Hours of service

And the 70 hour rule needs to be done away with if you are running all 48 states. Do the math. You can log legal and get required rest but still run out of your 70. Lets say you get 10 hours rest and it's 9am,you feel great and would be safe but you check your hours and you can work say 2.5 hours that day.That is not right and no one will address the issue of a driver driving cross country away from home wanting to work safely but work if he/she is going to be away from home. It's just dead time in a truckstop for no reason at all.

 

"It will work for some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but it will not work for all of the people all of the time."

I've read a fair amount about HOS. The more I read, the more convinced I'm becoming that HOS, in whatever from, is going to be a pain in my butt once I get out there. What to do, what to do?

Is there, or is it even within the realm of possibility that there is, a one-size-fits-all HOS format?

 

Specifically a Werner driver's hours.

UGH I just don't get it and my bf (who drive's for Werner) and explained it to me as much as he is able without flipping his lid and I still don't get it.

I get that you are 11 hours 'driving', 3 hours 'on duty but not moving' and 10 hours off duty. That ='s the 24 hours in a day. So I get that you're basically on duty 14 hours a day.

What I don't get is the '70 hour clock' and when it runs out and restarts.

I don't get how someone can 'lose hours'. For example. I was with my bf in the truck this Sunday. He had a late load saturday and we prob didn't stop and sleep till 2am. We wake up at 9am with a message from the qualcom that he has a loaded trailer to be picked up at 8pm. At 4pm we get a message that the 8pm load was cancled but the bf must be on standby. At 10:30pm he gets a msg that there is a load to be picked up asap. When he gets there the load has been taken by someone else (I guess someone forgot to mention it to the bf). I saw all this as mildly aggrivating but he has pissed because when we went at 10:30 to get the load (that was never there) he restarted his clock and 'lost his hours'.

I don't get it. I just don't get this hours thing and restarting and losing hours? What??

I WANT to understand because the bf usually calls to vent to me and I can make matters worse by not understanding him and he really doesn't have anyone else to vent to. I can't relate to why he's upset if I don't understand this Werner clock thing but he's not very patient and I can not ask him to explain it again or he;ll rip his hair out.

(Well maybe his eye brow hair, he shaves his head bald).

Can ANYONE help me - over even direct me to a thread or website that can explain this to me.

I know Werner with the electronic logs is in a category all it's own but if anyone can understand it, please help!

 

ok so off duty at 2am?

I am assuming he went back on duty at noon which is his 10 hours?
Did he waste his hours by going on duty before he had a load when he got the 4pm message? If this is the case at 1030 at night he would only have till 2 am for his 14 to run out if he started at noon.

So if he had started at noon he is griping about his own stupidity.

Sounds to me like he should have been off duty from 2 am till 4pm. At 4pm he was told to be on duty not driving. If he started his day at 4 pm he will be able to go off the clock at 6 am the next morning. Giving him plenty of time for more work.

The 10 hours is not a definate at the end of you must return to work. The 10 hours is however the minimum any driver can have off duty before returning to work. The only real wasted hours I see is the 4pm to 1030pm (6.5 hours on duty not driving). You left out where he parked at 2 am if he had moved to the 8pm pickup site.

Technically the company could have parked him at 2 am friday morning and told him to come on duty at 1230 afternoon on sunday giving him a 34 hour restart regardless of if he was at his 70 hour max. A company has no legal obligation to make you drive the full 70. They can work you for any amount of time, then park you any indefinite time beyond. However if this is the case you can put in to your DM for layover time.

hope this helps

 

Thanks for the responses.

Bear with me on another long email...

Sorry but I forget exactly when he was 'off duty'.

I think we parked at a truck stop for the night (15 mins away from the base where he receives and returns trailers) at 2am Saturday morning.

So I guess he would have been back on duty at 12/12:30pm Sunday but he got a msg via qualcom at 9am Sunday that a loaded trailer would be ready for him to pick up at 8pm.

Since I park my car at the rest stop we stop at, when we got word that he wouldn't have to move till around 8pm we went back to sleep for a lil, hopped in my car, went to lunch, caught a movie and came back at 4:30 where we saw he got a msg at 4pm saying his 8pm load was cancled but to be on standby.

He didn't put himself 'on duty' then.

We went back to sleep and he got a msg via qualcom at 10:30pm saying there was a load ready asap.

I hopped in my car and went home (cause I work Monday morn) and he must have put himself 'on duty' then and drove the 15 mins to the base to find out that someone else had taken the load (with permission) but no one had told my bf so he then turned back to the rest stop we were originally at but I guess what he was griping about is the fact that he put himself on duty at 10:30pm for a cancled load with no information about when he'd get work next.

In then end they called him at 3am Monday morn and gave him a load.

So I guess, in essence, he 'lost' the hours from 10:30 - 3am where he was 'on duty but not moving' for 4.5 hours of his 14.

IF I got this all right then I can understand why he was pissed. He could have been working those hours. He made no money those hours. And it wasn't his fault (or at least I don't think so).

Another confusing thing is the 70 hour clock.

I heard elsewhere that I think when he gets to 70 hours he has to sit for 32 or 34 hours?

I've never know him to sit for that long. If his 70 hours are = to 8 days then (since he started his clock at 10:30pm Sunday) his 70 hours would be up on this Monday coming up at 10:30pm?

Then he sits for 30+ hours until his 70 clock restarts?

Many weekends he does not work 14 hours at all.

This past week he had nothing to do from Friday 4pm to Sat 7pm (27 hours). Then he worked from 7pm Sat to 2am Sunday (7 hours). Then he had nothing sched'd until 8pm which was cancled, and then 10:30 which was also cancled. He didn't end up working till 3am Monday morning (25 hours from when he stopped Sunday).

Have I got the 70 hour rule wrong?

 

As long as he never goes beyond the 34 hours, he is still on that first 70 hours.

How ever. If he is at 30 hours downtime, I would suggest if they call him to work to delay it by 4 hours so he can get his full 70 again.

You must have a full 34 hours off duty to be able to get a full 70 hours available. Yet the 70 hours with some drivers is only optional to some degree. There is some fudging that can be done but is different per company.

The 70 hour rule is basically saying.... During the next 8 days you can work upto but not beyond 70 hours with out having 34 hours off BEFORE you can have another 70 hours in 8 days.

Yet you can have 34 off before you hit the 70 thus giving you a new 70 hour window.

IE he works 10 hours monday, 6 hours tuesday, 14 hours wednesday, 10 hours thursday, and then the company parks his rig from 4pm thursday to saturday 2 am. He just achieved a 34 and now has a full 70 hours available.

The fudged area says, if you work 9 hours 55 minutes per day, and you dont exceed that window of time. You (dont quote me on this as rules are constantly changing) could keep working 365 days a year with out using a 34 off. The reason is that you never fully hit 70 hours worked in the 8 day window.

 

You can work an average of 8 hrs 45 min per day indefinately as long as you keep track of the running 8 day total and don't exceed your 70hr clock.

 

Thanks lovesthedrive for explaining that so well.
I still find it very confusing but I understand it better thanks to you.

 

I had the same problem at first but when I went to school it became clear to me. By the time I was out of training I have to into a master mind of the "loose leaf" log book. Shhhh, don't tell anyone though.

If anything have your BF stop and pick you up a logbook at a truck stop for a couple bucks and play around with it. Run that log book at home or in the truck if you ride with him and mark it as he drive's it and it will help give a better understanding.