Ep. 71 – How the Truck Parking Crisis Endangers Drivers Nationwide

AFTER THE CRASH PODCAST

Hosted by David W. Craig

Noah Volz: 70% of drivers don’t have a legal or a safe place to park each and every night when they need to. And that’s just an absurd number, when you think about it. And a lot of people that aren’t familiar with the trucking industry might have no idea that this is even taking place. It’s absurd, the scale of this issue.

David Craig – Host: I’m attorney David Craig, managing partner and one of the founders of Craig, Kelley & Faultless. For over 35 years, I’ve dedicated my career to helping individuals and families who have been seriously injured or lost loved ones in devastating semi-truck, large truck, and other commercial motor vehicle accidents. When tragedy strikes, life can feel chaotic, overwhelming, and uncertain.

Many people don’t even know where to begin or what questions to ask. That’s why I created After the Crash, a podcast designed to empower you with the knowledge and resources you need to navigate these challenging times. In each episode, I sit down with experts, professionals, victims, and others involved in truck wreck cases to give you insight, guidance, and practical advice. Together we’ll help you understand your rights, protect your family, and move forward. This is After the Crash.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of After the Crash. Today, we have Noah Volz as our guest. Noah is with the company called Truck Parking Club. Noah, welcome.

Noah Volz: Thank you. Glad to be here.

David Craig – Host: And so, Noah, from looking at your LinkedIn profile, it looks like you’ve been around trucking your entire career. Tell us a little bit of how you got started in trucking.

Noah Volz: Yeah, absolutely. So I started in high school. My offensive line coach was an owner/operator. He had seven trucks and a flatbed fleet that ran over the road. I had become close with him, and he offered me a position washing the trucks on the weekends with his son. So started doing that, and over the course of the next two years in high school, every Saturday morning I was working with him, and it just blossomed into this, I guess, passion for the industry and love for trucking. So, going to college and deciding what to do after that, I really wanted to focus on just learning as much as I could about every aspect of the industry and getting all those perspectives, so I could truly just understand it from all angles.

David Craig – Host: You currently work with Truck Parking Club, and how long have you been there, and what do you do there?

Noah Volz: Yeah, so I’ve been here for about six months now. I started immediately after I graduated college, and I worked for a large asset-based company for about a year before that, during my senior year of college on their operations team. So here at Truck Parking Club, I work in our marketing team. I help with our social media, with our properties, just every aspect of growing and figuring out what we’re doing better and what we can improve on. So yeah, like I said, it’s helping out on the marketing team, it’s helping out property. My official title is Business Development Specialist, so that leaves it broad enough that I can really be flexible and help out in each aspect.

David Craig – Host: And we’re going to talk a little bit about the problems with parking, but why don’t you give us, in kind of a nutshell, I mean, what is Truck Parking Club, and what do you all do?

Noah Volz: Yeah, absolutely. So we are a two-sided marketplace that our mission is to help truckers save time and fuel by efficiently finding and reserving truck parking across the U.S. And so how we do that is we monetize vacant or underutilized land for private property owners and we instantly have that availability for drivers to go in our app, find those locations, see all the information, photos, amenities, everything like that. So they’re making an informed decision when they’re choosing where to park, and the property owners are making profit off of that on E-Space.

David Craig – Host: So you’re bringing together the truckers and the landowners that have areas or room for trucks to park, and you’re bringing them together through an app, is that right?

Noah Volz: Yes, sir, we are. And so a majority of our properties are obviously interconnected to the industry, already. So it’s CDL schools, tow yards, trucking companies with extra space, anything like that. So it’s an easy transition when you tell them that they can help solve the shortage, and most of them are more than happy to do so.

David Craig – Host: And so let’s talk a little bit about the shortage. So, I’m a personal injury lawyer, so I represent victims of truck wrecks, and I represent truckers who are hurt by other truckers or other cars. And so when I talk to truckers, one of the biggest challenges they say they have is parking. And that can cause serious problems, and that can cause problems that bring me or people like me into the arena, in the sense that if a semi has to park in a bad spot, parks along a highway, parks on an exit ramp, which isn’t designed for parking, and especially at night, that can lead to horrific accidents. But yet, at the same time, if the truckers have no place to park, that represents a challenge. And so it causes, I see in my world, I see harm caused by them parking in the wrong location, parking in dangerous locations along the highway or the interstate.

