A group of frustrated truckers gathered to protest excessive wait times at ports in Virginia on Tuesday.

The protesting truck drivers gathered at the Port of Virginia in Portsmouth on March 27th, wielding signs, shouting chants, and explaining their demands to the Virginia Port Authority Board of Commissioners.

The truck drivers say that the wait times at ports throughout the state of Virginia can reach up to five hours, preventing drivers from making money off other loads.

“If I had made three trips, in and out, that’s 75 dollars each way,” said one unnamed truck driver participating in the protests to 13 News Now.

“So sitting here all day for one box cuts out all the other trips,” he explained.

“We hate VIG [Virginia International Gateway]; we really do,” said trucker Leo Cappuccio, another driver participating in the protests.

“Our ability to make a living is at the mercy of personnel and systems that have no consideration or respect for our time or our livelihoods,” added truck driver George Berry, director of local protest group “For Truckers By Truckers” to Pilot Online News.

Even the Virginia Port Authority Board of Commissioners agrees that there is a problem with congestion at ports across the state, and says that their new appointment system, as well as 800 new chassis, should help fix the issues as they work to phase-in the new system and distribute the equipment.

“We’re listening to their specific ideas, and we’ll continue to act on the things that we can do to make it more efficient here,” said Virginia Port Authority CEO John Reinhart.

Rinehart also says that the Virginia Port Authority is hiring additional staff and has instructed its employees to “speak with drivers who have waited more than two hours.”

“I’m going to be frank; we are experiencing some pain and it is a pain that’s also impacting our partners,” Reinhart continued.

“But we’re going to listen today.”

The truckers involved in Tuesday’s protest claim that they are continuing to monitor average waiting times at ports across the state to see if wait times improve, and are hoping to take board members on trucker-guided, unannounced visits to port facilities to check on operations.