Over the years, On the Road has responded to many inquiries and complaints from readers across the Inland Empire about semitrucks and traffic. Area drivers complain often about how big rigs exacerbate freeway traffic, chew up pavement, drive in the wrong lanes, and cut through residential neighborhoods, among other issues.
Some cities have banned big rigs from residential neighborhoods and some large commercial avenues.
In Riverside, semitrucks have restrictions on streets like Van Buren and Alessandro boulevards to reduce traffic, noise and air pollution. The city of Fontana, on its website, lays out a map showing with bright blue lines on which streets which trucks may drive; they are banned from the rest. Yorba Linda requires big trucks coming into the city to obtain a city transportation permit and follow a designated truck route, in an effort to regulate oversize/overweight vehicles.
In this column, On the Road shares a different perspective, one we hear less often: a big rig driver.
Longtime Inland Empire resident Timothy Carrick told On the Road how difficult it is to work as a commercial truck driver in the Inland Empire and California, in general. Carrick lived for many years in Fontana and for a year in Jurupa Valley before he recently bought a house near Guadalajara, Mexico. Carrick has driven a large Class A commercial tractor-trailer – the largest of the big rigs – for 17 years. He is retiring next month.
“Fontana, as well as other places in the Inland Empire, has become the truck city of the world,” Carrick said.
Many times while driving his truck for work, Carrick said, he could not find a place to stop for lunch in a restaurant due to the bans on trucks from certain streets and parking lots in Fontana and other communities. This includes a large chunk of Sierra Avenue in Fontana, a main north-south, non-residential thoroughfare.
“There were all these signs where we can’t even park to eat lunch,” Carrick said. He expressed frustration that local governments across the Inland Empire have permitted so many warehouses to be built, but the truck drivers face so many restrictions.
“You put up all these warehouses in this area. And supposedly, you know, people need goods and the truck drivers deliver those goods. But yet you harass the truck driver so much giving tickets and they are like $400. Then why are you putting up all these companies and warehouses? We have to look maybe miles to find somewhere to have lunch. We should have our right to eat lunch somewhere,” he said.
Carrick noted that homeowners are not allowed to park their trucks at their homes, and he agrees with this, but he disagrees with so many truck restrictions on major commercial streets. As a result, he said, big rigs have nowhere to drive but on freeways where they are also unwelcome.
He said, “All we are doing is delivering goods for the people. People don’t complain about the products when they go to the store and buy the products brought there by trucks. You keep putting up more warehouses, so you’re getting more trucks.”