But I also see other problems where a truck driver may have to go over their hours of service because they can’t find a location to park, or even in adverse weather. So we have rain, fog, sleet, snow, whatever it is. And if the driver can’t, like let’s say ice, you’re supposed to get off the highway as soon as you can, packed snow, you’re decreasing your speed. But yet, if they can’t find a place to park, they’re forced to continue to drive in bad weather, which can also lead to wrecks. And then lastly, I know some truck drivers have complained that when they park in unsafe places, maybe they find a place that’s off the highway, but some places there’s been reports of truckers being robbed, being vandalized, truckers losing sleep, not being able to sleep because of the location they park at. And that can create dangers to the trucker, and then if they don’t get plenty of rest, it can impact all of us. It seems like a pretty big problem that’s being addressed. Would you agree that parking is a problem out there with the truckers?

Noah Volz: Absolutely, one hundred percent. And we hear it every day. We hear it from our trucker members, we hear it from the American Trucking Research Institute. Every organization and every group of truck drivers knows how big an issue this is. And so what we’re trying to do is just add another option and really work to just unlock that existing infrastructure. And, like you mentioned, on-ramps, off-ramps, the shoulder, even parking in a vacant shopping mall, these are all stressors that these drivers are dealing with, and it’s on a daily basis. We commissioned a study and found with Noel Perry from Transport Futures—he’s been an economist for 40 years in the industry—he found that there’s close to 697,000 legal parking spaces in the U.S.

And on the contrary, there’s over 2 million truck drivers on the roads each and every day that need a parking space. So I mean, you can just see it there, it’s 70% of drivers don’t have a legal or a safe place to park each and every night when they need to. And that’s just an absurd number when you think about it. And a lot of people that aren’t familiar with the trucking industry might have no idea that this has even taken place, but they see it every day. If they’re on the interstate, if they’re on the highway, they’re seeing these trucks at off-ramps, on-ramps. I mean, rest areas, they’re lined up past where they’re supposed to. It’s absurd, the scale of this issue.

David Craig – Host: And I guess one question is that right now, historically, truckers have gotten to park free, but there’s not enough spots, so there’s not enough free spots. But when the trucker has to pay for parking, because some truck stops have a certain number of reserved spots, but who pays for that? Does the trucker pay for that? Does the motor carrier pay for that? I mean, who’s paying right now when a truck pulls off and finds a place to park?

Noah Volz: Yeah, the overwhelming majority kind of is the traditional way of doing things. And so owner-operators are paying for their own parking, and company drivers, in most cases, are as well. And when those issues get brought up within their company, the conversation is, “You’ve figured it out for 50 years, you can figure it out today”. And that’s just another stress. Those are things that these drivers have to worry about. And what we’re trying to do in the same time is obviously add those options for truck drivers. But we’re also trying to have those conversations around the industry about how big of an efficiency gain, a safety gain, and truly an operational productivity gain paying for your drivers that park can be. And so if we unlock all these spaces, we need support from the companies that want to help their drivers save time and fuel and be more safe each and every day.

David Craig – Host: And I think some people who may be watching this, they may not be part of this world, and so they may not realize, I mean truck drivers have to stop under the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations. They can only drive so many hours, so they’re required to stop. I’ve read statistics where there’s one spot for every 11 or 12 semis. And so when these guys have to, these men and women have to stop, and there’s no place for them to stop, then we got problems. Now, this is not a new problem; it’s been building over time. What do you think is causing this problem?

Noah Volz: I would say, we’ve seen it in the last few years that there’s just been an influx of supply in the carrier market. And so, there’s more trucks on the road than there seemingly have ever been. And at the same time, we have truck stops, rest areas, things like that, were never really invested in to catch up. And so there’s all this new capacity, and we’re not really planning and performing on the back end to ensure that this new capacity can operate effectively and safely. Truck stops close down, there’s been a majority, or they get absolved by a larger chain. And so it becomes more of a business decision. And when there’s free truck parking, it’s a lot harder for them, in certain areas, to make that business decision to stay open. So it’s truly just, I think the growth of the industry as a whole has exacerbated the issue. And drivers now are coming into the industry with, this is the new normal, and this is what they’re trained on and they’re taught in school, is that finding parking is a challenge.

