Why are 18-wheelers allowed to park on on and off-ramps?

[A HERETIC I AM]

33. Spot on.

I started driving tractor trailers in 1978, before the days of deregulation, and went OTR back in 1987 while the national speed limit was still 55. I've been around.

The problems you mention are only going to get worse as the retail industry transitions more and more to internet purchasing and home delivery. Notice how many malls are empty and how many warehouses/distribution centers are being built these days? All of them with 50 or more dock doors. That's where all that commerce is going but it begs a question; Who is supposed to move all those trailers?

As you said, the industry is having a hard time retaining the old hands (I'll have to drive till I drop dead) and new recruits are leaving within a few years because they are getting screwed right out of the box.

How many young people want a job that basically pays piecemeal wages, keeps you away from home for often weeks at a time and then you have to contend with everything you said and the acrimony of the motoring public?

The trucking industry is shooting itself in the foot and they don't seem to care. And just watch, as soon as the technology improves, they will go to autonomous trucks for most OTR work, putting hundreds of thousands of men and women out of work and destroying what was once a good and well paying career for people for which going to a university was not an option.