. Just 15 days after the slaying of her husband, Hope Rivenburg gave birth to the couple's twins, Logan and Hezekiah.

Grief-stricken by the senseless crime, Rivenburg's family immediately took action to protect other truck drivers. After meeting with legislators and gathering signatures of support for the government to address the shortage of safe parking areas, the public outcry eventually reached Rep. Paul Tonko and Sen. Chuck Schumer. The two New York Democrats responded by introducing legislation, H.R. 2156 in the House and S.971 in the Senate, titled "Jason's Law."

The recently introduced bills would implement a pilot program to address shortages in safe parking for commercial motor vehicles on the National Highway System. In addition to constructing new safety rest areas, the program also looks to create commercial motor vehicle parking at existing facilities like inspection and weight stations, park-and-ride facilities, commercial truck stops and travel plazas.

Truck drivers need safe rest locations. When they cannot find a safe and legal place to park, they must decide between continuing to drive while fatigued - possibly in violation of federal hours-of-service limits - or find an illegal, possibly unsafe, location to rest.  This usually includes highway and ramp shoulders. It is essential that we facilitate truck drivers' obligations to meet safety requirements as they move our nation's freight.

The creation of more long-term truck parking has been a longstanding issue within the trucking industry and was an ATA Safety Task Force Report recommendation released in 2008.