David Craig – Host: And you know that, there’s been certainly groups that have been lobbying or fighting for states, federal government to do more. In Indiana, they just spent 37 million to, up around in Lebanon, Indiana, to build a new parking facility, and they’re talking about spending money. But I mean, that was 37 million to build that one facility, and that was up along I-65 in Boone County. And so there’s a lot of pressure on the government, in both state and local and federal, to do more. And I guess you guys aren’t saying not to do that, not to build, because I know that the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, they kind of got sideways with you guys because they’re out advocating to spend more money to build more spots. But I don’t hear you guys saying that you shouldn’t do that, are you? I mean, you’re just saying right now there’s a need and we’re helping fill that need, right?

Noah Volz: Yeah, absolutely. We are going to support those initiatives. We’re going to support those efforts every step of the way. To us, it doesn’t matter if a driver’s getting parked at a free rest area or at one of our locations. We just want them parked. And so we’re supporting those initiatives. We will support those. We don’t deem anything as a threat to our business because, at the end of the day, we are about the drivers getting parked safely and efficiently. And so the issue that we’ve seen, and that we kind of like to raise, is that it takes a long time for those things to happen. And like I mentioned, we found the shortage to be about 1.7 million spaces.

I believe in Florida, earlier this year, they dedicated $180 million investment to building new parking throughout the state, which equates to just under a thousand parking spaces. The average cost is anywhere from 100 to 200,000 parking spaces at those rest areas. And so we have a 1.7 million space shortage, and it costs $200,000 to build new spaces. And the sheer investment required and the time required to do that all through federal and state is just something that we don’t see as sustainable. So we believe that our private property approach is something that can support the industry and also just keep chipping away at that shortage. In our opinion, all parking that gets added is great parking. So we don’t oppose anything, we are actively in Washington, D.C. advocating for all of those.

David Craig – Host: So tell us, how does this work? I mean, so you guys are kind of brokering, right? I mean, you’re kind of like a Airbnb. I mean you’re taking, you’ve got these drivers and you’ve got these landowners. Walk me through how this works.

Noah Volz: Yeah, absolutely. So just the initial property onboarding process, a prospect property member who owns their land will come to us and give us the information on the site, and then we work with them to ensure that it’s suitable for a truck and trailer. If it’s not suitable for a truck and trailer, it depends on why it’s not suitable. So it’s not soft sand or anything like that, we want something that can support 80,000 pounds. And if they don’t have the space, they can have a bobtail box truck listing with us so that they can still continue to offer it because every driver has a little bit different needs, so the more options, the better for them. But we work with those property members to get their listing set up and get it live. We’re at about 10 properties a day.

So drivers just open their app. They can zoom around the map or they can scroll and search for a certain location, and then once they click on that listing, they’ll see pictures, they’ll see it on a map, they can look at the interstate, they can look at the nearby route. They can also see if it has gates, fence, lights, security cameras, all the amenities like that. Like I said, for us, it’s all about giving options to those drivers. So then once they actually get parked, we’re really just trying to take care of both sides. And it’s obviously, we know what’s going on in the industry and how drivers are being preyed upon by different players. And so for us, there’s guarantees, no booting, no towing, no predatory fines. And when you’re at that location, it’s our responsibility to make sure that you have all the information you need to be as informed as possible about where you’ll be staying and what the location is going to be like.

And then for property owners, we take care of marketing. We have an amazing social media team. We go to every truck show, every tow show. I mean, we are all over the country showing face and really just campaigning for truck parking at all scales. And so the marketing aspect, we have a 24/7, 365 customer service team comprised entirely of former truck drivers. And I feel like that’s what truly sets us apart. Our first employee, Tracy, was a truck driver for over 30 years. She was the first employee hired, and she’s now the department head of that group. So, everything that, every major decision we make goes through truck drivers and they’re actively involved in those conversations. And then also we’re building technology and just continuing to refine the app so that both property members and trucker members have all the information they need, all the visibility, reporting, and just convenience truly, at the touch of a button, whatever they need.

David Craig – Host: And so, I assume you have the option of paying daily, hourly, weekly, monthly, any of those options?

Noah Volz: Yes, sir. So the individual property members set kind of their terms for how the parking will be. We have hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly options available. But if a property owner only wants to host monthly reservations, they’re encouraged and have the ability to do so. Obviously we want daily, weekly, monthly at all of our locations, but it’s just not the right fit for a lot of them. So, the property members set their terms, they choose where the drivers are going to be parking, and then we highlight that on an area. The property members set their own rates, and we work with them just to make sure that they’re competitive in the market. So, we really just try and give everyone the tools, and then we take it out of the property member’s hands so they don’t have to worry about it. It’s essentially passive income for them, and it’s just another place to park for the trucker members.

