CHARLOTTE — The city of Charlotte cracked down on illegal truck parking in 2024. Records obtained by Channel 9 show the city issued more than 2,600 tickets to truck drivers in 2024 for illegally parking on the side of city streets.
“You can hardly see the turn from where you are going,” resident Darlene Houston said. “It is a big problem around here.”
In November 2023, the Charlotte City Council voted to hike the fine for trucks parked illegally from $25 to $100. Following the vote, the city committed to installing more “no parking” signs, an education campaign, and making it easier to report illegally parked trucks. You can now do so through the city’s app.
The 2600 tickets are a big jump. Channel 9 has data from 2022 and 2019. Only 830 violations were reported in 2022 and fewer than 300 in 2019.
In 2023, the city identified the problem spots. Channel 9 drove to a few of them today and saw no parking signs and no trucks on Benfield Road. The same story was a couple of miles away on West Sugar Creek near West WT Harris Blvd.
As the city cracks down on illegally parked trucks, some residents are encouraging the city to find a way to work with the drivers.
“If you don’t give them a place to park, they are going to park wherever they can,” Bubba Miller said.
Miller says there needs to be more safe places for truckers to park because often they are legally mandated to stop.
“If you want anything in the store that is delivered by truck, it would be nice to have a truck in the area,” he said.
One of the big reasons why so many trucks parked illegally in the past was because it used to be cheaper to take the $25 ticket rather than pay for a legal space in a truck lot. That’s all changed now.
VIDEO: Charlotte leaders increase penalty for illegal parking
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