Out of hours at shipper/receiver

I have one trailer and it is an expensive reefer... I am not just dropping the trailer there and leaving ...

 

I hear you on the expensive etc. Im talking as what Ive done as a company driver a time or two. That freight is going to remain at the shipper/reciever. I might not still have a job and someone else will have to go there and unload it. Hence the yelling.

There is a certain amount of freedom in those days when the company has to corral 14,000 trailers and find that more than a few are sitting not unloaded yet on the customer around the USA. It's a headache for someone.

 

I'm aware this is an old post but I've landed here several times in the past year or more because this happens to me often. For various reasons, too many to list, things happen. Even if the shipper/receiver/lumpers do their best to get a driver in and out things happen that cause delays.
Here's an article I could find on this quickly. Give at least some of it a read.
FMCSA to allow drivers hours flexibility in finding parking after leaving shipper/receiver

If you have electronic logs go to Off Duty and in the remarks menu will be something like "PC - Safe place to rest" and choose that. Then if you do get pulled over or something happens you have that and your explanation that the customer ran you out of HOS and wouldn't let you stay on the property so you had no choice but to go to the nearest safe place to park.

Note there are key words there....
Safe
Place

An exit or merging ramp or the shoulder (no matter the size) of the road is not a safe place to park. Go as far as you need to go to get to a lot that allows truck parking that has space to park available.

If you're a company driver the company should have an office department that can help (edit) your logs. They can't and won't always cover up HOS violations but there are things they can and will do.

There is no excuse they have to accept if you park where you should not. If you're illegally parked you're illegally parked. Nobody can do anything to get you out of that kind of mess you got your self in to if you made the bad decision to park where you should not and you got snagged for it. Park safely and legally and you have nothing to worry about.

 

take a few minutes to write an email to your dispatcher (email so it is documented and time stamped) then determine the closest safe place to go and go. include in your email that you were told to move and where you were trying to go. if you have to find another place to be after that, write a follow up email. this shows something resembling proof if a DOT officer asks you about it.

 

so your position is, "but mom, all the other kids are doing it"?

 

Notify your dispatcher as soon as you think there might be a problem. Assuming you have 3 hours left on the clock when you arrived to allow 2 hours to load/unload and an hour to get a truck stop then, at the latest, when you got down to one hours left on the clock you should have notified dispatch. An hour after you appointment if they haven't started loading/unloading you should have contacted dispatch. Unless it's bulk it's likely going to take at least an hour, perhaps longer. You have reason to think there's a problem at that point.

It isn't that you need to contact dispatch with every little problem, but most certainly the ones you have no solution to. When there was no sign of movement an hour after your appointment then, certainly, go in and ask what's up. Ask if you can go out on the dock. Try to gather some information, but if you don't have a resolution contact dispatch. They might be able to get the customer to allow you to disconnect and leave. Logs might authorize you to use off-duty driving once loaded. They might be able to get a different driver in there. They might choose to tow the truck off the customer's property. The longer you delay notifying them the fewer options they have.