Product Designer Looking for Insight About Sleeping or Lack-There-Of in Trucking

hmmmm I agree with Injun but let also include some specifics.

I am part of a team. I sleep while he is driving and he sleeps when I'm driving. We deal with issues of comfort, safety (ever been slammed into a molded plastic cabinet because some 4 wheeler decides to bounce into your lane and then hit his brakes?) and then there is the lovely idle laws. Take California: if we are at a customer and being unloaded we are required to turn our engine off. This means who ever is sleeping is suddenly plunged into a non air conditioned environment. Heat can build to 150 in a sleeper in the middle of the day within 30 mins or less. HOWEVER, if we had a DOG we would be required by CA law to run the ac. See.....a DOG is more valuable than a person.

Isn't that nice to know?

For those that stop for their sleep, they need places to park. CA has some nifty rest areas that only allow you to park for 8 hours, not the 10 required by federal law to be off duty.

Arizona closed almost all of it's rest areas for over a year. In Maricopa county Arizona you're only allowed to idle for 5 minutes. nice huh? So if you stay at a truck stop in Maricopa county you either have no ac or you break the law.

Try sleeping when it's 118 outside.


*decides to hush* sorry I'm short on sleep and a bit cranky.

 

Last I recall the alleged "educated" were taught pie are square
(last I seen was round)
What leads one to believe they have the slightest inclination of Trucking?
Cant do it,aint a gonna werk . . . . . . .

 

One of the problems is the constantly changing schedule that demands we change ours.
i.e. I have an 0400 unload tomorrow morning. Then I drive 250 miles for another unload. then likely will pick up a load before the day is over and shut down. The next day, I may not start running until 0900, finish at 1500, then deliver at 0200 the next morning.
See how it makes it impossible to 'set' our clocks well?
Personally, I think the design of the sleepers is good. Especially if you compare them to sleepers of 35 or 40 years ago.
There are days I have to just sit so I can set my schedule according to the government mandates. Like someone else said...if I could just run my 14 after a 10 hour break and not worry about the 70 rule, it would be easier.

 

I myself don't drive exhausted. I'll stop and nap. My life and the life of others is to valuable. You see almost all drivers understand this. This is why the regulations are absurd. In no other profession does the govt dictate when you sleep. We're adults, I myself am 54 and I think I know when I need to sleep. The laws began to protect the drivers from companies that would take advantage. But the laws became "nanny" laws.

It isn't just a matter of breaking the law over the idle......but places that will simply not allow you to do so.

And yes the anti idle regulations cause a large number of drivers to suffer and lose sleep.

 

It would be nice if we could stop the 14 hr clock anytime we needed too

 

According to the regulation, we are allowed to drive 11 hours per shift, but it has to be finished within a 14 hour period. We are mandated a 10 hour break after each shift. We are allowed to split that 10, but one part of the split requires no fewer than 8 continuous hours in the sleeper berth, the other 2 hours either off duty or in the sleeper. The 11 and 14 hour rules still apply. The 2 hours counts against the 14, the 8 does not, but in either case, neither the 11 nor the 14 are reset. We have to run off whatever hours are left respectively on those clocks minus what was run previous to the last break. Does that make sense?

Oh, and we only get 70 hours total drive and on-duty time within an 8 day period.

(Add) My idea is give us 11 hours to drive, 12 hours total on-duty/drive time and mandate 10 hours off duty/sleeper time in any 24-hour period, split any way we want to do it. Get rid of that 70 hour thing altogether. All that does is make me pay this week for working a short day last week. It has not a thing to do with how rested I am this week.

 

The change in sleep times is hardest for me. I run mostly loose but some stores are "AT" stores and I have to bump the dock on their clock, not mine. Then other times I run my trailer empty and have too much time left over. So I end my 14 hours early.

I may sleep in the day if my schedule is Vampire hours and then I Off Duty for 15 hours and go into the night the following day.

I cannot think of a gaget to make this easier for me. But, I did find one thing that works and I use as I need it. It's called a nap. I know you want your frozen chicken and I want you to have it, but I'm not gonna kill someone to get it to you.

My truck has a no idle A/C. Works fine if you keep the curtain closed.