What would do you in this situation?

Why do you feel the need to trash police on

Next time you pass a scale and relay to law enforcement of above comments and see how it goes.

 

Having fuel in the box is not what some of us are getting at, a few gallons is meaningless, if it gets lower than a 1/4 tank, then you have other issues, like pulling crude through the lines and plugging up filters, or freezing fuel.

Keep it full in the winter time, especially when you are going to places where there are hardly any T/S to fuel up.

 

I had a gator fly off and took of a Ford Escort mirror once. I didn't know it happened, I had been sitting on the shoulder for a good 15 minutes before they came back. Come to find out, they were pulled over debating to come back or not. Driver was 14 years old and passenger didn't have a DL.

They were wanting cash and for me not to call the cops. I said we either call the cops or they drive away and this never happened. They drove away and that's the last I heard of it.

 

That's the problem with the way some trucking companies do fuel solutions. My company uses fuel solutions and expects us to try to follow them, as it saves them money, and since the price they pay is not what is on the display at their fuel stops, I wouldn't always know where the best priced fuel is. I'm ok with that. If I need to go out of the fuel solution, or if I think it's prudent, they ask that I let my DM know, but I can do so. When I am running oversize, I fuel wherever I can reasonably get in. Other times, I try to stick to stops that tend to pop up on fuel solutions anyway if I'm not following the solution given, and they are ok with it.

Some companies give you a fuel solution, and that's the only place you can get fuel, because that's the only place your card will authorize fuel. Sure, you can fudge things, tell them that you are basically empty and need a fuel stop right now, where you are, but you may only get approved for 20 gallons and then told to go over the mountain to fill up. It's easy for some people to say that this is the responsibility of the driver to never be this low in this situation, but some companies basically force you into that situation.

 

I agree with all of this. I ran a truck for almost a year with an UltraShift, and I got to the point where it was almost always in manual. Certain situations, like slowing down fairly quickly, it didn't like to shift quickly enough in manual to keep up so I'd put it in auto, but most of the time it was in manual.

Then I got put in a freightliner with a DT12, and that thing was even worse about some of the stuff it would do. It was supposed to keep the speed within 3 mph of the cruise, but it wouldn't even start trying to slow you down until you were doing 5 over. No good in the hills, you had to keep changing the speed of the cruise as you went up and down to keep a reasonable speed. Plus yeah, it sometimes does the Ecoast and I'd end up over 10 mph over the speed I had the cruise set at. I don't need that ticket. So then I try just using the pedal in the hills. That's no good either, you have the jake on, you let off the gas, the thing would drop three gears, rpms straight to 2200, trying to get you stopped with the jake like, right the heck now. Broke traction on me doing that in weather that I would never have hesitated to use the jakes in before. So I start using the manual mode. That's no good either, if you are climbing a hill I can't get above 1600ish rpms. I can't shift there going up a hill, the next gear doesn't have enough power to make it, in Auto mode it will go up to 1900 sometimes, and then shift, and you can keep powering up that hill. But manual mode it governed right there at 1600...

Got out of that truck and back into another KW with an Ultrashift. It does the same thing in the hills, can't take the RPMs as high in manual as you can in auto. Other than that it seems world's better than that DT12 though.


These truck makers are trying to make it so we can't or don't want to use the manual mode, but they don't have the auto mode to a place where it is truly safe and effective to use in all conditions. It's pathetic.

 

I didn't say you were full of bull crap. I said that what you said was full of bullcrap, and that's different.

You and I both know that when people talk about the the safe haven rule they are referring to what the fmcsa refers to as the adverse conditions rule. I won't go into a long winded explanation of the rules there, only I will say that the rule, as written, doesn't match up with the interpretation of it I've heard from DOT officers and FMCSA representatives that have been interviewed on various radio programs. I know full well that it doesn't allow you to go past your 14, but that doesn't seem to be how it gets interpreted or enforced, even though the law itself is very straight forward.

I will say that I won't do what RR did, except I have driven past my 14 twice as the result of a breakdown that left me stranded on the side of the road. Both times I was very close to my destination with less than an hour left on my 14, one time a tire (super single) blew out, the other I lost a spring holding up my pigtail cord and gladhand hoses, by the time I realized anything was amiss I had lost my lights (what clued me in), I had completely lost my service brake line, and between the time I realized something was wrong and the time I got pulled over less than half a mile down the road my supply line had dragged enough to put a small hole in it and i was losing air pressure fast. Both time I was stuck, couldn't drive without doing a ton of damage to the equipment, and by the time I was fixed I was past my 14, on the shoulder of the freeway in a not safe spot, so I drove to the nearest safe parking, or as some people choose to call it, the nearest safe haven. The first time that happened the nearest safe parking was a scalehouse, where I walked in and let them know what happened, including the fact that I was past my 14, and got permission to park it there for the night. No issues with them at all.

 

I am not so thin skinned that I worry about the distinction.

However, I am concerned that somebody might read into your insult that something I said was other then the truth; The truth is their is not any DOT rule that allows you to extend your HOS past your 14 to get to a "Safe Haven." http://blog.uscargocontrol.com/hours-service-exemption-adverse-driving-conditions/ "Safe Haven" is just the indicator that you just about to hear some BS that got passed around at the truck stop from a lunch counter lawyer!

Nor is the knowledge of the rules "pedantic." I will guarantee in the OP's case the wrong assumption perpetrated by people like you, is going to cost him. Despite the great info you get at the lunch counter or on the radio, most log violations are not enforced by the FMSCA. Swift will handle this guys log violations, even if he is lucky enough not to get pulled in the scale before his bad logs drop off his ELD. Swift write him up for 3 or 4, maybe 5 or many more, depending on how many other violations this guy racked up without noticing. Believe me, now they will look closely at all this guys logs, and things that may have gone unnoticed before will be front and center for them. Add on to that the 1 (maybe 2 or 3 more) preventable accidents (that we know about) to his risk assessment. And this guy will have enough reason for Swift to fire him.

Swift won't do that just yet. They will give him a second chance, and he will have a sudden death opportunity to work for Swift: One more safety violation in a year will get him fired. I don't think that is a joke or something "pedantic." I have more respect for this guys job and career.

 

Wow! And the mudflap stayed intact with all that chaos going on.