David Craig – Host: So, if I decided to go get a cabin down in Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains, I could go through a service similar to yours and they would match me up with somebody who owned a cabin, and I would pay, the nicer the cabin, the more I pay. Is there a range in services? Like if I drive a truck and I want to have certain benefits or certain, like I want to have a mechanic on the property, or different things, is there different price ranges that the truckers can pay depending on what their needs are?

Noah Volz: There’s no standardized system for the amenities. Once again, it comes down to what the property member sets their rates at. And like I said, we work with them on it. So if they’ve got a huge open lot, but they might not have some of those security amenities, they might not have showers or a mechanic shop on site, then we set that realistic expectation for what they’re going to be able to make in the market and then let them make their decision based off that. And then on the flip side, if you’ve got a asphalt lot with a fence and barbed wire and a full-time secure gate and lights and cameras and repair shop, showers, all of that, you can then adjust that rate based on what the market is going for around that kind of product offering. So, we just work with the property members to make sure that it’s always a fair rate. And yeah, it does come down to amenities most of the time.

David Craig – Host: So what’s the stop, well, I guess, how many states are you guys in?

Noah Volz: We are in 49 states. So we’ve added three properties in Alaska. We’ve been in the lower 48 for probably the last, at least six months. We just crossed 3,000 locations last week. And like I said, we had about 10 a day.

David Craig – Host: Is there any states that are worse? Because I’ve heard certain states are worse than others. What states are the worst for truckers to be able to find parking?

Noah Volz: I would say the thing that we hear most from our members, obviously Southern California, the Northeast, Boston, New York, Massachusetts as a whole, and then we really just hear that the major metro areas, there will never be enough. And so we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. We’re going to keep adding locations because the thing that we hear the most is just, “Add more locations everywhere”. And so, that’s what we want to do for our drivers. But we definitely see, just in our own property offerings, the challenges that are associated with, I guess, southern California, the Northeast, even southern Florida, just property value is through the roof. And it’s more difficult in certain townships or counties to offer truck parking.

David Craig – Host: And I guess one of the concerns that I would think the truckers have is that, sure, there’s not enough parking, but there is some parking, so some of the rest stops, especially rest stop private places where they used to go, they would eat, shower fuel, and a lot of those had parking, free parking. Are these businesses now monetizing their parking and saying, “Okay, well we used to have free parking, but now we’re going to hook up with you guys or someone else and start charging parking.” So I could see where drivers would be upset about that.

Noah Volz: Absolutely. So we saw it before we ever became a company. In the last three years, if you look back before that, truck stops have been converting to paid parking for, I would say the better part of the last decade. And so it’s become a business decision where, in order to keep the lights on, in order to keep fuel in the fuel pumps, we’ve got to make ends meet any way we can. And so what we’ve done is instead of just letting truck stops figure it out themselves, we realize that we think we can provide the best possible service for the trucker members. So we’re not turning away truck stops that want to list their parking with us.

We’re empowering them to make that business decision when they deem fit. And then we are going ahead and providing 24/7, 365 around the clock service truly tailored to exactly what they need. And there’s always going to be that conversation because it is a change in the industry, and it’s something that nobody really probably thought about 20 years ago when it seemed like there was enough parking. But now these truck stops do need something to survive, and you see it all the time, the truck stops are shutting down and it’s a business decision. And that’s what it comes down to for us and how we view it is, private property owners making a business decision to survive.

David Craig – Host: And so you think that’s the trend is that most of these businesses are going to monetize their parking and that’s going to help them stay in business, provide services and other amenities to the truckers.

Noah Volz: Yeah. And we see that already. I mean, we have however many truck stops on our platform, and the vast majority of them offer some kind of incentive. And so it’s by 50 gallons worth of fuel and you park for free for 24 hours. If you buy $10 of food in store, you get free parking for 24 hours. And so that’s something we advocate for because it’s a pain point that we heard from truck stop owners that were not against turning a profit or things were getting a little bit more difficult is that there was parking, but there wasn’t any money being spent at their truck stop. And so, it’s a real issue for them if there’s people using land and they need to keep the lights on and they want to keep offering these services. So we’ve just added a way for them to do that where, like I said, and that also varies, it’s not a standardized thing, it’s whatever they want to provide. Some people it’s a $5 in-store purchase, you park for free for 24 hours. And we just want to give them the tools to do that. And like I said, give them the service to back it up so that it’s a good experience for our trucker members.

