Arrested on a 34 hour reset, criminal mischeif.

If most drivers were to call and talk to their company about drinking on the road they would get the same reply you got. OP your not a bad driver, but you are a driver that made a fatal career mistake involving alcohol. I used to drink alcohol, mostly beer. I never drank while on the road though. I do hope you can get another job because I feel you have learned your lesson.

I still am seeing posts coming from other drivers that keep saying its OK to drink on the road. You young green drivers pay attention to my words. DO NOT make that mistake. I know a 34 hour reset is very tempting to go buy a beer or two. Like what has been said the chances of you getting into trouble are virtually nonexistent. However from my own experience let me tell you I have been called by my company more then once off of a 34 hour reset because of operational needs. Things like going back to the truck to do a repower etc. What do you do then? What if you hit another driver while backing during a repower or similar situation. There are many situations that can develop during a 34 hour reset or a truck breakdown time period. A guy from my company was loaded with such a hot load about 12 hours after he broke down the company sent him to go get into a Penski rental. You just never know what will happen and the last thing you want is to make contact with another driver from your company, a rental company or a police officer smelling of drink. Again a word to the wise. Go drinking after you get home and have been released from ALL of your responsibilities as a driver. Just be careful and don't drink and drive in your POV.

 

I do wish the op luck on getting this dropped or reduced.bet he never does that again while on the road.companies have policies and some are stricter then others with zero tolerance and this is one of them with all companies.if they bent the rules then a lot of drivers would be doing what the op did and some if not many would drive hung over.op may have have not been one of those that would not drive hung over but how does safety know that.if one values his or her job then play by the rules.

 

what the hell are you talking about? Its illegal for a company to tell you to do any kind of driving while you are on your 34. All a person with a brain has to do is not answer their calls while you are hammered. Then once they send you a message on the qualcom which they wont because its recorded, but if they do ask you to do illegal #### on the qualcom say "yeah sure thing, let me just ca the DOT to get permission to violate their laws and ill get back to you" theyll #### off real quick

 

I had a local job in a terminal near Dalton,Ga.
I cant count the number of times we got phone calls from the employees of the Pilot truckstop across the road informing a dispatcher that a OTR driver w the company I worked for just bought a 12pck of beer and walked out to his(company)truck..

 

By doing what you just stated, you broke your 34 hour reset and legally, you have to start the 34 all over again. Oh, you didn't log it, then you falsified your log. You can't even buy fuel on a 34 hr reset, if you do, you MUST log it, thus breaking the 34 hr reset.

 

Just want to add something and don't care what others think because it is a fact.

When you are off duty, and you possess the truck in any way shape or form (keys, sitting in the truck), you are considered responsible for that truck and it is considered you're being able to drive that truck, even if you have a hotel room or sleeping in the trailer.

See the reason for this is you haven't been relieved of the responsibility of being in charge of that truck by the company, even with a team member.

If you don't believe me, check with your legal advisor, they will tell you the same thing.

 

Just to be clear there is no legal requirement for a 34, if you have hours you can run. Your company can't make you run without hours but if you have only 30 minutes left they aren't breaking the law asking you to use it.

 

I don't see where he said he didn't log it, where he said that he wouldn't have to restart his 34. Where did this reply come from?

 

They are assuming facts not in evidence.

I have taken many resets when I had hours left on my 70 just because it was better for me. Likewise, I have started a reset and then left before it was finished due to changing circumstances.

 

Thank you. I have always run legal. There is one situation where this happened to me that I remember the facts. I was in the TA at Strafford Missouri. I had just finished a warehouse delivery and had about 5 hours left on my 70 hours. I asked my FM if I could 34 hour reset and he agreed. I went inside to eat and came back to my tractor and went to sleep. The next day my FM called me and said I needed to go get a hot load at General Mills in Joplin then bring it to our Elm Springs terminal. I had the time to do it and he said I had to go. There is no rule preventing your company from interrupting your 34 if you have a few hours left on the 70. And I know for a fact its happened to some of the drivers that visit TTR.