RECAP running - what happens to your 34 reset?

That was my first thought when I read that. Hopefully, he is smart enough to not mention that in a situation where it would tend to be inappropriate.

 

I pay people to do any maintenance on my truck while I am on a 34, yes. I do not carry the tools with me to do more than replace lights or jimmy-rig something to get me to where it can be fixed properly.

 

Well then your not truly taking the 34 hours of consecutive time off to reset. If you are doing any work, even just taking it to a service facility, then you should be logging it.
That is the rules according to DOT/FMCSA.

Do we do that..........................Yeah right.....

 

I drop the trailer at the shop. Park the bobtail, set up service, give them the spare keys then go off duty and log off the ELD.

Then I either switch between the shop's drivers lounge and the cab of the truck for 34+ hours, or I get a hotel room.

It's really not complicated to do it legally.

 

The goal is to run hard for 6 days, and then throw in a 34, to then start again on the same day you started the 6 days. That is an efficient week based on math. However, most OTR drivers won’t be able to run efficiently every week, so that’s when you go by the recap. Once you’re running recap, start planning the next 34. It’s hard to explain when exactly to take a 34 as many factors determine whether it’s a good move or not. Let an experienced dispatcher or DM help you out until you get the hang of it.

 

I run constantly on recaps. They are a blessing and a curse depending on you situation. The problems are the DM sees you have 8 hours remaining and a trip that is 480 miles. Seems plain mathematically possible, but they don’t understand that 15min for pre trip, arrival, scale, post trip, fuel and having enough time driving to a truck stop automatically rob you of at least 1.5 hours per day. So you can only realistically run 360-420 mile with a fleet truck in that 8 hours.

Recaps work great in an ideal world if you only drove exactly 9 hours and used exactly 1 hour for your on duty actions, but never works that way.

Blessing, you can truly say you don’t have enough hours till tomorrow.

Curse, you can’t run and get that bigger run cause you don’t have enough hours

I’m glad that I’m going back to regional. Can run my 11 out each day plus on duty and be home every weekend. Start off next week fully rested not being stuck in a truck waiting for more hours.

 

I don't know why these cats are saying that the 34 isn't mandatory. How goofy. Look folks: if you burn through 70 hours before the end of the 8th day, then you HAVE to take 34 off in order to restart your cycle. If that's not mandatory then I don't know what is. It's like this yall: recap hours are for the slackers who who only wanna run for about 8.5 hours a day..... OR for the cats who are doing short trips. I'm otr... my dispatch team considers me a friggin monster... my average runs are anywhere between 1200 and 2200 miles. And they calculate the drop schedule based on their knowledge that I can do 650 to 720 miles per day. I'm on eld in a 2019 Volvo with 300 gallon fuel capacity and I shut the engine off at night (unless I need the air conditioning), and I still have to fill up every other day. I'm averaging 3600 miles per week. There's no universe in existence that would provide the arithmetic for me to ever have recap hours. Periodically my dispatch will book a load that has a schedule that is just not doable and he will say: oh okay well just call safety and get them to help you with some recap hours. I just laugh and say okay dude thanks. One time the safety girls called me and said hey what are you trying to do? I says well I'm wondering if I can squeeze a few more hours outta my cycle before I run out of time. They boot up my logs and they all start laughing and I can hear them all going oh my God... and then the prevalent speaker says: no, you can't drive anymore, you need to restart your cycle. So don't let those goobers tell you that a 34 is optional. If you hit the 70 hour mark before midnight of the 8th day..... just hunker down for 34 and be proud that you knocked it out of the park for the company.

 

You’re not fully understanding what people mean when they say 34-hr restarts are not mandatory. Yes, in the scenario you described, the 34 will be mandatory. However, many OTR drivers are not placed on loads to be able to run very efficiently every week (that is, 11 hrs of driving for 6 days in a row). Because of this, many of them run on recap and won’t take weekly 34’s as they still have plenty of hours on their 70.

 

Recaps