Trip planning

Sometimes you lose just as much time going for an alternate route.
The driver did exactly what he needed to do to make it work without the chance of getting in a bind, being as he has the eld to deal with. In other words, he held the steering wheel just right.

 

Super trucker, times change dude, I am 50 ish so not young, driver wants to shut down early makes sense to me.

 

Sounds to me like you did what I do, weighed the pros and cons of each option and did what made the most sense.

In a perfect world, I would prefer to drive as far as possible and use up my driving hours, but like you I also prefer to have a reasonable expectation that I’ll be able to find a place to park the truck before I run out of time. I’ve been lucky, have come close a few times (once I got parked with three minutes of driving time left!).

One advantage of getting close, though, is you won’t be burning up as many of your driving hours tomorrow, which will permit you to drive more miles and make more money then.

Whenever possible, I like to start early and end my day early enough to start early again the next day, but of course dispatch often has other plans.

 

I found his response surprising, considering that 29 of his 45 years of driving were under the 10/8 rules. Traffic is bad? Jump in the sleeper and wait it out. No harm no foul.

 

When it comes to HOS, there is only 1 "always"! That is; if you feel tired, you stop and rest. All other situations it is it depends on the circumstances.

 

You did the intelligent thing. A "steering wheel holder" would have done the opposite....stay in the rush hour herd, because he has drive hours left, so that means he has to keep driving, whether it makes sense or not.

 

I have a question...

If he were your driver, running your rig and your freight for your customer,...

...and he explained to you his plan of attack, would tell him to keep driving, or would you trust him to do the job that he said he could do?

BTW, no wrong answer, and I am not going to respond or retort. I’m just curious.

 

Sometimes shutting down with time on your clock will get you to your destination faster. Done it quite a few times before I got on my current account.

 

So Moto, after 4 pages of posts everyone missed the real problem but one made a correct suggestion regardless. You get the Troll of the day award! Congrats!