David Craig – Host: And I know with anything that’s innovative, there’s going to be those people who are for you and those people who are against you. I saw a video, is it the Bonehead Trucker on YouTube? And he was mad because he showed a street that’s outside the truck stop and it has your signs out there and you’re charging. And he thought that or they thought that it was a private road or a public road and you all were charging the park along a public road. Now I’m assuming it’s not a public road, I’m assuming it’s a road owned by the gas station or the travel place. And then if it is, it’s their property, they can rent it out if they want to. I mean, right now it’s just sitting there. And if I decide I own that road, I can certainly charge people to park on it. But I’m sure you’ve probably seen the same video, but there’s always going to be that problem. Right. And so what would you say to that? I mean, why would you say that it’s a good thing that you guys exist and not a bad thing?

Noah Volz: The thing for us that really keeps us going through all the whatever we hear on the internet, we do our best just to keep our foot on the pedal because we have tens of thousands of truck drivers that have told us that we’ve saved them time, we’ve saved them fuel, we’ve made their life easier. The job is so much more enjoyable now because they’re not stressing every day. And so, there’s always going to be detractors. And we think that what we’re doing is changing the industry, not just a little bit. We think we’re really changing it a lot, and we feel that truly, and we think we’re doing it the right way. And so, for us it’s all about what positive experiences we hear.

We are talking to our trucker members every day on the phone. We see it on reviews left on our locations or Facebook comments that, “These guys saved me. I was delivering,” I can’t even think, “I was delivering here, and the nearest truck stop was 40 miles away. I had five minutes left on my clock. I didn’t know what to do. And then I saw, I remembered a TikTok that I saw from them, so I downloaded their app and I found a spot half a mile away.” And so it’s just experiences like that that we hear about and we hear it all the time that keep us moving, keep us pushing forward. And at the end of the day, we think the more people that just give us a chance and use us, those experiences are just going to pile up across the industry.

David Craig – Host: And just for the record, you’re not charging the park along public streets, right?

Noah Volz: No sir, that is a private roadway not owned by the gas station. It is vetted, and we ensured that that was not a public street.

David Craig – Host: Okay. And so, I could see why people would be mad about that, if it was. So I mean, do you think it’ll ever go back the way it was? Do you think if this is the future where you’re going to have, I mean, it makes sense, people will want to make profit, they have land, they have places for you to park. I could see them making it even better and making it more attractive so that more truckers want to use my facility. So the better my facility is, the more likely that I’m going to have people use it. So I could, again, as an entrepreneur, as a business person, it makes perfect sense to me, but I’m not a guy out there driving the truck. But it seems like to me, it makes it easy because now I can just, I mean I assume it’s pretty quick. I get on and boom, I got locations.

Noah Volz: Yes, sir. Yeah, it’s free to sign up so, the truck drivers can download the app and then like I said, they zoom around the map or type in exactly where they’re going and they have access to that. They can book in a few quick and easy steps. And if there’s any issues, we’re there to support them. And as for the future, we don’t really know where it’s going to head, but we don’t believe that we’ll be going anywhere anytime soon. The goal is always to add more options for our trucker members. And I mean, personally, I believe that we will be a fixture in the industry for decades to come. I don’t think private parking is going anywhere. It seems even on the passenger side that this is just now a mainstay in the passenger parking industry. And so while we’re supporting state and federal funding for truck parking efforts, we’re also working to just bolster the options across the marketplace.

David Craig – Host: So I mean, ultimately, I assume somebody’s got to pay for it. And so if we pay for it through government, I mean if we have the government bill more parking spots, we pay for it as taxpayers. On the other hand, some truckers have really tight margins, so they’re really operating on a shoestring. But to the extent that, and I assume the cost of what your guy’s doing is also going to be passed on, but it’s passed on through the trucker or the motor carrier, ultimately. Either way, we’re all going to pay for it one way or the other, it seems like, either pay it through the cost of goods or we’re going to pay it through taxes. But either way, we have to all pay it, we’re going to pay it for, pay a price.

