Dispatch tells you?

In this modern age dispatch should be able to see a drivers hours and set appointments accordingly.
In the end it is up to you the driver to tell them the earliest appointment to request. If they must have it faster, tell them someone else will have to run it or it will have to be repowered. If you try and be a hero by running over hours now it is easy for the dot man to catch you. And it will be your fault. Tell them what you can do and give them their options. From that point it is their issue.

 

With winter rolling in you should have your run planned out to where you are fueling, your stops for rest so you do not get slammed by one of these freak storms that are popping up. You are the driver and in charge of your own safety, if you see a problem with it bring it up with dispatch with plenty of time to fix the problem.

 

If you work for a company that gets you home every weekend it's not an issue. 34 hours at home usually beats any truckstop on the road.

 

Sometimes you may get delayed and get back so you can not fit a 34 in and they have loads to move.

 

You don't "take" a 34 anyway. After 34 hours off duty you reset. its automatic. Dispatch is going to keep you moving as long as you have the hours. This has been going on for decades, long before the 34 hour reset.

 

The truck is a tool to make money, sitting is burning a hole in the owners pocket.

 

Not only that, but I have heard a tractor has to make so much money a day just to break even. I have heard this amount was as low as around $30 to a high of around $90. Hard to tell. However a tractor sitting still is not earning money. That is a cold hard fact!

 

You should be running recaps 8 days anyway. That way YOU know for a fact what you have on the 9th day and the 10th day etc. Sometimes you are out of your 70 anyway and it's faster to take a 34 reset and get going than to sit two whole days.

The 34 is relatively new. We never had that or the 30 minute and split BS that everyone has now in our time.

You stand up to dispatch when you are out of hours, that's it. You stop and stay. Dispatch COULD have a driver or a team come fetch your load and go down the road. If you are a uber trip planner you know this load will be somewhere at a certain date and time legally. Always change your appt date and time to at least that or later.

Winter is coming. Trip plan against your progress several times a day so that a developing storm does not surprise you.

The days of showing dispatch being a hero or door mat are long over. Its YOU who will LOSE. BIG. Then you get fired when the DOT man finishes writing you up and possibly putting you OOS to boot.

You cannot be bullied into breaking your HOS. Document everything down to naming names, dates, times who said what to you. It's kind of a very big deal.

 

Dispatch tells me when and where to eat