Is there a company that doesn't work you over 8-9 hours?

i always wanted to be as close to my delivery as possible, so i'd drive my max hours. then get better rest as i was closer, rather than further away.

 

Me too.You never know if something happens.Its better to be close to receiver then a couple hundred miles away.That part of good trip planning.

 

Hours? No. Does not work that way.

 

Just ignore the big shots that work 14 hours every single day, they're full of it.
What kind of job are you going to do? OTR or local?

 

the 70 hour rule limits OTR to only averaging about 8 hours drive time in a 14 hour window per day.
However, some rare days you may have to drive 11 hours, but not often.
Your big thing is dealing with the training, trying to sleep in a moving truck and still be rested to drive. It sucks, but remember that it won't be long til you have your own truck.

 

Why is anybody grilling this guy for only wanting to work 40 hours a week? It's not like most of these companIes pay OT anyway.

When I was doing a bid run at my company, I made sure my run was an 8-9 hour day because I wasn't getting paid overtime.

 

Like mentioned, the 70 hour rule will limit you to an average of less than 9 hours a day. That's an average. If you never take a day off or do a reset.

Many of us reset weekly and an 8 or 9 hour day seems like a lot of wasted time. 12 or more isn't at all unusual for me on the days I work and that's fine with me.

Everyone's different though and if you're happy working almost every day you should have no problem averaging 8 or so hours. The loads will probably dictate you work more some days, like Patty said, but if you work with the company and your overall miles for the week are acceptable, you should be OK.

 

I don't know if anything has improved as far as being able to pick a spot, a legal spot to sleep off your hours when your driving time is up.

A large part of your stamina to continue working day after day, week after week for potentially months at a stretch depends on your fluid intake, food intake and your overall physical health. You are going to learn what it means to be tired 300 miles from delivery against a mountain winter storm that has increased in intensity ahead of you for example. Or have a few sleepless nights when the tornadoes walk the earth around your truckstop.

Im not here to make negative comments, just bear in mind that what trip planning you do, done right will reveal to you several things, Where you will be sleeping, if you can make customer on time and so on. You will get used to that rather quickly.

The most friction might occur when you tell dispatch you are not going to be able to drive the last 2 hours to the customer for delivery because you are out of hours for the day. They may not be able to get a new appointment time for you on that short notice. I have had that happen but usually with advanced notice by staying in touch with Dispatch.

Once in a while they would cry tears and beg. So the load gets delivered, logs be ######. Usually I exact some kind of something back for the favor. But do not make a habit of it.