Drive for 8, 9 or 10 hours?

It's finally nice to get home. I was thinking about this topic in regard to my first post and tried to remember how many times I was involved in service failures because of hitting my 70. As a driver I tried to make as much use of my on duty time as to avoid these situations. The last time it happened to me if I remember it right was hauling a truck load of bottled water to a warehouse in NJ just across the river from NYC. I got as far as the RI Conn line on I 95 and had no choice but pull off because my 70 was shot. Because of several Richard Cranium's (ask somebody if you don't get it) that would not listen to me we had a service failure. I know time off is important however I would have much rather have taken time off after that delivery at a place of my choosing better then that dang Truck Stop. I did not feel tired and only had to stop because of a dang rule. Just saying!

 

That may be a valid point if you are a local and home daily driver. Otherwise if you're out here on the road where do you want to spend the extra time every day? Truck stops? Heck with that. Run hard then take a full day off is how I do it. That way you have an option to actually go do something maybe.

 

9 weeks. From the time I left out to the time I came back off the road for home time.

 

My last 2 years driving my fleet manager would tell me generally what was on the load board. If it was going to be a busy week or one of those weeks where I might drive 6 hours then go shut down. These early shutdown days was when I got my resets and when it was time to be rear ends and elbows I was ready and ran my butt off. Sometimes you could slack off some and sometime you had to go.

 

Eventually the 70 is burnt.

A ultimate work around is going team. With a spouse is best.

Even then you still need to stop once a week.

If I choose how to spend my 70's its going to be on a 3000 mile haul due somewhere in 6 days.

The worst way to spend your 70 is to sit around all day loading and then running everynight to be somewhere 5 am to unload then rush to load somewhere all day.

 

Reset?

You mean a 34?

So you want to run off your recap?

 

Run that 70 out Asap. Take a day off, enjoy the scenery, and get back to work.

You're in the truck to make money, away from home and family if you have any. Might as well maximize your earnings.

That being said, there's a time for slacking off as well. Anytime you have a delivery that has too much time on it, and you know unloading early isn't an option, why kill yourself? That's when you stop and have a nice dinner, and enjoy the unexpected downtime.

Whatever you decide, remember to finish your day with an ice cream. It makes you realize that there's bigger things in life than the load of garbage bags you're hauling.

 

Not that easy. It help to guess what you be doing three days from now. Where are you going, and where will you be going next, and when will you get there. Where will you be on the next weekend and what can you do then? Will they let you deliver of do you need to sit untill Monday.

"Saving your 70" can allow you to miss another load or it can let you get a longer load. It's a double edge sword and it needs to change depending on where you are, or will be going. It takes a balance of both ideas.