What kind of schedules do people drive?

That's a funny post, right there^^^^^

Something tells me you drive during the day when almost every other trucker does if you don't understand digger's quick r&r comment.

Late at night, while all you diurnal people are sleeping, the fuel islands,aren't near as busy. All the parking spots are gone.

 

For OTR irregular route Dry Van drivers, you drive anytime and all the time. Irregular means Irregular. When i had long runs, I always figured everything on a 22 hour cycle if there was no pickup or delivery that day. Usually 625-675 miles. 12 hours to fit in my 11 hours of driving, PTI, fueling, P!$$ breaks and a hit-n-run snack. Shower and dinner occured during my 10 hour break. Many times you can knock out 2 or 3 of these in a fuel stop.

 

I do flatbed. generally run 3am-3pm, with plenty of exceptions of course.

 

I see me and you think alike.Ooops is that a bad thing. LOL.

 

My preferred schedule is 5pm to 5am.

I run nights and the wife runs days.

 

in a perfect world you can max out your 70 hours just by driving 8.75 hours a day but we don't live in a perfect world.

I drive regional and am home weekends so I max out my 11/14 every day and get a reset every weekend. shorter runs mean I will run out of my 14 before my 11 but when I get long runs (500 miles or so) I am running out my 11 every day.

 

Yeah, I could see where Teams could just about lock in a schedule if the freight is moving.

 

I prefer to run over night, but my current schedule is up at 3 am and run out my time each day.

 

As stated in the thread, your loads pretty much dictate your schedule, along with your logs. I learned that If I try to drive from 5am-4pm, plus whatever off/on duty time that day. I can maintain that schedule most of the time. I've noticed I get better rest/sleep when I keep a consistent schedule.

I like driving at night. It's ok for a couple of days, then you may have a live load/unload when your supposed to be sleeping, during the day, and it throws things out of wack.

 

Not all teams maintain a set schedule like we do. I've talked to several teams that have their days and nights flipflopped all the time. The only reason we do it is because I'd rather drive at night and she'd rather drive in the daytime. Plus, for us, it minimizes the chances of falling victim to fatigue especially for me since I'm constantly going against my body's natural instinct to sleep at night. Keeping a schedule
Greatly reduces that.

As far as a solo keeping a schedule, its not that hard to accomplish. Two years ago when I had to hit the road alone, my DM did an excellent job of working my deliveries and pickups around my schedule which was between three and four in the morning to 2:30-4pm in the evening. Only a few times in 5 weeks did I have to stay up later and start my day at a later time.