Truck parking is scarce along I-95 in Connecticut, but many local residents have fought tooth and nail against efforts to alleviate the problem. Now a 22-year-old man is dead after slamming into a tractor-trailer parked along the shoulder of an I-95 ramp to sleep.

The Hartford Courant reports that a seafood hauler pulled his rig off the shoulder in Greenwich late one night earlier this month when, as usual, nearby truckstops were filled to overflowing. William Moeller of Hamden, Conn., was a passenger in a car that drifted from its lane and hit the back of the parked rig.
Stephanie Reitz, who writes about transportation issues for the paper, noted that “truckers such as the seafood hauler face a difficult choice: Break the law and risk an accident by driving to the next truckstop in New Jersey, or park off the I-95 ramp’s shoulder with the other trucks and hope for the best.”
A study by the state Department of Transportation last year showed than almost 1,200 truckers are left without spaces to park each night, Reitz reports. Legislators had a chance this year to create extra parking spaces for truckers by opening commuter lots and weigh stations for overnight truck parking. One such weigh station is less than a mile from the site of the Greenwich accident. But the town of Greenwich doesn’t want trucks there when the scale’s not open.
Michael Riley, president of the Motor Transport Assn. of Connecticut, told the paper that “it’s irresponsible and pigheaded to keep ignoring” the truck parking problem. “Now we’ve seen one death, and we’ll have more if something isn’t done.”