How often does 'home time' coincide with 'reset time?'

Make your life simple and work for a trucking company in your home town. Then when the company gets THEIR truck back to the yard for maintenance, you can go home. The company doesn't have to schedule a separate maintenance down-time and a separate driver reset. You also don't spend half of your first day "off" driving to/from where the truck is allowed to park and where you live. Find a company near you or move to where you will work. Sometimes trucking companies may have a willing customer in your home town that will allow you to park a truck on their property. Other places to park a truck, if you can't park at home are self-storage yards or RV storage yards, tow truck impound yards, etc. Call each of them and get permission or pay them so you are legal to be there. DON'T JUST PARK WHERE YOU SEE OTHER TRUCKS PARKED. You will get a ticket when they get a ticket. All it takes is one grumpy person on the street to call and complain to the cops.

The only time I do a 34 reset away from home is when I get long round trips that I cannot complete in 70 hours. 90% of the time I get a reset at home.

 

Good questions.

First, regarding living far from a terminal, many companies have "hiring areas". If you live too far from a terminal they won't hire you. Their terminals are located near most of their customers, so getting you home would be difficult.

When I drove for Swift I asked for permission to bobtail home (about 70 miles from the terminal). Normally that isn't allowed, but I had secure parking, including a pitbull aptly named "Tank".

I recently switched companies. One of my top choices HAS a terminal within 50 miles from where I live in California, but they don't hire anyone west of the Rockies. That California terminal is only a drop yard and the vast majority of their freight is back east.

Regarding 34 hour resets. When I ran OTR I often ran weeks at a time without ever taking a 34. Some days you blow through 11 hours off your clock, some days only a few hours. As long as your average stays around 9 hours per day you never have to take a reset.

Obviously, when I took home time I got at least 34 hours reset. Sometimes I took a few days off to recharge. However, be aware that if you want to take 5-6 days off, companies like Swift may want you to clean out your truck and get reassigned another truck when you get back. That's an asset that needs to be earning money. Once you are well established with a good company, they will often work with you to get you time off and make sure it works well for you.

 

As an o/o i spend weekends home while doing my reset

 

The two don't really have much to do with each other.
''Hometime'' is for when you want to go home. You arrange it well in advance.
Resets are for when you run out of hours. Doesn't matter where you are. But if you are far from home
and running out of hours, you're obviously not going to be sent home for your reset.

Unless you know your schedule well in advance, like with a dedicated run that you do over and over,
you can't plan resets well in advance.
Nor are you likely to need to.
I only needed a 34 hr. reset once in 3 plus years of doing regular OTR.
You're not going to run out of hours doing the typical 2700 miles or less a week.

 

Work recaps. Don’t take no time off.

Seriously... I don’t take many 34’s. Usually recaps. Only if I get crunched do I get 34’s wherever.
Time off I don’t take often. But when I do. It’s a good week or more. Drive a new truck. Company has work done at dealership near me. Do have an LTL terminal one mile from my house. They’re great. Different division.

 

I've always driven for a company with a terminal with in at least an hour drive. got burned once parking in a shopping mall. had permission from owner,even had some big 6X6 timbers under the landing gear to prevent sinking into the asphalt,came back after 2 weeks out and got a ticket and a phone call to company. the mall had changed hands.

in 35 yrs have only done resets away from home when I drove cross country for 3 yrs. the rest I've been home on weekends, driving regional.

After you get a few yrs in you can pick and choose what companies to work for and get the perks you want.

 

Nearly 100% of the time.

 

my former job (before i retired back in March), i was home every weekend, making all weekends resets.

i had other jobs previous to that one, where i'd be home "most" weekends and had my reset.

in early years all before this 34 hour reset rule, i'd be doing my "weekends" on the road. and what you REALLY need to know, is that a "weekend" is ANY 2 consecutive days off........so not always a saturday/sunday.

could be thursday/friday, or wednesday/thursday.......get it..???