Managing your HOS to avoid 34 hour reset?

Running team, just think of running the 70 as quickly as possible, the truck at most will sit for 20 hours for restart of one of you. As long as the company keeps you busy, get there as quickly as possible.

 

As a felon myself let me say a couple of things about logging. Hours of Service rules are not about punishing a driver. They are about protecting a driver. These rules were put in place by the government by government workers who are both trying to keep drivers from being overworked as well as keep the wages up. It was good intentions that have screwed this all up.

In the private sector, 8 to 5 is common. That is 9 hours a day with a hour off for lunch. We get a half hour break so they figure 8.5 hours a day is the right amount of work for drivers. 8.5 X 8 = 68 Hours plus 8 x .25 for pretrips = 70. That is where the 70 hours in 8 day rule comes from.

Now if you work more some days then others, you have to balance that out. You can drive up to 13.5 hours in a 24 hour day legally. If you then turn around and have a couple of 4 hour runs over the next two days it all balances out. But if you end up driving a lot in a short time frame, you deserve 34 hours off and they want you to have it. Take advantage of the time. Get out of your truck and live a life.

There are companies that want to run you to death out there who want you to fudge the rules. If you are trying to get around the Hours of Service rules you are only hurting yourself.

A company that pays 28 cpm to their folks can undercut companies that pay 45 cpm. That is because their labor cost are less. If the 28 cpm company could run that driver more hours then they have an even greater advantage and the price of labor (your wages) go down. We need to keep them up. Follow the HOS rules and use them to your advantage.

Lets say you work for an evil company. Lets call them K&C. From a mythical town, oh, I don't know, lets call it East Sioux City, Nebraska. You are asleep in the sleeper and they call and wake you up 7 hours and 58 minutes into your break and tell you to get moving. Do you do it? