How all the concrete & asphalt drivers are coping with the hours.

Being the 'new guy' when I did it for a while for a large paving company, you just get sent to wherever they need you with no priority. Might be a 12 hour day in a town 1.5 hours away. Totals out to 15 hours when you include the drive out and the drive back since we used asphalt plants in other areas as needed. Add in an hour of commuting in your personal vehicle. Get home finally around 7pm and then the next day's dispatch would be available around that time and next thing you know, you have to be back at 3am, so up around 2am.

If you can rough it out, the high seniority drivers with their ESOP plans and lots of scale pay opportunities were making bank.

Without seniority, being the first cut on rain outs and being sent on random jobs to fill in meant bizarre hours and lucky to crack 40 hours @ 18/hr. Some weeks were 400 dollar checks

I'll drive the low boy and hold a shovel the other 10 hours a day on a somewhat fixed schedule before I have to guess if I'll be sleeping or making over 400 dollars again. At least pulling a reefer now, I know I won't be sleeping and make 500 a week

 

I was scheduled for 7 days, 12hrs each this week. Am I eligible for a big pay out? On the one hand 44 hrs of overtime is alright.

 

I drove cement for over 10 years, ran the hos just like everyone else, then lied to fit in the rest of the day.

 

You can get creative with a log book but you have to remember which one to show them when they ask.

 

Yes I forgot to add on my earlier post that we never ran log books. All of our work was within 100 miles of headquarters. I really like otr dedicated dry van , I can make up my own schedule / hours almost 100% of the time. The whole M-F 6 to 3 never worked for me , it seemed like such a job not a pursuit of happiness.

 

Running powder to Vegas and St George was all mileage piece work, as were the loads returning to Los Angeles. Now you could not run the way we used to, nor should you. I now run legal to the letter. I do believe in adding notes to the elog for clarity. as well as making the company responsible when they should be. Making them approve off duty status has worked to my advantage quite a few time in the last couple of years. Same as sleeping at shipper's and or receiver's when dropping or hooking trailers. Some will occasionally say no, but most will allow it if you park out of the way. I had Oregon Port in Klamath Falls question it, then reading back they noted I do this regularly and dropped it.

 

My 1st T/T job, the last thing we cared about was log books. We used to run around the clock, and 2 log books was the norm, 3 if you include the one slammed in the door. When I asked the boss how am I supposed to log all this, he said, "you can get it real close with a pencil",, Years ago, if asked, it was better to say you forgot your log book at the last stop, than hand them an incorrect one. To be honest, I don't ever recall being asked for a log book, but I was a local Joe.