Hours of service questions and answers

Nah, you were right. You burn 70 hours in 6.5 days at 11 per day. Add in loading, 15 per day pretrip, and all the other garbage that interferes with actual driving and you can hit it in 5 flat. That's how I usually run. Go all week with maybe a partial day saturday then shut down for the weekend to wait for the place to open monday morning and go again. Works out pretty well. This 8 hours a day bs will just screw everything up. I can't make money like that, waste of my time.

There's also the fact that it will trap more drivers in their trucks to bake or freeze with all the anti idle bs. You can only abuse someone so much before they tell you where to shove it.

 

If I remember correctly it was suggested that the driver spend minimum of 12 hours in sleeper to ensure at least 8 hours of restful sleep (because we're too dumb to sleep when we're tired now).

If this should become law they'd have to double or triple the amount of trucks and drivers out there to make up for the lost capacity or double or triple the number of drivers in the current number of trucks. It is by design a way to turn this job into something Americans will not want to do. Most jobs Americans do not want to do go to a certain demographic that is more than willing to do the job.

 

If FMCSA is stupid enough to propose changes this radical the ATA, OOIDA and all the larger carriers will have a fit over it, and the issue will once again end up in the courts. This is all rumor at this point anyway...

 

I know for a fact that I'm a better driver in the middle of my day than at the end. And I believe that's universally true. People who don't drive get tired when they've worked 11 hours in a day, and we often work more when you add line 4 (not driving) time. A lot of people don't respect this job, including the trucking companies. But I do. Driving is work... hard work. The people who become drivers and quit are the people who thought it was going to be an easy vacation, watching the beautiful scenery all day while piling up the miles. I don't have statistics. But I do have some experience and common sense which tell me that the longer you work, the more tired you are going to get.

Your other concerns are legitimate and it's good that you are pointing them out.

 

It isn't... what is true for you is not necessarily true for anyone else. Read about circadian rhythms, sleep disorders, etc.

A universally (enforced) shorter work day is utter nonsense IMHO. Having been at this game considerably longer than yourself I can assure you that there are days when eight hours is too many and 24 isn't enough.

This is where I think the greatest flaw in the U.S. HOS is:

IMHO the U.S. HOS does not have enough flexibility in the split-sleeper provisions. For a single driver with a sleeper berth (other scenarios are slightly different) the Canadian HOS allows any combination in two periods so long as the shortest one is a minimum of two hours. This way if a 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 hour break is best it is legally available.

There is a provision to defer two off-duty hours to the following day which is extemely helpful on that final leg to home. There are also other provisions like waiting on a ferry, etc. I also agree with the enforced rest times in the Canadian HOS: 1) there must be a minimum of 24 hours rest on or before the 70th hour, 2) the 36-hour reset is mandatory (on the 70/7 cycle... 72 hours on the 120/14 cycle).

Plus, we can drive longer in any given day.

I am highly doubtful any 8 hours of driving provision will pass (it may not even be in the draft forwarded to the OMB)... the loss of income to drivers and congruent increase in the cost of moving freight just won't fly.

 

I would not know how to act only working 8 hours a day.
I think they should just pay all drivers by the hour, time and a half after eight, weekends off.
That way they can get the "safety factor", we won't care if we are waiting to get loaded, unloaded, sitting in traffic, driving or whatever.We get paid for it all.
We won't be speeding and in a hurry.
Paying us by the mile or load percentage encourages speeding.
But then I'm sure they would be shipping in Mexican drivers to work for $1.00/day and we would all be out of work.Is that why we are not closing the border?
And then we would all be dependent on government, hey this sounds like "hope and change" coming true??

 

Follow up:

 

You have an 11 and 14 hr clock. You can be on line 14 for the whole day if you want. But you cannot DRIVE again till you take a 10.

that being said, most companies use the 70/8 rule. If you use simple math, and if you log 15 min pretrip and a 15 post trip (post trip which can be logged on line 4 when you've reached your 11 hr drive limit), if you drive 8.5 hrs then take a 10, you'll NEVER run into your "70". I'm not saying you can't drive more than 8.5 hrs in a day...you obviously can, but you'll also run into your "70" as you near your 7th and 8th day out. If you run 55mph in 8.5hrs, 467 miles is what you can drive in a day. So if you, as a driver, only accept 500-800 mile loads, and turn down anything thats less than 499, you're dumb. If i take 7 400 mile runs, thats 2800mi in a week. and i'll never run anywhere close to my "70".

 

Actually the most you could be driving/on duty not driving combined would 8.75 per day to never hit your 70.

 

actually, i'm logging a 15 min. pre and post trip...so out of that 8.75....which is only a 'work/drive' time...gotta take a half hour off that for PTI. And some companies will 'redflag' your log if, when they do an audit, you dont show any inspection on your truck on line 4.