Question about the 70 hour/8 day rule

If you only look at a one week snap shot .... then burning down the hours and taking a reset looks like the best way.

In actuality, it's a math problem. Run the window long enough and it all equals out wether you use up your hours in 7 days or you run an average of 8.75.

I just let the loads dictate how I use my hours. Sometimes I burn them up and restart. Other times I run off recap.

 

In a perfect world the reset will easily allow you to run more. Of course it's not a perfect world, I was just pointing out how it could work out based on the post I was responding to.

Personally, I reset at home each week and have no desire to spend hours in truckstops, so the more hours I can drive while out the better.

I average more hours than someone running off the recap could but that's partly because I'm on Canadian rules half of the time.

 

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Where in the world does this crazy idea come from? Please show me how it equals out. With a reset, a driver can use his 70 every 7 days. If it takes 8 days to do that running recap, just how in the world does the recap runner catch up? Last I checked, an average of 10 hours/day is more hours than 8.75 hours/day, no matter how big the window is!

 

Every midnight you would pick up hours from a week ago from your recap. If at the top of your recap is a big fat goose egg, you'll have to wait for midnight again OR sometimes 24 or more hours has gone by since you last shutdown therefore just kick it a few more hours and get 34 off duty.

Remember, you can be on Line 4 til the cows come home. No limit there. It's just when that 70 number comes up you may not drive commercially at that point until you pick up some more time.

Me, I prefer to run every day if I can, 34 resets breeds laziness in me. Once I'm sitting for that long, I want to sit all week. Oftentimes, I'm not rested at all when I accept the load assignment coming off reset, then takes several days to get back into the 'work' mode. Another thing that messes me up is driving days for several days then driving nights all of a sudden or vice-versa, my sleep goes out the window, have to nap during the 14, only getting a few hours sleep during the 10 til I get back into the groove.

 

I don't live to work -- I work to live.
I'll leave the former for all the die hards and super truckers out there.
That said I take my weekends off regardless of what dispatch wants.
Yeah, you can get canned fer that.
But the outfits that insist otherwise aren't worth workin for anyway.

 

Where are you going if your not loaded? What if you can't deliver early and have to sit? Some may, but, not all can run and reload to burn your 70 in 6/7 days. Freight will dictate what works best this week and next week may be different.

Best suggestion is to know the rules and use them to your own best advantage.

 

After running 7 days you have to take essentially a day and a half off - 34 hours. So in 17 days you have 3 days off and run 14 days and have 140 hours at 10 hours a day. 17 consecutive days at 8.75 hours is 148.75 hours.

 

Ok, lets try this perfect scenario again. Each day you start at 7 am. Each day you have 45 minutes of line 4 for fueling, pti and what not. Each day you also drive 11 hours and take a break or two so you utilize the full 14 and finish each day at 9pm. As of 9pm on the sixth day you have used exactly 70 hours. 34 hours later it is 7 am on day 8. So now you start each week at the same time on the same day of the week and average 10 per day overall which works out to 11.75 hours a day for 6 days with the 7th day off.

That's not realistic in most cases but with good dispatching running pretty darn close to the 70 in 6 days and then doing a reset and starting again on day 8 isn't too far fetched.

 

Let's just stop playing with hypotheticals and do as others have suggested and work with the freight that you're given.

 

Working with the freight I'm given I do average more than someone could running off the recap. I'm not about to post my logs on here so hypotheticals it is. But if you look at my perfect scenario, doing some minor adjustments for things like spending more than 45 minutes on line 4 during days when you hit a dock, not driving the full hours due to the truck stop not being exactly where you would need it to and what not it shouldn't be hard to relate it to your own situation and see how you could end up running more doing the reset.

Looking at it a different way, an average of 8.75 hours a day spread over 6 days is the equivalent of logging a little under 10.25 hours day for 6 days and then taking the 7th off. So if you can run at least 61.25 hours in 6 days you can take the 7th day off and run as much as someone running off the recap. I could be wrong but I imagine most people could work it that way if they wanted a day off a week as opposed to working every day.