To drivers coming off a highway shoulder.

*incoming ELD blamers*

 

One of the main reasons I'm processing my exit from trucking. I deal with these ########s at least once a week. One day I'll have no options. I'm not waiting that long.

 

It's called anal/cranial inversion. And there's a hell of a lot of it around.

 

A lot of these guys drive til the last minute ticks off their 8 hour clock and are forced to take a 30 minute break wherever they land. They don't understand simple math, instead of burning down to 00:01, maybe stop any time from 02:00 to 00:01 and you'd only have to take one 30 minute break. It is the same mentality of these guys who believe a 34 hour reset is mandatory.

Was just watching a youtube vlogger talking about turning a load down because he didn't have the hours, but he did have the hours on his recap lol. He thought since he had 5:54 left on this 70 he wouldn't be able to do that 840 mile run that delivers tomorrow. He was even scrolling through his screens and messages, his DM was messaging him that he did have the hours and he responded with curse words and gave his 2 week notice.

 

My observation is that it is often not in my best interest to take a 34, even if a potential opportunity presents itself (I am not referring to time off or home time). I have charted it several times, and as long as I have good hours coming back, I can actually keep running more effectively without the reset. I also have less risk of running out of hours a few days down the road as compared to if I had taken the reset (because every day I gain a few hours as opposed to the "0" hour days that follow your reset). It requires thinking and planning, but it has worked out that way several times.

 

I agree, I don't believe in resets. However I see the planners are totally confused because this is shaping up to be the 3rd week in a row running 1500, 1800, and this week, 1600 miles. They see I run down to an hour left on my 70 but they fail to see I am picking up 10's for the next 4 days and will be afraid to stack me with miles.

 

How are you running low on your 70 hours when you're barely driving.
Are you logging too much on Line 4 ?

 

Well, the first week was like that, ending the day with 1 or fewer hours on the 70 and picking up 10's. The next week the loads were throttled back I guess so the system was trying to build my 70 bank up. I would end with 12 hours one day, 18 hours the next day and 22 hours the next day and so on. Due to the nature of the delivery after the pay period, I'd end up with crappy miles the second week-- 1800. This week had two tire problems which will likely lock me into a 1600 mile week. The previous week I repowered two other loads from dillhole drivers who don't know how to tripplan and were going to be late, well one of the repowers robbed me of a big mileage load (planners begging me to cover the repower) and the repower itself was late on me which may or may not have caused the planners to want to 'punish' me for that as they forgot it wasn't originally my fault.

My theory on parking on the side of the road-- wait til you see and offramp and get off the go down the onramp side and park along the side at least a full lane away from live traffic. Don't park on the offramp itself because drivers are coming off the freeway full speed. Onramp side they are accelerating from a slower speed rather than decelerating from a higher speed. Plus being an onramp affords a 'runway' to get up to speed safely before merging. Trying to get up to speed along the shoulder is dangerous and rough, debris and crap, uneven pavement and maybe trucks are trapped and can't get over for you all leads to disaster.

 

Decades ago that shoulder was fair game. Park it and sleep.

People died by the dozen ramming those trucks, finally a proper deployment by police across the USA to clear out the sleepers from the interstate shoulder started to reduce but not totally eliminate the killing.

These days Im ###### if I use a shoulder. I usually look for people ahead of me on the shoulder and move over to the left because they WILL pull out in front. And they do. It keeps my spouse calm and not pissed off.

If you MUST use a shoulder, do it on the downgrade side of a hilltop. Better yet get yourself off ramp, across and sit on the onramp near the top. But be careful, the states are getting wise to this and are building concrete triangles etc to physically force you to turn left or right instead of crossing over.

In the past if you took the shoulder radio say you ok driver? A yes resolved the problem and set up a chance to get back out after you got it up to speed first.

Now they make jokes about the elogs and all sorts of crap.

I noticed some of you approve of 1600 miles a week pay to game the system to keep rolling... what? Burn off your 70 hours with twice that pay and take your 34 reset like a good driver. Chances are, you already are ready to have a day off anyhow with that reset. Use it.