Imagine going through your workday not knowing when or if you’ll be allowed to use the restroom while on the job. This is the reality millions of America’s truckers face as they make their living on the road. As difficult as it is to believe, drivers are routinely denied bathroom access, even when they’re making a delivery to a business that has facilities for their customers or employees.

While this situation may not grab headlines, especially with all the issues vying for attention in Washington, DC, this challenge is top of mind for truckers who are denied access on a regular basis. During the COVID-19 pandemic, truckers picked up and delivered essential goods while businesses across the country imposed access restrictions. Yet years after emergency declarations ended, many locations have chosen to keep these crude bans in place.

New Hampshire and Washington state take the lead

Two states, Washington and New Hampshire, have taken the lead in addressing this problem by enacting laws that ensure drivers can use the restroom at a business when they are picking up or delivering freight. New Hampshire Rep. Henry Giasson, a sponsor of the New Hampshire bill, stresses that providing for an essential need of our truckers is not only basic hospitality, but it also makes economic sense: “Truck drivers are the engines of our economy. It’s only sensible to allow truckers restroom access when they’re picking up and delivering the goods we depend on.”

While two states is a good start, all states need to do the same. It is necessary to have a federal solution to this problem because truckers operate across the country every day.

Bipartisan bill supporting truckers gains traction

That’s why the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) has worked with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to introduce and build support for H.R. 2514, the Trucker Bathroom Access Act. This legislation is straightforward: if a business has a bathroom that is available to customers or employees, these facilities must be made available to drivers when they’re picking up or delivering freight.

This clear requirement and other provisions in the legislation largely mirror recently enacted laws in Washington and New Hampshire and are designed to avoid placing any additional burdens on businesses:

• The legislation does not require the construction of new facilities – it only applies to businesses with bathrooms that are already available to customers and employees.
• The legislation recognizes safety and security concerns by exempting restrooms that are located in areas that would create health or safety risks for drivers or the business. We obviously don’t want, for example, a pharmaceutical production facility to be forced to violate its own protocols regarding safety.
• This legislation does not create any new federal penalties or require site visits from federal officials, and the U.S. Department of Transportation would retain enforcement authority.

In Washington state and New Hampshire, restroom access has been resolved without the need for government intervention or penalties. In short, when a business knows that it is required to provide restrooms to a trucker, they have done so. We believe that most people and businesses want operational certainty and to simply do the right thing.

At a time of division in Washington, D.C., this is legislation that has brought together lawmakers from across the aisle. It is championed by Representatives Troy Nehls, a Republican from Texas, and Chrissy Houlahan, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, with more lawmakers from across the political spectrum cosponsoring the legislation.

Ill-treatment of truckers and the problem of retention

While most businesses readily open their restrooms to office workers and retail customers, others still harbor an unfair prejudice against blue-collar truck drivers. Treating truckers as second-class citizens who don’t belong in the building is not just degrading; it undermines the logistics workforce. Figuring out how a trucker can use the bathroom should be easy.

Beyond the obvious improvement to drivers’ daily life on the road, this legislation will help to solve one of the biggest problems facing the trucking industry – extremely high rates of driver turnover. When drivers can’t find a bathroom to use, it needlessly makes a trucker’s job more difficult and less attractive. Turnover rates can average 90% annually for large trucking fleets, meaning that about 9 out of every 10 drivers will leave that carrier in a given year. Deteriorating working conditions and compounding challenges like a lack of restroom access clearly add to the retention problem in the trucking industry, especially for the 277,000 women working in the industry.

Lack of bathroom access is too often an obstacle for women truck drivers

Like OOIDA, the Women In Trucking Association (WIT) recognizes the significant challenges professional truck drivers face when they lack reliable access to basic facilities. These challenges can be particularly impactful for women in trucking, who represent 9.5% of commercial driver’s license (CDL) holders. Rep. Giasson noted that when New Hampshire legislators were debating its recent law, women truck drivers consistently identified the lack of access to bathrooms as a major concern.

Lana Nichols, Interim President & CEO of WIT, emphasizes that access to safe, clean, and readily available facilities is a basic need for every professional truck driver. “Yet, the lack of reliable restroom access can be an especially significant barrier for women in trucking. This can affect their safety, health, dignity, and overall experience on the job.” Nichols sees the continued lack of access to basic facilities as detrimental not only to the future of the industry, but to the involvement of women in it. “As the industry works to attract and retain more women, we need infrastructure and facilities that support the workforce.”

Federal legislation nears the finish line

Congress has an opportunity to deliver meaningful reform this term. With broad bipartisan support from lawmakers and the work of OOIDA and other industry organizations, we are seeing progress in moving this legislation forward. H.R. 2514 was included in the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee’s highway bill, known as BUILD America 250, which was approved by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 62 to 2 in May. Congress only passes broad infrastructure and surface transportation bills like this once about every five years, and this infrastructure package is the best opportunity to get individual policy proposals signed into law. The inclusion of the Trucker Bathroom Access Act confirms that Congress prioritizes addressing this issue.

Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of The National Law Review.