pros/cons of overnight driving

Everything phroziac said!

I hate trying to get to sleep in the summer during the day. You'll see alot of people shift to starting later in the day, so they can stop when the suns going down, but then you have trouble finding parking.

Sometimes I like night driving, sometimes I hate it. I feel like the night loads have tighter schedules than the day loads too. Night time in the spring is my favorite dont know why, maybe its the first part of the morning, makes me all happy.

 

I like sleeping in the winter during the day. Free solar heating for the win!

Anyway thats why I like to shut down real late if im driving in the day. Most places begin to have parking available again around 1am.


I basically just flipflopped to driving all day and sleeping all night. Sucks because I dont have a way to heat the truck while im sleeping at the moment. I was sleeping in the daytime and taking advantage of that solar heat!

But I'm going home late tonight or early tomorrow depending on what dispatch does, and wooohoooo.

 

i would have to wholeheartedly agree with this observation; My theory is that no-one really wants to work these shifts, so they figure they might as well make the best of it. More laid back.

 

It is in the regulations that you are only suppsed to drive at the distance you can see with your headlights. I alwys thought this to be a evil joke. Most trucks you can only see about 75 feet in front of you. This would mean that the max safely you could operate is 25 mph!

I personally prefer to drive early morning into the days. My eleventh hour comes about 4pm.

 

I have run in to cool scalemasters during the day, I broke down RIGHT after the sensor pads on I40 just east of Knoxville the other day. Took about 4 hours to get going again. When I pulled up on the scale, I figured for sure he was going to run me around back for a full inspection. All he said was "Glad you got your truck fixed driver!" and sent me on my way.

Had 2 bad tires on the trailer too, got lucky!

 

I have a little different take on this...and it says that customers DO NOT control when or how I drive.

Make the HOS work for you...it even works with Qualcomm company dispatches.

You can set your schedule and stick to it...I've been doing it for years. I never did do really well at driving at night, along about 0300 I'm getting REALLY sleepy.

Traffic...unless its a "rush hour" appointment, traffic can also be avoided...but it takes a little planning and foresight. I'm rarely in rush hour traffic, I'm either just ahead of it or just behind it...with the exception being places like Atlanta where it lasts all day.

 

Not always but usually i do it that way.

but what if youre laid over and all of a sudden at 2am you get a hot load with lots of miles. gotta be picked up last week!

what ya gonna do? say no?

 

I prefer the Phroziac schedule too... start in the early AM before everone else, 11th hour in the late afternoon, before the parking gets tough. When I can.

Overnight hot-shots don't allow that, so its nights when I need to, days when the schedule allows.

A night run during winter bad weather beats any amount of driving when the 4-wheelers are out in the c.r.a.p.

 

I'll agree with what's been posted with one addition.

One thing I don't like about driving in the dark is how hard it can be to find a customer. Street signs can be very hard to see, and a lot of customers don't light their signs. Also, I've had trouble finding the right entrance at night, even if I do find the building.

 

Thats life...crap happens.

If I had to, I'd take the load and get back on my schedule before the next one.