Question on shifting a 10-speed, detention time, 34 hour reset and etc.

Shifting is easy and I would just wait and learn in CDL School, much easier to teach a new driver then one with bad habits. Hopefully this will simplify your hours question. You get 11 hours of driving in a 14 hour day after you have taken a 10 hour break. The 34 hour reset you ask about is for your 70 hour clock.

 

You need to be established at ramp speed and in gear before you get into it. If you come off the freeway you are going to be braking, so skipping a number on the way down through the gears. If Yellow Ramp sign requires 30, you are doing 22 or so. That's 6th high barely pulling give or take.

At some point when you drive big rigs long enough with a manual, the actual doing as in shifting becomes no effort at all. You think and it's done.

You say you never had a manual car. That's very good. Because cars ARE NOT BIG TRUCKS in manual at all. Cars are built for dum dum public doing the synchronizing the gears automatically so you can put stick into a gear. Big rigs don't have that. YOU are the synchronizer. Matching RPM to gear. Road speed is not that important at all.

Since you never had a manual car, you don't have any bad habits. Make sure you tell your first instructor that so he can make sure to buckle up good. Shes about to be bucking as you learn.

You can work straight through in a trailer or warehouse until judgement day. There is no limit. 10000 hours? Cool. But you must take off duty a certain hours length or sleeper berth a certain hours before driving a INCH anywhere. Now the exception is personal conveyance to safe parking for food, rest etc after the customer has rudely thrown you off their property. Not all companies allow this.

If you drive say 9 hours to faraway USA, stopped to unload for 5 hours making for a 14 hour work day in scam Inc company delivery dock and have 3 pallets left in the trailer... the law says you are finished until you have had time off in off duty (Hotel) or sleeper. In real life you are going to put in free time moving those three pallets for free. You will still be expected to be moving out when your sleep time is up by dispatcher. And no he wont hear any excuses about extra work in that trailer.

Trucking is not very nice sometimes. There is a constant conflict between what the Government says you will or will not do versus what you can and cannot (Or will not or too lazy or... too stupid to do etc)

 

Most drivers probably skip gears when going from 60 MPH to a full stop. In an 8-speed, I do 8, 6, 4, and then bring it to a stop. If I am empty, I sometimes just do 8 and 6.

Drive time (line-3) and on-duty (line-4) are both technically on-duty. You are allowed to drive up to 11 hrs. within a 14-hr period. The 14-hr period is a timer that is initiated by an on-duy status (line-3 or line-4). So, say you are about to start your day, and you log 3 min on-duty pre-trip insp. Well, that on-duty initiated your 14-hr timer. You have 14 hrs to drive 11 hrs. Once the time is up, you can no longer drive. There are exceptions, but I won’t mention them to keep it simple.

All the limits in the Hours of Service are ONLY meant for driving (line-3). This includes: 8-hr, 11-hr, 14-hr, and 70-hr rules. On-duty (line-4) is not bound by these limits, only driving.