How much down time do truckers have?

At this very moment I'm sitting in an El Pollo Loco in Compton, CA eating a very good burrito. Gonna go shopping at the grocery in a minute then bobtail back to the tank wash.

 

You Wait lots and lots and lots. You drive here, and there. Do more waiting lots and lots. You nap here and there. And you can do all those errands and other stuff if and when you find the time. Those of us who master it are called super, and those who don't are tired and frustrated. Step up ya game kids.

 

For one you couldn't drive you max for 7 days and fuel and do pre trips, plus you're a rookie so you'll be logging on duty at the shippers and receivers because they told you too so you will be out of hours long before that 7th day, lol. Besides runs don't work out that way. You drive the max one day and you get to your destination city and hole up till morning, deliver and then get another load. So right there is a busy yet short mileage day. Other times you get to your destination a day or so early, this usually happens on the weekends and holidays.

We don't all have T.Vs and books and Internet access for nothing you know.

 

If your sitting and waiting, your paperwork, clean truck, ect... If I have the hours and I can be earning, I'm working. I Sleep between six and eight hours a night and am able to work my 14 without a problem.

 

When I am OTR I manage my time and hours so I dont burn up my 70 and need a reset.... I work off the hours I get back... with that, I have enough time to eat, shower and rest... of course, there will be times when I need to do laundry, go to walmart and restock food and stuff.. and that is when I may take a 34 hour reset... however sometimes, if I know I am gonna be delayed at a shippers or recievers. . I request personal drivetime and go to Walmart or wherever. .

It took me a good year or two to really get efficient and so in my early days I wasted more time than I realized.. for example.. when I first started, I would get to a truck stop, park and then get my stuff ready to go shower... now, I have a shower bag ready to go.. just need to grab it.. it is actually amazing how much time that saves me in a week...
Same with my laundry.. I have a good organized system.. when I first started, I had a big duffle bag for all my laundry.. took time to separate it.. now I have several small laundry bags, I separate as I go and each bag is a load.. cut my laundry time..

For me, being super organized and having a system or routine for doing things is the to being efficient and having the time to do everything. .

 

As a truck driver I have too much down time,every once in a great while ,I get happy,but mostly just down.

 

Since the law requires a 10 hour break, and my body requires 6 hours sleep, I have 4 hours a day that I am FORCED to either sit, or do something else. Four hours a day is MORE than enough to get everything done I need to do.

 

"Hurry up to wait" is the motto of the industry. It doesn't matter if you're an OTR driver, a line haul driver, a regional driver, or even a city driver. Down time and layovers are part of the job. My employer has tried NUMEROUS times to eliminate downtime by overlapping runs, but they were unsuccessful. I still get quite a bit of down time. In fact, about 1/3rd of my 8 hour shift is spent glued to a dock waiting on mail, each and every day. That's why I have almost 200 posts here in under a month. There are times with this job when you'll be bored out of your mind.