Do you run illegal on your logs?

But why would anyone want to??????????

 

Because some of us would rather be driving than making a dozen stops in the city

 

All those miles wear out the truck too fast and burn too much fuel. Oh and all those extra stops are more money for me. The can add as many stops as they want to my day. Not to mention when the truck is stopped I am still making money and not burning any fuel or wearing anything out, I love really long stops the most. Trucking is a business, not a "lifestyle". That is the problem with the trucking industry, too many of these "trucking lifestyle" idiots, and the whole "get lotsa miles" mentality. In business the goal is to "get lotsa dollars"

 

I don't think it is so much an understanding of how the "split breaking" works. The reason things like breaks and line 4 times get fudged constantly by many drivers is becauses the real world aspect of what goes on makes it very difficult to make a good living doing so.
As someone that has hauled many a load of produce, I can verify that had I ran my log book legally, I know what would have resulted.

• I would have gotten the worst appointment times for the delivery, because I couldn't get back early enough
• My home time would have been drastically reduced
• My pay would have been drastically reduced

Here is why:
Virtually no produce pickup is going to be logged 15 minutes legally. First off, you are required to count the freight, verify the temperature of the produce, as well as the condition of the produce and the containers it is in. You are on the dock the whole time you are at the stop, and by the time you finish 7-8 pickups, you would have had to logged 8-10 hours of line 4 time. You also have to factor in that there is roughly 30-45 minutes usually between the pickup locations. By the time you get all of this done, your log book would be such a mess you would be pulling your hair out.

If you do all of that stuff legally, it is going to result in a load that was a Thursday Morning scheduled delivery, being rescheduled for Friday Morning. So instead of deliving on Thursday, dropping the truck off for maintenance, cleaning, and for the local driver to pick up your outbound load, going home to spend the rest of Thursday, Friday, and part of Saturday at home..... You are now delivering on Friday, receiver is jerking you around because they are pissed that the load is a day later than they wanted it, you get home Friday evening after a very annoying wait to be unloaded, and are right back out the door on Saturday feeling like you haven't had any time off.

As for most appearing to run legal, I think there is a reason that is looks like this. I have no way to prove this, but I would hazzard a guess that most who do fudge on their log books don't feel comfortable admitting in in a public forum, as this is all documented. They just quietly go about their business of doing what they do and figure it is best to stay quiet about it in a medium like this.

Now for the disclamer

With the above said, I never did any of that, it was a "friend" that told me. I would never do that.

Seriously. It is because of the above scenarios that I will not go back to produce hauling. The money was great, and the time off was great. The company i worked for was great. They rewarded me for busting my tail to get the pickups made quickly and get back to Texas without wasting any time. My reward was having the local driver always go pickup my outbound load, truck was full of fuel, and since most of us delivered at the same place with out outbound freight, I got the load that delivered first.

Using common sense, what I did made things easier on me, and got me far more "good" rest and family time. But... Using common sense applied to how strict things are getting, I know that doing this today would be a bad idea and I won't go back to doing that. My days of creative logging 101 to the extent I did in the past, are over. I have come to the realization that a big part of this Country hates truck drivers and blame us for everything that happens on the road. Have a wreck today, and no matter if it is your fault or not, you will most likely be investigated just to see if they can "possibly" find something wrong that you have done. There are now so many ways to go back and bust a company for illegal logs, that it simply isn't worth it, at least for me personally.

 

How do you figure running miles wears out the trucks? I drive both local and otr. My day cab has 200k miles on it and my bunk has 350k on it. Trust me when I tell you my bunk is in MUCH MUCH MUCH better condition than my day cab is. It's not running down the interstate that wears out a truck it's bouncing around in town. Sure your motor may be in better shape after 5 years but the rest of that truck is slap worn out or has already been replaced. My bunk is 3 years old AND HAS 350K and everyone thinks it's a brand new truck when they see it. You show me a city truck with 350k that looks brand new.

Now this is just a friendly discussion as far as I am concerned as I love a debate but you start calling people idiots and it's going to get nasty fast

 

I am going to flat out tell you, I have a very low opinion of the "trucking lifestyle" people with their chrome, chicken lights, sharks teeth on the grill, big radio, antennas pointing forward like frickin horns or something, and the whole "run hard, give me lotsa miles" mentality.

 

I can understand that. There is lots of aspects of the industry I don't like too. I'v been around long enough to know what it used to be and I don't neccesarily like where it's going but i'm not about to strt insulting people over it.
We obviously have different ideas of the good life. I would much rather run 700 miles in a day out west than drive 150 miles in town making drops I'v done and still do both so I'm not spouting off about something I have no knowledge of. And it's not just money. I can make $2300 every other week pretty easily runing locally which is real good. But I can make $3k to $4k running the coast. But then again I don't have a job that wants me to turn around right away and leave again ike most otr drivers have. I ca take time off r go drive locally for a few days.

 

I think most of you guys don't realize how profitable local runs can be to a truck owner. I hate to disclose finances but what the heck. Right now I am on a job hauling steel beams and related hardware to a contractor who is doing power line work in NYC it is almost exactly 200 miles a round trip. My carrier is billing them $100 an hour from 7AM to 7PM and $140 an hour from 7PM to 7AM. We also bill for all tolls and a fuel surcharge that reduces my actual fuel cost to 1.50 a gallon. Most of my runs have been at night. I run up there about 3 times a week. We bill 10 hours minimum. Most runs are in the 12 to 14 hour range with the longest being 17.5 hours. Of this I get paid 76% of the gross. I spend about $100 in fuel and get almost half of that back. My truck is paid for and I do all my own repairs. I am renting trailers though and this is costing me about $240 a week. It can be a lot of work though. I have to back up multiple times during the unloading process and some of the places are very tight and dark. I have to say the crew up there is great though, they will move a light tower in if I need it, and they even cut a fence down because I told them it would be hard to back around. All in all I like this run. Even coming home in the morning and getting stuck in traffic on the GW bridge is no big deal if you know you are getting paid for it.

 

I hauled drilling motors, shock jars, and mwd equipment for an oilfield service hotshot outfit in OKC. This guy had me go from Oklahoma City to south central Kansas where I had to work 12 hours getting downhole wireline out of an old pumpjack, I was helping a crew. I then had to ginpole the spool of wireline, a large capacitor, a filter, and another electrical item onto a flatbed. It took forever because I could just barely lift everything above the level of the trailer, I was working in sand, I sank many times. I then finally got all that loaded and left Kansas for Odessa Texas. Odessa is a festering hair follicle in the greasy armpit of the oil world. Every tree in that place, and I mean every single one had and has to this day at least two plastic grocery bags caught in it's branches. The place is nothing but pumpjacks and oilfield waste. Anybody ever see the movie "Friday Night Lights" that movie makes Odessa look a million times more glamorous than it actually is. Well anyway
I drove to Kansas, worked 12 hours, drove to Odessa, offloaded, and then drove back to Okc. for a total drive time of 30 hours and 12 work hours. So I was up for a total of 42 hours. My wife was with me the whole time and she never closed her eyes. I got home haveing not ever really seen so much as a city cop while I was out. And let me tell you, those last hours of driving, well I may as well have been drunk or drugged because that kind of fatigue is what hours of service are all about preventing. I'll admit that was one hell of a payday, but I quit that job that month and went otr with my wife and I can really appreciate not being expected to roll more than 11 hours.