Lytx recently released October 2022 data revealing the top 20 “hot spots” of dangerous interstate and on/off ramp locations around the country that are notorious for rigs stopping.
Pulled from nearly 50,000 truck parking events reported/tracked by Lytx in a two-week period, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and New Jersey ranked in the top five, according to Lytx. Two Atlanta locations hold second and third place followed close behind by Cherry Hill Township in New Jersey in fourth place. The top spot where trucks pulled over the most goes to Arlington County, Virginia.
The Top 20 U.S. hotspot data was generated based on 15 days of data where parked events have been observed, according to Amir Sultan, lead product manager at Lytx. Individual parked events were aggregated to give insights at the meta-level for decision-making.
"The data helps to identify locations that need to be looked at and investigated for the problems that are leading drivers to park there," Sultan said. "There could be many reasons for it, such as a lack of parking spaces, emergency situations, better tracking of empty parking spots, and more. Further investigations of these types of reasons could help in solving these problems in an optimal way."
Sultan emphasized the risk involved with parking on highway shoulders and ramps.
"Highway shoulders and off/on-ramps have always been incredibly risky locations to park. It blocks the visibility of the vehicle, and with little loss of control of the moving vehicle, it could have catastrophic outcomes if it hits the parked vehicle," Sultan said.
Kristin Costas, senior director of product management at Lytx, offered safety tips to avoid any accidents as a result of parking on highway shoulders and off/on-ramps.
"Trucks should do their best to park in legal, designated parking locations," Costas said. "Plan ahead so that you can anticipate the area you might be in when you need to take a break and determine your parking options. Communicate with your manager about parking challenges and ask for help in finding safe locations."
Here is the full list of the most dangerous interstate and on/off ramp locations:
I 78/US 22 West in Greenwich Township, Pennsylvania.
Ramp from NJ 3 North to Lighting Way in Hudson County, New Jersey.
KY 4 West in Lexington, Kentucky.
I 95 South in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania.
I 95 South in New Castle County, Delaware.
I 85 South in Jefferson, Georgia.
I 75 North in Atlanta, Georgia.
US 95 in Humboldt County, Nevada.
NJ 19 South in Paterson, New Jersey.
NJ 70 East in Cherry Hill Township, New Jersey.
SC 9 North in Marlboro County, South Carolina.
I 75 South in Atlanta, Georgia.
US 13 North in Kent County, Delaware.
FL 997 North in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
I 85 South in Jackson County, Georgia.
US 95 North in Yuma County, Arizona.
VA 110 East in Arlington County, Virginia.
I 95/NJTP South in Middlesex County, New Jersey.
I 5 South in Los Angeles County, California.
US 49W in Humphreys County, Mississippi.
"This is a somewhat unique risk to identify. While Lytx has a long history of identifying risky behavior, this one has a lot of environmental context built into it such as the exact location, state of the vehicle, etc," Costas said. "It was a fun feature to build because we were able to leverage geospatial big data, create algorithms to accurately identify the risk, and tune the logic based on customer feedback."
