OLYMPIA, Wash. — A new Washington law dealing with the right to use the restroom could become a model for a national law.
Truck drivers in Washington state can now use a business’s restroom whenever drivers are making a delivery, or picking up a shipment.
Truck drivers in Washington say access to bathrooms has been a serious problem, so the new law gives them a reason to celebrate. They say the legislation eliminates what’s been a barrier for them on the roads and slows down deliveries – an issue magnified by the pandemic.
Tilden Curl has been a truck driver for more than 30 years, and he guesses he’s driven more than three million miles.
“I’ve got 741,000 miles on this truck,” Curl said.
When he drives back and forth from Olympia to Los Angeles, he sleeps and eats in his truck, but there’s no restroom on board and some days, that’s a job hazard.
“Sometimes you go, ‘ll wait till the next rest area, and then you get two miles from it…and it says rest area closed. That’s when panic sets in,” Curl said.
He said it’s not easy pulling over his 75-foot-long truck on the side of the road or stopping off at a gas station, so he was thrilled when Washington state enacted a law this summer guaranteeing restroom rights for truck drivers.
Business owners that use drivers for either shipping or receiving must allow them to access restrooms, just like other employees.
“You have to do something and going out in the wild like a bear is just kind of not really the thing to do,” Curl said.
Washington is the first state to ensure restroom access for truck drivers. The state’s trucking association says the law is being used as a model in Washington D.C. to perhaps guarantee that right nationwide.
Curl said the law makes his job safer, will speed up his delivery times and improve morale in an industry that never slowed down during the pandemic.
“During COVID, a lot of people didn’t want you to come into their facilities to use the restroom,” Curl said. “You were the hero, but you couldn’t go use the restroom.”
The new law went into effect on July 23 and passed earlier this year with unanimous support.
Watch: KING 5’s Top Stories playlist
Credit: Source link
