The 34 Hour Reset?

OTR drivers take resets at truckstops.Id rather find a job delivering around my state so I can take my reset at home.Hard to make a decent living nowdays.With the restart the low pay and high cost of everything.

 

The 34 hour reset is an option. You are not required to take it. You can run the recap like you did before.

 

It is also an option to decide whether or not to use the reset. That is the drivers choice, a company cannot require you to do a reset, you can meet the requirements of the reset but decide to recap your hours. Its sad that nearly all drivers now think they have to have a reset every weekend or they will not be able to work.

 

When I ran solo OTR I rarely took a 34 on the road. I preferred to run continuously off of recap hours for weeks at a time. Sometimes lack of loads meant I'd take an impromptu reset. Although I remember a calculated reset when I was under a load that had an appointment for a live unload. I figured out I could squeeze in a 34 hour reset along the way, and picked a nice casino that spread a poker game. Played 8 hours and qualified for a free hotel room, and made money at the table. Nicest and most profitable on-the-road 34 hour reset I ever had.

 

The short answer is the new rules suck.

1. You MUST have two consecutive days between 1 am and 5 am to qualify for a reset.

2. You have to wait 168 hours (7 days) from your last reset to start a new reset.

I don't care for either of these rules. They are particularly hard on teams. Used to be I could get a "rolling reset" on the road if I missed a shift while waiting for a load, or take a reset a couple of days apart, whatever worked best for maximizing my time. Now with these ridiculous rules I can't take a reset unless I wait 7 days, and if I don't finish a shift by 1 am, then I must take over 50 hours to get a 34 hour reset.

Hopefully Congress will pass legislation to change these rules.

 

Lepton essentially explained the 34 hour reset. This is how the recap works.

Your recap hours work like this.

Depending on how you run, you work either the 8 day, 70 hour work week or the 7 day. 60 hour work week. Most of us run and use the 8 day.

You are allowed 14 hours a day to work once you start your clock and work. Your drive time is set at 11 hours. If your 14 hour clock runs out and say you still have 1 hour drive time left, you must stop driving.

Contrary to popular belief, you can still work beyond and past your 14 hours, but keep in mind, you must take a 10 hour break before you can drive again.

Starting with Day 1, your number of duty hours adds up to 13. This includes driving, fueling, unloading, pre trip, post trip etc. At the end of the day, you now have 57 hours left on your 70 hour work week.

Day 2 - 8 hrs total (49 hrs left)

Day 3 - 9 hrs total (40 hrs left)

Day 4 - 5 hrs total (35 hrs left)

Day 5 - 5 hrs total (30 hrs left)

Day 6 - 13 hrs total (17 hrs left)

Day 7 - 10 hrs total (7 hrs left)

Day 8 - **Today, you only have a maximum of 7 hrs to do everything - drive, work, fuel, load, unload etc. After that, you must shut it down.**

Your RECAP now comes into play here on Day 9, which is essentially now back to Day 1 of your second work week.

Now, go back up to day 1, week 1. On that day, you worked a total of 13 hours.

That means today you get those hours back. You now have a total of 13 hours in which to do everything. Anything less, now gets added to the next day, in addition to those hours for that day you worked last week.

Bear with me here. Say for example, now, on this day, you did not work all 13 hours, but only worked a total of 10. You now have another 3 hours to add to tomorrow's clock (Day 2, Week 2) in addition to the hours on Day 2, Week 1, that you worked. Now, go back to Day 2, last week. On that day, Day 2, you worked a total of 8 hours. Take that 8 hours, add the 3 hours left that you didn't work on this day, and for tomorrow, you will now have a total of 13 hours in which to do everything.


Bottom line is this - If you're running paper, it's still all laid out for you with nothing more than simple addition and subtraction. Just don't make the mistake of chicken scratching numbers and wind up adding an 8 when it should have been a "3" which will lead you to a logbook violation.

If you wind up running an EOBR (aka ELOGS) all the math is done for you. All you do is enter your duty status and Big Brother does all the rest.

**EDIT FOR CLARIFICATION** The last thing you should be aware of, if you're already not, is sometime before your 8th hour FROM THE START OF YOUR DUTY DAY, you must now take a 30 minute Off Duty Break.

Hope this helps.

 

The Reset was great for LTL like I did for so many years .When I had first started keeping a log nobody told me anything about how to do it .I was resetting for each new week .We did Monday to Friday .
Ya I Know must have been nice . IT was, but the pay was not, Life s a series of trade offs Anyhow I caught Hell for doing it wrong from a Bear and then a few years later they changed to what I was doing in the first place. The Powers that be are so on top of everything. I Guess that is why we are all so impressed with them NOT