logbook question

Gotta have a minimum of 3 months experience plus school to drive for them, but he drives for Celadon.

 

That definitely does not sound right. He should be teaching you properly. That's beyond 'fudging' logs, that's the territory known as 'Comic Books'!

Do a search (the search option is at the top of the page) for Millis and specify 'Thread Titles' for the search. That will pull up the Millis threads, and see what's there to read. You wouldn't be able to post your trainer's full name anyway, as last names are not allowed!

 

I had a p.o.s. trainer with the company I work for he never did a pre-trip either and would want to drive on my book which I wouldn't let him, but anyhow I already had my cdl when I went out with him and I would do a pre-trip any ways. So many ppl put such an importance on getting their pre-trip down to pass the test and then never worry about it again but we should want to know how to do a pre-trip if there was never a test on it. That is our lives and the lives of others that we could put at risk by simply not checking our equipment everyday. Not to mention you could save yourself a lot of money by discovering something during pre-trip that could easily be fixed before it became a bigger problem.

 

Now this is a dilema............I have listened to drivers for years complain and gripe about the changes to the HOS.

I agree with both sides to a point.........Of course the people who made these law changes never spent any time in a truck. So of course you have outsiders making decissions with no experience, however the intent and purpose for the changes were drawn up based on numbers of accidents cause by trucks determined to be driver fault for those reasons.

Unfortunately, a company that gets contracted to haul a load on (for example) Mon. can not know that the driver that is closest for the p/up on wed. only has 4-5 operating hours for that day. The load has to go 1,100 in 48 hours from p/up. Now if the driver had been at shipper with fresh hours to start this would be no problem. Then we look at the real world.............

I train for a team company and I am not a proponent for teamng however, with these types of circumstances, teaming is the only true legal option. I train my students to keep the truck moving 22 hours a day legally. With a governed truck of 65mph 1,200 miles minimum per 24 hour period. I have managed as much as 1,389 miles per day under ideal conditions.

I speak on this due to when I don't have a student I run solo until I p/up the next. Their has been times I have had to do some creative logging to accomodate the load. My heart goes out to solo operators/drivers who have to make this situation work.

But let's look at the reasoning behind it............
Every person is truly different.........one person can drive 12-16 hours a day safely, however not all can......So this is why the standard.....where do you draw the line. 11 hours drive 10 hours down. What is the value of human life. this is the question that matters. You individually could do more, but what about the next person. The one that is driving on 16 hours who falls asleep and crashes into a family members yours car. Someone gets hurt or worse..........The first thing out of any reasonable experienced drivers mouth would be "was he driving legal". This unfortunate for us situation is for a much bigger and more important reason.

Looking to the future.........When DOT finishes looking at werner and the driving numbers in a couple of years, do not be surprised if it becomes mandatory for trucks to be electronic logs........Werner is the guinea pig right now.....all eyes on.

Some good advice though to cover yourself in the future, Always send a message on the Q/C letting dispatch know as soon as you are dispatched a load that your time will not allow you to legally get their on time. If you are doing all other things corretly they cannot justifiably cause any problem and would fear any suits.

You have to do what is safe for your personal health, career wise and financially. Always remember to CYA............

Good luck.............be careful out there and keep the rubber down

 

I hate to say this but I hope to see E-logs law everywhere it is the only way to get everyone to stop fudging and the only way we will ever see a rate increase. As long as a shipper can find a driver willing to run all night to get a load delivered yesterday why would he pay more for someone to get it there day after tomorrow? Not saying the H.O.S rules are good, I hate them, but ...

 

I had two mentors. Both wanted me to log illegal a couple times. The first one i had wanted me to log him driving to his house on my log book. I had already went inside, took my shower at the terminal, and had my PJs on. I was DEAD TIRED, and he knew it. I said 'nope...cant do it'. the 2nd mentor i had, we ended up logging illegal a couple of times, once because i overslept, and was "15 min, late to work". and the next time, I actually was 15 min. over my 11hrs driving, and we logged that on his book so i stayed 'legal'.

NOW. My last mentor was a Wal-Mart dedicated driver. he told me once we arrived at shipper, he gave them 15 minutes on line 4 for unload. then it went to line 1. regardless if it took 30 minutes to unload, or 1 hr 30 min. I tried to log legal my first week. I ended up having to shut down for 24 hours because i ran out of my 70. Didn't have any hours rolling off till midnight the next night. So i told my after hours DM that i was just going to take an additional 10 hours, and just get a fresh 70. After that, i started logging just 15 min. for the shipper, then i went to line 1 or 2.

call that 'illegal' i guess, but that is about as close to 'legal' as you can get.

 

I was close to legal while driving, verified by gate records, fuel receipts, toll tickets, bills of lading, etc. All of my activities could be stuffed into one log book except for loading. Beer haulers had to be in the trailer to supervise the load pattern and installation of dunnage, but we logged sleeper berth. My employer printed my schedule on Thursdays for the following week. I would calculate hypothetical logs for the following week to see if I could make the pickup appointments legally. If it was too tight, my employer would change the schedule by giving different loads to a common carrier. You cannot ask for more than that. Most of my fudging was the last hour or so of a trip where my log book was taking a break fifty miles from home.

 

Ok,On line number one,off duty,If your not under a load can you move a truck? Second part of this question,the day befor i had drove 11 hours.Can that truck move while your off duty,an not under a load?

 

This is exactly what regulators are counting on. If the large operators like Werner are going to pigeon hole themselves into it, it's only a matter of time before the rest of the industry is forced into it. As an operator your scenario is the only one that allows for all of us to have a fair chance, as crappy as that is.

 

"does anyone do their logs legal??....every single trucker i talked to cheats on them, even my trainer shows me how to cheat on them."



That is one of the great things about my job -

I have not had to do ANYTHING illegal since I hired on...

if I am out of hours - they get me a hotel room

if I am running late - they understand and tell me to not rush...

I go as far as I can (or to the destination) whichever comes first.

(and never harassed about it)