Being told to violate my 70 to get the load there..

There's a lot of truth here. ^^^

If you run on paper logs, especially loose leaf, you can expect to be creative with your logs. However, you have to pay attention to hard and fast limitations, like your 70 hour clock. You can NOT go beyond your 70. If you buy fuel on a Comdata card that is time stamped.

You can run safely on paper logs, sometimes safer than e-logs. It's easier to stop and take a sleep break when you need it.

However, for any driver uncomfortable with the idea of running anything but 100% true to form, seek out a company that runs e-logs. When I ran with Swift on e-logs there was zero pressure to go beyond HOS. Planners and dispatch could see exactly what I had on my 8/11/14/70. Planners were pretty good about planning according to what I could run.

 

no one can push you. if you let it happen, then it falls on YOU and YOU alone. if it is your break time, take your break. dispatch figures the time and distance from point A to point B.

there can be lack of communication on your part, to keep them informed, or you are not operating at an efficient level. meaning you are taking the wrong (or longer routes), or you are wasting your time at the truck stops, etc,etc.

there is always 3 sides to every story..1) yours, 2) theirs, and 3) the truth.

 

But you have to have proof! Not he said she said. Texts and emails are great for this. "So if I take this load I'll be over my hours and don't feel safe to do that." From there if they call you know they're onto you because they don't want any record. So just keep texting "Just wanted to confirm what we talked about on the phone that you still want me to take this load even though I won't have the hours to do it." It's a tricky situation that can end badly but if you have proof to back up your side of thing it helps a lot. Also you have to give dispatch a long time to make changes. As soon as you think you won't have able to do the load in the time you have let them know. It can be difficult when you're first starting out. Some places are 15 minute drop and hooks while others (jewel DC in Chicago) that take 7 hours to unload you. So it can be difficult to know how long things will take you. Hell I've sat waiting to get fuel for 30 minutes to start fueling. If you're cutting it close that kind of stuff can really screw you up.

 

Bragger

 

you work for Watkins?