Frustrated ref Elog HOS. Need suggestions please.

True, but the way I read the OP was that he was at the 12hr mark when he ran out of drive time. If he was stopped in traffic for 15 minutes, and would have recorded that as on-duty (sitting-not driving) he would of made his destination with no violation.

 

You got screwed by your load planner, dispatcher, and lastly, yourself.

Here is some thing else you didn't do..................... call the Shipper/Receiver and ask what the real drop dead time is on the load. You don't always have to deliver by the time the company puts on the QualCom. That is a time that they use to pre-plan you for your next load. Load planners can be complete idiots when they send drivers into bad weather or traffic regions. JB HUNT used to hate me because they would leave me hanging for a full day before I finally got dispatched. Hard to time your sleep when they were being inconsistent and not pre-planning. I would get loads that needed to be some wheres 550 miles overnight. I started calling the receivers to get the real deliver time. Some deliveries were set times and others not. The loads that had wiggle room?................screw em! It gets there when it gets there. It's not a one way street. I told my new driver manager at SNI about my experience with JB, and he was surprised and appreciated that I knew about this. He said that he would always tell me if I asked. If I didn't ask......he would assume that I was good to go. He knew that drivers were not robots.

 

Something I didn't see mentioned was.. you knew from the start that it was going to be tight. When you were sitting in Florida for an accident, you should of called dispatch then and told them there was an issue and try to get rescheduled. Communication is the key.

 

Why is it when someone who has a couple years driving can't figure out how to deal with time management and trip planning, they blame the rules for being unfair. I mean with thousands of trucks out there, many many of them don't seem to have a problem with getting things moved with these rules.

everything runs by the clock ...

 

TexTrucker stole my thunder literally word for word.

Here is how I would've handled it from the get-go.

600+ mi run.... grab the calculator, assuming a 50 mph avg. (Always better to assume a slower speed to account for unforeseens). .... 12 hr drive time.

Ok is the pick up an appt or a open window? An 8 am appt? Let's see if 8 am is do-able.

There is 12 hr drive time, plus a 10 hr break, plus 15 min pretrip, (if fueling, add another 30 minutes). So it is 1420, add those times, the earliest I could be at the shipper would be 1035. Before even moving the truck, I'd be on the phone or messaging the dispatcher and tell them 11am is when I can be there. And let them make the call on what to do.

 

I was going to say the same thing-- whatever the miles are double them then multiply by .01

635x2 = 1270 x .01= 12.7 hours drive time.

 

635 miles, divided by 49 mph is 12.95 or 13 hours. add in 10 hours off duty and 1 hour misc 24 hours. As stated earlier. You have to keep it simple. So if your dispatched and loaded by say 10 am you can deliver by noon tomorrow and have plenty of time to be early for your estimate, shower and all.

 

That's what scares me.....