Pay To Park?

Do all truck stops make the drivers pay to park, and if so, do the companies reimburse the driver?

Do all truck stops make the drivers pay to park, and if so, do the companies reimburse the driver?

Some truckstops charge everyone and some have pay to park reserved. It depends on the company but swift will if I let them know it was the only safe place to park. Reserve parking is nice especially in areas where parking is full 24/7.

Most are free. However, highly congested areas with limited options for Drivers to park will charge. Ontario CA. Comes to mind. $20.00 for 24 hrs., or 50 gallons of fuel, or $20.00 purchase. I usually eat at the restauraunt when I am there.13-15 dollars. Get a bag of ice and a pack of smokes. Good to go. On several occasions it has been a scheduled fuel stop. So it really isn't like you need to pay out of pocket with a 20 dollar bill.

Do all truck stops make the drivers pay to park, and if so, do the companies reimburse the driver?

Some truckstops charge everyone and some have pay to park reserved. It depends on the company but swift will if I let them know it was the only safe place to park. Reserve parking is nice especially in areas where parking is full 24/7.

So...when you're done running for the day, and let's say you run 6 days consistently, you have to pay to park with the possibility of the trucking company not reimbursing you for it? Lets say it's $60 to park a week and you drive 50 weeks out of 52, that's $3,000 a year in parking fees alone. That's not exactly peanuts and I'd like to hear how some of the drivers on the forum are getting around paying that kind of money just to park their truck. No hostility in my voice either, I'm just trying to understand all the fees a trucker has to pay and ways to get around it.

Do all truck stops make the drivers pay to park, and if so, do the companies reimburse the driver?

Some truckstops charge everyone and some have pay to park reserved. It depends on the company but swift will if I let them know it was the only safe place to park. Reserve parking is nice especially in areas where parking is full 24/7.

So...when you're done running for the day, and let's say you run 6 days consistently, you have to pay to park with the possibility of the trucking company not reimbursing you for it? Lets say it's $60 to park a week and you drive 50 weeks out of 52, that's $3,000 a year in parking fees alone. That's not exactly peanuts and I'd like to hear how some of the drivers on the forum are getting around paying that kind of money just to park their truck. No hostility in my voice either, I'm just trying to understand all the fees a trucker has to pay and ways to get around it.

Using your highly improbable, hypothetical scenario. Keep all of your receipts, and claim it as a tax write off for business expense.

Renegade asked:

So...when you're done running for the day, and let's say you run 6 days consistently, you have to pay to park with the possibility of the trucking company not reimbursing you for it? Lets say it's $60 to park a week and you drive 50 weeks out of 52, that's $3,000 a year in parking fees alone. That's not exactly peanuts and I'd like to hear how some of the drivers on the forum are getting around paying that kind of money just to park their truck. No hostility in my voice either, I'm just trying to understand all the fees a trucker has to pay and ways to get around it.

At the majority of TS, reserved parking is optional and considered a luxury. In my 4+ years of driving, I can count the number of times I paid to park on one hand. Re-read what our friend Tractor wrote about 20 minutes before your most recent reply.

I think you are worrying over a non-issue.

The longest I've parked my truck is for a 34hour break and i just park at a truck stop like a TA, lock my doors and come back in a couple days.

I don't ever pay for parking and if i did i have enough reward points I my card at the specific gas station to pay for it. You get certain number of points per fillup.

Other than that the truck rolls. :)

Do all truck stops make the drivers pay to park, and if so, do the companies reimburse the driver?

Some truckstops charge everyone and some have pay to park reserved. It depends on the company but swift will if I let them know it was the only safe place to park. Reserve parking is nice especially in areas where parking is full 24/7.

So...when you're done running for the day, and let's say you run 6 days consistently, you have to pay to park with the possibility of the trucking company not reimbursing you for it? Lets say it's $60 to park a week and you drive 50 weeks out of 52, that's $3,000 a year in parking fees alone. That's not exactly peanuts and I'd like to hear how some of the drivers on the forum are getting around paying that kind of money just to park their truck. No hostility in my voice either, I'm just trying to understand all the fees a trucker has to pay and ways to get around it.

It's not even close to being an issue. I run like crazy all across this great country. I'll bet in the last three years I've not spent over 70 - 80 dollars to park. I'm not talking per year, but over that whole span of time.

Yep. 99.99999999% of the time, you'll just roll into a truck stop and park. There is no charge. There are a handful of ts where you have to pay to park, but some of them will wave the park8ng fee if you spend $20 at the ts. Heck, I rolled into one and parked and didn't pay anything. I had to weigh, which was $10 (company paid), another guy gave me his weight receipt, plus I ate at the restaurant. That was more than enough to cover the parking.

The only time you really may run into a situation where you have to pay is when you are running down on hours and have to stop at a ts where all the free spots are taken and you have to pay for reserved parking, which is like $14 I think.

As has been mentioned, it will be few and far between that you will have to pay for parking, it's not an issue.

This is great information to know because I was under the impression that you had to pay to park. I think I got that assumption from a post I was reading and it might have been in reference to reservation parking.