IdleAire- No Parking for Non-Customers
Well, it appears that the rumors are true. Until today, we’d only heard about drivers being thrown out of IdleAire parking spots. But today, we were asked to move. And, upon further investigation, we discovered that IdleAire attendants have the authority and can make you leave an IdleAire parking spot if you’re not using the service. In fact, they are supposed to make you move.
We pulled into an east coast Petro truck stop and parked in an IdleAire spot. An attendant came up and asked if we were going to use the service and we said we were not. The attendant politely asked us to move to a non-IdleAire parking spot. We counted approximately 20 empty IdleAire spots- but leaving the “Quiet Zone” wasn’t a problem, since the non-IdleAire parking still had a lot of empty spots.
We decided to get to the bottom of it and find out what’s really going on. The following information has not been confirmed by IdleAire corporate, but it comes straight from the mouth of the most enthusiastic (and presumably knowledgeable) IdleAire attendant we’ve met- bordering on militaristic.
IdleAire has agreements with the truck stops chains. Petro and TA have agreements that give IdleAire authority to require non-customers to leave IdleAire parking spots. Now, if every parking spot in the non-IdleAire parking is full, they can’t tell you to leave. Otherwise they can tell you to move if you’re not using the IdleAire service. If you pull into an IdleAire spot and shut your cab curtains before the attendant arrives at your door, they can’t bother you- according to the IdleAire attendant, this is Federal law. But it doesn’t apply to your sleeper berth curtain. So, if you’re wanting to sneak into a spot, you’d better get some windshield curtains (this was not a method encouraged by the IdleAire attendant)!
If you are parked in the IdleAire spots and you are idling, they are very likely to ask you to move. And this is the most reasonable rational for telling you to take a hike. After all, the other drivers parked in the area are hoping for some peace and quiet- well, as much as you can get in a truck stop. Apparently, though, a lot of IdleAire customers still idle their engines. They won’t ask a paying customer to turn off his engine- no matter that it seems contrary to the whole “anti-idling” movement.
If you refuse to leave the IdleAire parking spot, IdleAire and the truck stop may agree to have you forcibly removed- either by calling the police to make it official or by calling a heavy wrecker to do the moving for you.
Now, the smaller the parking lot, the more lenient “the rules.” In some truck stops, some of the IdleAire spots are essentially freebies, so long as you don’t idle. That means that some IdleAire spots are for customers only and some are for whoever wants to park there, customer or not. And it may be the case that some IdleAire attendants are more lenient than others when it comes to enforcing “the rules.”
As for us, we’ve used IdleAire in the past and will use it again when it suits our needs. We have a generator, and, hour for hour, it costs us about the same to use IdleAire as it does to burn diesel in our generator, with less wear and tear. IdleAire is a good concept that is, in our opinion, poorly executed. For instance, the air conditioning leaves much to be desired- bear with me for the explanation. We’ve never used the IdleAire air-conditioning; we prefer to hook into the electrical and use a/c to run our roof-mounted a/c unit. But we’ve heard from many drivers who complain of stagnant air (though IdleAire says they use filtration and UVC treatment). And, for those who do not have window curtains in their windshield, the IdleAire air conditioning may do a bang up job in the cab, but if you want some privacy, the sleeper curtain will block the air flow. It does have some definite benefits- high speed internet and satellite television being the most obvious ones… when they’re working. It’s definitely better thought out than Park-N-View was, but it has a much larger infrastructure- staffing, equipment and maintenance. Thank goodness for government grants, I suppose.
1st, 2008 at 4:51 pm
I do not smoke and you can not find a place that does not fill your truck with stale smokers air. Idleaire is just a waste of good parking.
23rd, 2008 at 2:06 am
As a gold member, I have come to really enjoy this service. Although I feel that they need to make the rules straight across the board everywhere. I have been told many times that they can not ask anyone to leave and that that is the agreement with the truck stops, then I have heared otherwise. I get mad when I pull in to a trk stop and all the spots are full, 75% are not hooked up to it, and there is a more then enough open spaces for all of them to park as well as more who are not going to use it, just like the lazy drivers who park in no parking zones at the trk stops that are close to the entry doors becuase they are to lazy to walk like the rest of us who park were we are legal. With all the states going anti idle, drivers should really consider useing it, before you know it, it will be the only parking available at the trk stops.