Lorry parking at night

Is it just me or is every MSA just completely full at night.
Be it south mimms, Thurrock, Clacket lane and Pease Pottage. I work nights and I have for the past week had a pain in the ■■■ trying find a spot to park up for my 45 min break.

Usually I end up just parking in front of people with their curtains shut and take my 45 mins there. But still, it’s a little annoying.
I have had a 3 month break from driving and it wasnt this bad before. Even most laybys are full.

Maybe, it is because I work in the South East but I find it quite annoying lol.

It has been like that for years. Bugs me when little transit vans take up a space when they can go into the pleniful car park

Summer is worse with caravans, camper vans and boats also pull into the truck park, although that may have changed, will see shortly.

adam277:
Usually I end up just parking in front of people with their curtains shut and take my 45 mins there. But still, it’s a little annoying.

Yeah that’s been standard practice for us night trunkers for years.

There’s a bunch of trailers parked up at services parking bays. Every time I have to resist the urge to take a dump under one of them. People used to park on the hard shoulder after the services exit but maybe police craked down on that

You can always park on the access road inside and block/hinder anyone else trying to enter or leave the services like many left handed trucks do

I normally get keys for motor then have to drive to get tri ( 15 mins ) then I can normally get ( 30 ) in on bay at collection / drop , it saves struggling to park in services & gets you back earlier
Did a drop & swap job for a week, 15 mins dropping , 30 mins picking up tri , obviously it doesn’t take 45 mins to drop / pick up tri so you still get a break
I’m assuming op is new to this game , you’ll pick these tricks up over the years

Worse in the south east . I mainly night out up north usually a few spaces left over night the MSA I park at , my biggest gripe are the night trunkers who park in front of you for 45 with there engine ticking over for most of the Time or walking round the vehicle on the phone talking at the top of there voice . Park in front of me by all means but keep the noise down chaps
Thank you .

South East parking is a pain. I spend most of my time around Birmingham or Stoke by 5pm am parked up. Mostly at Hollies

ETS:
There’s a bunch of trailers parked up at services parking bays. Every time I have to resist the urge to take a dump under one of them. People used to park on the hard shoulder after the services exit but maybe police craked down on that

You can always park on the access road inside and block/hinder anyone else trying to enter or leave the services like many left handed trucks do

Our Euroland colleagues may be used to parking in Germany or the Netherlands, were the situation is very similar to here. They don’t have enough parking either. The (free) motorway parking areas are equally rammed early afternoon there, and they’ll park on any available patch.

ETS:
People used to park on the hard shoulder after the services exit but maybe police craked down on that

This is common in many countries but the police here don’t allow it.