Does 20 hours off duty = two ten hour breaks?

Yeah, that (D) paragraph heading is kinda important. If anybody needs me I'll be standing in the corner with the dunce cap on.

 

You had good intentions. I've been off OTR for a number of years, bu I thought it sounded "logical" considering the DOT~!!

 

Don't log the entire 20 hrs on line 2 if the DOT sees that he will ask questions.If you get a room then you log it all off duty line 1.Lines 1 and 2 combined will give you hrs back at midnight.Youre in your trk so you need to log at least 8 hrs in the sleeper and then you can go to line 1 for the remainer of your brk..

 

I skipped ahead. So forgive me.....

If you are on paper logs, get out log book number 2.

 

Are you on paper logs? If so, no problem.

Are you on e-logs? If so you're ####ed. Call the broker. Call as early as possible so the broker can let the customer know. Almost always with general freight it's okay to be late IF you communicate early and often.

 

You absolutely did the right thing. Communication as early as possible is key to keeping the receiver, broker, dispatcher, customer service representative, salesman, and driver happy. Now the receiver has an updated ETA and can plan accordingly. They can rearrange THEIR schedule of dock doors to make room for offloading and sorting your load. Had you delayed giving the news of your delay the receiver could have been dealing with a cluster "clutch" with "your" dock now in the middle of uncertainty.

Early in my solo OTR dry van career I was sitting in Laredo and offered a load to Las Vegas. I was fairly low on my 70, with recap hours coming back in a day, but I figured I couldn't make the delivery time and declined it.

Then I started second guessing myself, broke out the computer and built a spreadsheet to analyze my hours and still showed I would have to stop for a 10 about two hours short of delivering a JIT load.

Then I got offered a load to San Diego with more time on it and accepted. During that run I pretty well confirmed that I would have been two hours short to Las Vegas, based on when I bypassed Phoenix. As it was I had a 3 hour day of driving from Yuma to the top of the pass before descending the mountains to San Diego. That three hours was all that was coming back on my 70. It meant the difference from suffering in sweltering heat in Yuma versus a nice cool breeze at the summit at a casino with 15 hours until midnight.

 

This post is not directed toward anyone in particular, really just what is on my mind as I read through these posts. What in the hell has happened to training in this country? I know this may sound funny but I can remember a time when a driver could stop at a scale house and ask a scale cop about a log question. A safety dept almost always had an old hand that could do the same. You could go and sit in most any truck stop and there would be a guy in there holding in most cases a good accurate log class. 20, 30 years ago rookies were not this ignorant of the logging laws AND THERE WAS NOT AS MUCH INFORMATION AVAILABLE TO THEM! In case somebody gets all excited about my use of the word (ignorant) is is not used to cause a fight just telling the truth. I'm glad this forum is here and for the most part good information is to be had. However I am not speaking about this forum. I am speaking about the training the new drivers is getting. It seems in a lot of cases to really be pathetic!

 

When you ask if you can take 20 hours in the sleeper, that makes me think you think your quote unquote "10" must be logged all Sleeper.

NO it does not need to be. The only time you must log sleeper is when your body is in the sleeper. That goes for teams and that goes for Split Break Provisioners.

To answer your question though, no taking 20 hour quote unquote qualifying "10" will not double your available driving hours.

Next you said taking a 34 will make you 4 hours late. OK take 20 hour break and be 14 hours early, or am I missing something?

Makes me think you think a 34 is required. NO it is not ever required. 34 is an option, never required. 34 has only been around since 2004. Prior to that all truck drivers ran off Recap hours all the way back to the 1930's. Funny how in a short span of 13 years all that knowledge has been lost.

So to conclude, 10 hours, 20 hours or even 34 hours offduty / sleeper will still only qualify as the same as only 10 hours off in regard to available driving hours after said break.

For a qualifying 10 hour break you are never required to log Sleeper for all or even part of your break; you may log line 1 Off Duty to qualify the "10".

If, however you did spend time in the Sleeper you must log Sleeper. So simple. Do it as you log it , log it as you do it.

You do 20 hours straight in the sleeper it will raise questions of falsification. Where did you use the restroom is number 1 and number 2 (lol) question.

What if you are involved in a fatality crash next week, not even your fault and their lawyer sees you swiped your ATM card during the time your logs show Sleeper? BUSTED.

 

The only regs that states you have to log sleepr berth is when you do an 8/2 split. The 8 hrs has to be logged as sleeper berth. The 2 hrs can br logged in any combo of sleeper or off duty.

 

I also feel that training has gone downhill. Going by some of the problems that has come up, I realize that the quality of my training has been quite good (More or less) compared to what might be offered today.

I too would like to see more training in the little things that make a trucker able to deal with problems with more freedom and independance. What I see coming out of schools do not have that freedom to do things on their own. In some cases it's possible the person might have never been handed a set a keys, fuel card some money and told see you in 10 days or whatever. Get going. They need a list to go by or someoone to hold hands as they get going.

I also share the idea that Im talking about training in general today compared to back then. There is a loss and I don't like it. If the US Military had such losses in training, we would have lost more people in battle than we have already.