Longest time on the road without sleep

Was just over 60 hrs and started seeing things in the road that were not there. Was scary.

 

Wow, my story pales in comparison to some, but...

Oh, I should mention, I'm not a trucker(yet), this is just my 4-wheeling story.

In January or '07 my uncle came from England for a visit to a bunch of his family. He was going to catch a train or something to O'hare but I offered to drive him there to spend some more time with him(He's a cool guy). Anyhow I live about 50 miles east of Fort Wayne, IN. Not too bad of a trip, right? Well, we left in the early morning and the snow was already piling up. About 15 miles out I hit a big drift and tear off my muffler. Crap. I drove about 20 miles to my mechanic, because I know they'd squeeze me in and pop a new one on, and not rip me off. So, that gets taken care of, and the trip to Chicago is mostly uneventful. While I'm there I meet up with a friend and have some Indian food. They didn't open until 5PM, and my friend was late, so I didn't leave the place until about 8pm. At this point it was snowing to beat the band. I got on I-94 and started heading out of the city. The radio said roads were starting to close due to the snow. Great. So by the time I got on I-90(the tolls are insane, but with gas prices its cheaper than taking 94 around) I wasn't even sure I could make it back.
The trip across Indiana on 80/90 wasn't too bad, but I had to go slow, never did top 40. I saw so many trucks and cars in ditches, and I got to laugh at about 5 people that thought they were ###### in their SUVs and thought they could do 70, but couldn't. So about 1AM I hit the In/Oh line. I get off at the first exit and from there to home I saw no other living soul. It also took me 4+ hours to get under 100 miles. Drifts in places were as high as my car. I had to be my own snowplow, too. I have to say that my car did an admirable job of busting thru some big banks, but about 10 miles from home I hit a ditch and lost it. After doing almost a full spin to the right and nearly ending in a ditch I got it under control just to hit another spot and spun to the left, almost going into the other ditch. Oh yeah, in Ohio they don't mess around when it comes to ditches. They're like 8 feet deep. So, anyhow, after nearly wetting myself, getting the car under control and getting the last 10 miles done it's like 5AM. I get to my driveway and to my chagrin, they have plowed me out, must have been 4 feet of snow infront of my drive. Lucky for me the DOT is right across the street, and since they plowed me in, I used their lot. So, nearly 24 hours on the road thru a blizzard. It was fun.

 

I drove my pickup from Cleveland, OH to Helena, MT in just under 30 hours. And I'm never doing anything like that again.

 

I think it is funny that the very same gonverment that comes up with these HOS and various rules on how long a company can make someone work. Does completely the opposite. I can not even begin to count the amount of times I worked in excess of 24 hours when I was in the Navy. Gotta love the "Do as I say, not as I do" attitude of the US Government

 

ahahahaha you are absolutely right

 

When I was in my late 20's, I drove straight through from Altus, OK to Dover, DE in a Triumph TR7. I had just finished flight engineer training at Altus AFB and I wanted to get home as fast as possible after being away for 2 months. Buy the time I hit the Bay Bridge over the Chesapeake, my brain was pretty fried and I had totally forgotten that it was Friday afternoon on Labor Day weekend and the beach traffic was crawling along Route 50 at glacial speed. It took me two hours to get from Annapolis to the 50/301 split on the Eastern Shore. That was my LAST marathon drive -- about 30 hours only stopping to eat and pee when I needed gas.

 

I think my longest trip non-stop was back when I transported new dump trucks for R/S Body here in KY. I had a delivery in Miami, FL and then a HOT pickup (Rush Order) in Orlando, FL. I left Prestonsburg, KY at 8:00 am and did not stop except for fuel until I hit Miami at 3:00 am. I got a room until 7 when the dealer opened. (enough time to get a shower and eat). I dropped the truck off and got a rental car to Orlando. By this time it was late afternoon around 3 or 4. I got to the other dealer and picked up the truck and headed for the Bluegrass in a hurry. I drove all night and arrived at the shop at something like 10:00 am or so.

Needless to say, I was ruined by this time. I went home and took a vacation day the next day to rest. NEVER DID IT AGAIN!!!!