Swift - Current Idle Policy

My DL wants us to stay below 50% idle. Which isn't tough to do. I was in new York state for a few days last week. 60 degree nights. I cracked my sleeper windows, and cranked my fan. It was glorious.

 

I'm a Swift local driver out of Charlotte. I idle pretty much all the time. I haven't been scolded yet, and if they do write me up nothing will change.

 

Couple winters ago my bunk heater crapped out on a 9 degree night. Idled the truck up with full heat til it was uncomfortable then shut it down and went to bed. My dog and I woke up breathing frost. It is very risky having the truck shut down for hours and hours with temps below 15 degrees; may not get the truck restarted.

The qualcomm has a feature to see the fuel temperature, I had 3/4 tanks that night and the fuel was well over 100 degrees so I knew it would take a long long time to gel up the tanks. But it is really the skinny little fuel lines you have to worry about. They can freeze up and not deliver fuel and boom you're in a very dangerous situation.

 

Not to mention the fuel filters. I've had a couple freeze up, once just after I added some anti-gell stuff.
If there is water in the fuel and you add it, it will collect it into little ice particles which will end up in the filter.
Live and learn, I guess.
It costs a lot more to tow and clean out than it does to idle a few hours.

Too hot or cold, the truck stays idling.
Period.

 

We figured you did, "Jerry",

 

Your posts are very funny, in a hamstring sort of way.

 

I'm with you, F that, in AZ it's 112 normally, sure as hell am not going to be happy at no heat at anything under 60...

 

But the thing is, 'Jerry' is right.
While they may rag about idle time, in the same message it will also say to stay comfy just to be rested and safe.
I always took that part of the message to be of more importance than to keep my idle time down.

Swift wants and NEEDS to save on fuel costs. Us company drivers would want the same if we were paying for the fuel.
What they need even more is well rested drivers that don't make mistakes.
Our CSA score is in the tank, and we don't need even more violations due to fatigue.

What they really need is for us to not idle when we don't really, really need to.
But at the same time they want us safely rested, which means idling when we need to.
It is a fine balancing act, to be sure.

I try. I really do.
But if I get too hot, I'll idle until the temp is low enough. If the bunk heater is not doing well enough, I idle with no second thoughts.
My habits have not changed over the past ~5 years, and they have stopped evening mentioning it for the past 2 years.