14 hour

But it sure does go quick, eh? Stop, one hour to eat and shower, 8 hours sleep, alarm and only one hour to wake up, eat and get ready to do your pretrip.

So if you need 8 hours sleep, and you used your 14, then you have two hours, aside from sleeping, for relaxing...

Mikeeee

 

That's two hours after the alarm clock goes off to drink coffee and see what lies are posted on the trucking forums.

 

It takes me more than 1 hour to both eat and shower.
And I don't know about anyone else, but I can't then just hop in the bunk and be asleep in 2 minutes.
It also takes me more than 1 hour to wake up, get my coffee and do a pre-trip.

I need time to relax before sleep with a movie or some tv or a book.

This truck is my home, and my home times are simply short visits.
As such, I treat this 'lifestyle' as I would any other job.
When I get off work I take time to relax - not just force myself to sleep for the next shift. I would go stark raving mad if I held myself to strict 10 hour breaks.

I always try to plan my loads with at least 12 hour breaks between shifts.

 

There is no law to prevent you from doing that. The regs don't state a maximum of off duty time, only driving time.

 

I know, they only state a minimum time.

Still, many in both driver and company circles would consider it very lazy on my part.
It seems that most drivers strive to push themselves to the very limits of legality, and many companies try to do the same.

I just strive to remain safe within my own limitations, while still pleasing whom I work for.
(and at the same time, enjoy my own life while on the road)

 

I found out I CAN run ten off and ten on for a long time, but there's no way I want to. After four or five days my sleep started getting harder to come by. What gets me are these planners, safety departments, and dispatchers that think you should be doing it this way all the time. That's the reason it's hard to get by starting out. If you could just run 7 1/2 solid hours a day, you'd be getting more miles than most of these people that exhaust their self and then settle for taking 15-30 hour between pickups because they're exhausted from the logistics side not having their #### together!!

 

Hit the nail on the head. I would often take a 1 - 2 hr nap back then in the middle of the trip.

 

No, the government bowed to "safety organizations" who are well funded by the railroad lobby. It had nothing to do with safety and everything to do with politics as usual.

 

It is easy to blame everyone else, while not looking at our own records. There is plenty of blame, on all sides.

 

I know we arent blameless but the regs as they stand and the future changes show that the people that govern our industry have no real clue on how it operates. The people who didnt play by the rules under the old rules didnt suddenly become law abiding in 2003. If nothing else, like was said earlier, it made a bad issue worse. Now you have elog trucks blasting through construction zones and urban areas bumping their governor trying to beat the 14 hour clock.

Throw in the new regs and it only makes it worse.