Being "on call"

Sorry it was just a quick glance I did and then noticed it was a research by a colleagu student. Sorry

 

As a tow truck driver for 30 years now, I am on call 24/7 and I want to provide a few answers here.

Generally, ON CALL is where you are subject to dispatch like you are when you are waiting for a load. If you are waiting for a load as a trucker are you on duty not driving, or off duty???

I have my tow truck here at the house, and yes its a heavy duty unit. When i am home I am able to do anything that I want (within reason). I go shopping, go out to eat and such. Drinking, well that is not a good idea as you do have a CDL in most cases. Most of us can relate to that part..

Is the job a good job, well its an exciting job. Each day is different from the last one and each call is different.

You can be a "knight in shining armour" to someone stranded on the road, you can at times be a rescuer as we at times help fire departments rescue people at accidents, and you do pick up wrecks along with illegally parked vehicles.

Is the pay good, well depends on where you are at. We for the most part are on commission pay, and that can vary with the ammount of calls you run. The hours are long at times, the weather we have to work in is bad at times, and the customers, well let me leave that comment alone.

Now as to log books, yes I keep a log book as I drive a heavy duty tow truck, and at times I may only do 20 miles in a day, other times it will be 400+ miles in the truck a day, always different. I get to spend about 3 nights a week in my sleeper on calls, and yes I do travel over most of the southeast United States (I am located in Lower Alabama)

If you want to know more about towing, just ask me and I can point you in a few directions to online forums like this one which deal with towing.

 

The way I see it driving a tow truck home is no different than an OTR driver bringing the rig home . The OTR driver is off duty before he even gets home . My only question about tow truck drivers is the 14 hour clock .
What if you work a 10 hour day then come home don't you need 10 hours off duty ?

 

Yes we have that issue, but we also enjoy a bit of lattitude in the HOS... There used to be an "emergency exemption" for tow truck type problems, and if I am correct it was taken out.

But since we would be out on a wreck most of the time when we are called in after hours that we would do the job and get back to the office and then take the time off...

The 14 hour rule would create problems with some wrecks. Where I am, it's not unreasonable to drive an hour or more to get to a wreck. Now lets make it one where we have to either wait for investigations, or vehicle to offload into, we are burning clock time. We get done after 10 hours of waiting and working, than we have to bring it back, and it generally is slower in tow.

We can be at 14 hours very easy on some major truck wrecks, and do you think that we could or would be allowed to "log off" and take our break with trucks and stuff still blocking the roadways ???

Its a catch 22 deal, and most of the time we get some leaway. After all they have to work with us and we have to work with them. It goes both ways.

 

You need to clarify where your talking about automotive or Heavy Duty. You probably wont find a auto-wrecker driver (AAA) that even know what a log book is being localized to a city or 2. If your talking about Heavy Duty they are under the HOS regulations as any other Commerical Driver.

The phrase "being on call", I have been a driver for long time, and pretty much most Comercial driver are on call.

 

I think your just like the rest of us, get the job done and log it however you need to keep the paperwork flowing.

 

Technically, you're supposed to be on duty.

 

You can be off duty while waiting for a load or a dispatch. Even waiting for a call back from dispatch your are or can be off duty. If you read the reguations out of the big book which also gives you the explainations, it gives you the ruling on this, which is off duty depending on what other activities the driver maybe envolved in.

 

Just going by the black and white in the book...