Eliminate Hours of Service

Let's say you wasted 2 hours on duty while loading/unloading.. Those 2 hours could've netted you 100-120 miles later on that week. Time you would have had on your 70. So you are leaving money on the table by burning that extra on duty time. You probably have to get more resets in than your co-workers, thus leaving you as less efficient compared to the other drivers in your company.

We all have our styles, if you're happy with yours and your company doesn't mind, more power to you. Safe travels.

 

Yea... about that.
I have little faith in most LEO's ability to interpret the regs properly based on personal experience. What it boils down to is that the FMCSA regs are not 100% clear to everyone on every nuance of trucking. Cops are not smarter than truckers just because they are cops and their ability to read and understand is not superior to that of a driver. They do however have authority on their side whether right or wrong.

 

Lol a PAM driver literally almost plowed into me during a turn today. Forgot he wasn’t in his Prius I guess and rode the center going the opposite direction into a pilot.

 

I’d quit without HOS rules. A regular job gets time and a half after 40 hours, two meal breaks in a long day, and refusal of service after 16 hours. If you net 75k on the road it only breaks down to $18/hr factoring in overtime. Or less if you worked out the full 70 every week. You’re approaching minimum wage here. Settling for less than $80k is a fiscally irresponsible move because you’ll make more as a welder.

 

I didn’t do the math again so I might be wrong BUT the lead mechanic at my old work took home $120k using time and a half on a $37 dollar base pay.

 

I only run when it makes sense money wise, otherwise I have work in the shop that pays, why move the truck and deal with hos if it makes me less. If hos weren't an issue, trucking would be more profitable for me and I would close the repair shop.

This only works if I could get two runs in per day, but currently one will burn about 8-9 hours. I have to work 130am to 8pm regardless so trucking would be my choice, rather than wrenching on rusty cars. Being able to do two runs brings me 1500+ extra per day over working in the shop. My shop runs 2pm-8pm m-sat. so I run in the mornings, if I could run that extra load, it would be amazing.

The only downside to being able to run the truck like that is when prices do eventually stabilize lower. I may work in the shop more and drive less anyway.

 

Amen to that! It's not just trucking companies, but society in general caters to and cottles the lazy and incompetent, all the while they have great expectations of those employees who are responsible and hard working. For some reason that I cannot fathom, the hardest working people are rewarded with harder work, typically for the same wage.

 

This is so true, I learned this years ago and figured if I'm going to work this hard for someone else, I might as well be the one earning at the top. When I was looking for a job about 6 years ago, I even applied to fast-food restaurants, but they thought $26 an hour was too high, I told them I would likely replace at least 4 people so it's a bargain, now I just actively manage and work for myself. 2 sole proprietorships and 2 LLCs so 4 businesses in total. Does anybody know how I can obtain a clone of myself? The hiring pool is pathetic, I'm offering one of the highest wages in the county just to hire a mechanic and I'm getting people that can't lift 15lbs, are unable to walk up steps, and with absolutely zero experience applying...What has the world come to?