HUDSON VALLEY, NY — This Friday, thousands of truckers are planning a highway shutdown to protest unfair regulations and policies. The protest is scheduled to begin at 10am on I-84 in Hudson Valley and it may expand to other roads. Participants call it a “slow roll” protest, as they’ll be traveling down the highway in their trucks at minimum highway speed.
The shutdown, organized by a group called “Black Smoke Matters”, is a demand for increased safety standards, updated training, and more say in creating trucking regulation. Group organizers are encouraging truck drivers across the country to take the day off in protest.
Specifically, truckers are asking for more work-hour flexibility. They also want to make the use of electronic logging devices optional. Since their implementation in 2017, ELDs have been a topic of debate. “Your clock doesn’t stop and that’s a big problem,” says Billy Bogar, who is coordinating a similar protest in Joplin, Missouri. “It’s distracted driving at its finest. Now, you have an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer racing the clock when he or she should be concentrating on the road around them.”
The protest will begin at 10am on I-84 at exit 5 and is expected to continue down 684 to 287 and across the George Washington Bridge.
Recently, in October 2018, “Black Smoke Matters” protested in Washington D.C. They shut down part of the I-95 to protest overregulation of the trucking industry.
Overall, an estimated 30,000 truckers across the nation are taking part in the strike.