Noah Volz: Yeah. And I think the thing that we found is that we’re already paying for it. We ran that study, like I mentioned with Noel Perry, he’s been around forever and he really knows the industry, and we determined, and the American Trucking Research Institute has also determined that it costs over a hundred dollars per hour for a truck driver to operate their vehicle. So if we’re saving, and the average time each day is 56 minutes for a truck driver to find parking throughout the country, that’s an ATREE statistic. And so we view the economic savings of the operational efficiency to far surpass the cost of paying for parking.

If we can save 46 minutes, turn that 56-minute search into a 10-minute, click the app, “I know where I’m going, I know exactly how to get there.” If we can do that, and drivers are saving over a hundred dollars in just fuel or time and fuel, those just keep compounding. And now if we’re talking about optimally parking along their route, that’s more cost savings. There’s just so many operational efficiencies that we don’t believe have been truly explored or, I guess, respected by different aspects of the industry where paying for parking at a location that’s two miles away from your delivery and has everything you need is probably much better than circling truck stops and rest areas for two hours. And ultimately, you might not even find a spot and you’ll have to park in an unsafe or illegal location.

So for us, it’s kind of a no-brainer. And the amount that we found is it costs the driver $17,000 per year to just circle around looking for parking. And that doesn’t take into account the stress, the turnover. I mean turnover for truck drivers is astronomically high. And these are just different things that we feel we can contribute to helping, and so that ultimately, right now is about a hundred billion dollar cost to the industry, and that’s already being paid for, probably by yourself and by myself, and everyone in our company and everyone around America is paying that hundred billion dollars cost of goods. But if we can give these drivers options, and we can allow them to operate effectively and efficiently, who knows what those cost savings are going to look like?

David Craig – Host: So actually you’re saving money by charging money?

Noah Volz: Yes, that’s what we believe. Yes, sir.

David Craig – Host: Okay. Now, as a personal injury lawyer, as a plaintiff lawyer, one of my concerns is I’m all for getting the truck off of the side of the road, off of the exit ramps, off of the rest stop ramps down on the roadways. I think that’s great to make things safer, but I’m a little worried about the app because I don’t want truck drivers, they’re not supposed to hold their phone. They’re supposed to be hands-free. Should I be concerned about these men and women messing with your app and then causing a wreck?

Noah Volz: I wouldn’t say so. I think, I mean, it’s obviously always a concern, but with the many options, I guess not options. There’s many things today that truck drivers have to be on a tablet or on a phone. They have to be engaged with that. And the consensus around the industry is that that’s dedicated to your 30-minute break. And so, what we speak with our trucker members about is a lot of the times they’re planning out a day or six hours, eight hours in advance. So when they’re taking their 30-minute break in the middle of their drive time, they’ve already got the app open, they know where they’re going to park, they book that spot, and then once they pull up to that location, they might need to remember the gate code.

And so, they can just click that reservation and they’ll have the gate code right there, or they’ll be at one of our locations where they can open the gate with their app. And so, we don’t really see it as a burden, and we don’t really see it becoming an issue because of the apps and the technology that drivers are forced to work with already. And so, it’s ultimately one of those things where we understand it and we’re aware of it. So, we’ve created tools called the organization within our system where fleet manager or a dispatcher can be on a computer a thousand miles away, and they can book that spot for their driver, share the booking with them. They’ll have all the information, their vehicle information, their personal name, phone number will be on that reservation for them. So, we’re taking steps to take a lot of that risk off of the truck drivers while they’re behind the wheel. Yes, sir.

David Craig – Host: So certainly you would encourage your users to not use it while they’re driving, but plan ahead, use it during a break or have their dispatch or someone else do it rather than actually messing with it whether they’re doing it.

Noah Volz: Yes, sir. Absolutely.

David Craig – Host: Is it voice activated or do you have to actually push buttons?

Noah Volz: It is pushing buttons. I’m not sure if we have that in the pipeline yet, but that’ll be an interesting thing that we could, yeah.

David Craig – Host: Everything’s going that direction it seems like.

Noah Volz: Yes, sir. Yeah.

David Craig – Host: So, is there a lot of competition in your industry? In my industry, there’s tons of lawyers. How about your industry, is there a lot of companies trying to emulate you guys?

Noah Volz: There’s a ton of truck parking operators. And so where we feel that we differentiate ourself is the fact that we’re a two-sided marketplace. And so truck parking operators across the country are listing their space with us because we are a large player and we have that visibility on our platform. And so the competitors that we’re seeing, no one’s really truly replicated what we’re doing. We’re pretty confident that our service and our guarantees will keep things kind of at bay so that we can just continue focusing on building what we’re doing, and everything is going to work out because we’ve got the systems and the processes and the right people in place to keep building.

