The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association issued a statement that said Paterson’s proposed mandate for enhanced GPS devices would unfairly punish the majority of truckers, do nothing to improve safety and ultimately hurt consumers.
“The governor is doing a great job of pushing New York to the top of the list of places where truckers least want to do business,” OOIDA legislative director Mike Joyce said.
Adams and state transportation officials agreed that most of the bridge strikes occur on the state’s pastoral parkway system, which dates to the 1920s and is made up of development-free, shoulderless highways punctuated by low arched brick and stone bridges.
Trucks never have been allowed on the parkway road system, which has signs at all the entrances saying trucks are prohibited.
Skip Carrier, a spokesman for the state DOT, said the parkways were “designed for a different era, for sort of leisurely driving on a Sunday” but are still part of today’s road network and therefore “available for use by people who don’t bother to read the signs and are getting on them and then finding they have a problem.”
