No where to park

Oh, I forgot to mention that I map out all the rest areas on my routes, I much prefer to park/sleep in a rest area than a truck stop!

Oh, and after 18 years on paper logs, I welcome our digital overlords!

 

Edit - My reply was maybe a bit to political. I'll just say this, unreal how out of touch people like Scotty are.

 

I've worked 3rd shift IT support for the better part of the last 20 years and when I start driving I plan to keep a similar schedule. I've read a few threads like this one and I don't understand why more people don't follow this approach?

One thread I read someone said he started his day typically around midnight, he missed out on most of the heavy traffic and they could always find parking at 10 - 11 am b/c most truck stops were virtually empty. He called it the phenomenon of the "solar powered trucker".

Another thread I read one driver for Schneider did say his dispatcher called him the next day and said they prefer their drivers NOT run at night for safety reasons. Does anyone know of companies that have specific rules against running at night?

 

I have always been of the opinion, that a guy is suppose to sleep at night. lol
I like leaving early, 3 or 4 am best. I don't terribly mind running till midnight or a little later, but then I like to go to bed.
On the gig I do now, it is overnight freight, we are not suppose to stop and leave out between 6 and 9 pm, 12 hour drive at best.
This time of year it is not too bad, because it is daylight, but going to change pretty quick. I do not guarantee to not stop and sleep, but usually even if I stop and take a nap, I get there as fast as the other trucks, so it works out.

 

Plan out 4 pre route plans. That is the perfect answer for all the genius truckers. But if you try parking when everyone else does usually you will end up with the short end of the stick. 49 CFR 395.1(a) should be in your DOT hand book or are those not standard anymore I think they are being phazed out. You can also Google it. It says you can drive after your 14 hours to find nearest safe parking. Remember if nearest is no parking than go to next nearest it may take a while. There is no limit on miles or hours except what your company says.
I just call it outlaw mode. Because that's pretty much it. But I'm sure nobody uses this rule to pick up loads or deliver them.
But hey everything is for saftey right?

 

I much prefer that my day start around 6 am to 7 am. Winter time is often 24 hours a day work, and I jump on a truck for a night shift occasionally myself. That 2 am crap was okay when I was 18 to 30 years old, but not now. I earned the right to at least sleep at night.

 

If I leave here anytime in the mornings, it is a 12 hour ride, non stop, keep the door closed type of deal, that leaves me 3 hours I can come back 132 miles to a handy pullout. This is easy to do, if I leave by at least 9 am.
If I leave at 6 pm, which seems like what usually happens, I can do the 12, sometimes stopping for an hour nap, then either sleeping there, or just out of town.
If I leave at 9 pm, which happens some too, I will take a nap somewhere for sure, and it may be up to a 4 hour nap, so yea, I like leaving in the morning.
They called me once wanting me to convoy an oversize up with another one, so they could just use 2 pilot cars for both loads. They wanted me to guarantee that I would go all the way. I ask when and they said 1 pm, so I agreed, we got out of town at 9 pm, because that is when they finally gt the loads ready, the deal was off, but I didn't have to call it. Both pilot drivers had already been on a 24 hour run, we had bad weather and chained a lot, so didn't get to the half way point till like 4 am, and one pilot driver (company hand) said she was not going another foot. lol I was just fixing to tell her that we were don

 

Ummmmmm it's gotten to the point where we aren't important and are ignored. We live in a country of exploitation. Let's be for real. This industry is made up of how many drivers? 3 million or so? 3 million drivers are not about to put their livelihood and responsibilities on hold to protest changes in the industry. We are in too deep to make any changes. The wrong people have been put in power, and the masses are misguided. I mean, what would we really be protesting anyway? Higher wages? Sounds good, but too many palms gotta be greased. Paper logs? Its 2019. Everything is going paperless. Emissions trucks? It's the age of cleaner exhaust, eventually all old trucks will be off the road. Parking? A whole bunch of other regs? I cant even remember every single reg in this industry. Protesting worked back in the day when the people had the power. The people gave that up decades ago.

 

I totally buy into everything said here

 

Stop it with this exploitation BS already. In this country you are “exploited” as much as you’re willing to be “exploited”. If you don’t like your station in life then go do something else. No one is forcing you to drive trucks. No one is stopping you from learning a new trade that pays more with better conditions. No one is stopping you from starting your own business. If you can’t do something better with your life then that’s on you.