David Craig – Host: Well, anything that makes the road safer, then also that keeps the trucker safer. I’ve heard horror story after horror story about parking in the wrong location, especially in the cities, and the big metropolitan, and truck drivers aren’t supposed to be carrying weapons. And so there’s some real dangers out there. So anything you can do to protect the drivers, but then also take the trucks off of the dangerous spots of the roadway is great, I think great for all of us.

Noah Volz: Absolutely.

David Craig – Host: Noah, is there anything else that you think that’s important for people to know about your company or about trucking parking or anything else with respect to this area?

Noah Volz: I think the thing that we always want to emphasize, and this is just personal, but I know everyone in the company feels the exact same way, is that the American public just, I feel, needs to empathize more with truck drivers. It is one of the most difficult jobs on the road. It’s something that there’s no shortage of criticism. There’s no shortage of prejudice towards truck drivers, and it’s completely unwarranted. And from a safety aspect, empathy on the road, giving them space, allowing them their proper following distance, don’t merge in front of a truck, they take longer to break than you do. Just all these different things.

Just be mindful of what these people, these truck drivers are going through each and every day. They’re away from their families, they’re out on the road. It’s an incredibly difficult job, and it takes an incredibly skilled, talented person to do it. And I just think, for the general public and anyone who’s not familiar with trucking, just be patient. And at the end of the day, you want everything to be in the supermarket, you want everything delivered to your home. These are the men and women keeping that moving, and just let them do their job and let them do it safely and get home to their families.

David Craig – Host: And I would add to that, I agree wholeheartedly with you. And I would also add, I mean, I think so often people say, because I’m a truck accident attorney, I’m board-certified in truck accident law, so I represent victims of truck accidents. So people assume that means I’m against truckers, which is absolutely false. I believe that 99.5% of all truckers are really good folks that are professional, who care, who are trying to earn a living, who are trying to provide for their families, who have really difficult jobs, and they’re required to be away from their families for a significant period of time. And it’s a tough, tough job.

There’s only a very, very small percent of the drivers out there who are bad. But that’s true with any profession, right? I mean, that’s true, you can say with lawyers, I mean there’s a small percentage and that unfortunately, that small percentage gives us all a bad name. So if it’s a small percentage of lawyers that screw up and mess up, those are the ones that you hear about. And so those are the ones that hit the headlines. It’s that small percentage of truckers that mess up. Those are the ones you hear about. You don’t hear about all the good folks, you don’t get to see the good folks that are working really hard to make an honest living.

I represent a lot of truckers, like I said, who are hurt by bad truckers. And so I think it is important for people to understand that people like myself, we’re not against truckers—we’re against bad truckers. But you know what, truckers are also against bad truckers. And so we all are. And there are just certain people out there that are running on bad equipment, certain people that are running that are taking jobs away from good, solid, safe companies, but they’re taking those jobs away by underbidding them, and then they’re risking all of our lives because they’re bad. So I would agree with you. I mean, one of the things that we try to do in our firm is educate the public about trucking. That’s why we have folks like yourself on here.

We want to educate people. We provide, actually, classes and training. I’ve actually gone out to Montana and driven trucks, I took my whole office of lawyers out there just because I felt like to fully appreciate it, we need to get in a truck and ride on the highway, ride on the interstate, see what truckers are faced with. And you know what, it is scary when you see what people were doing out there, car, four-wheelers, cutting them off and doing things. And so, I think you need to have a appreciation for this industry. And I respect the industry, respect the good folks in it, respect the good motor carriers. I’m not sure I’ve run into too many good brokers, but I’m sure they’re out there. But no, seriously, there’s good and bad in everything. So Noah, thank you so much for being a guest on this episode of After the Crash. I really do appreciate it. Where are you guys headquartered at?

Noah Volz: We are headquartered at our clubhouse in Ringgold, Georgia. So this is our headquarters and it’s also our innovation lab where we have trucker members parking with us all the time.

David Craig – Host: All right. Well, thanks. Have a good day.

Noah Volz: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

David Craig – Host: This is David Craig, and you’ve been listening to After the Crash. If you’d like more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website, ckflaw.com. Or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-ASK-DAVID.

If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck, then pick up my book, Semitruck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families, which is available on Amazon, or you can download it for free on our website, ckflaw.com.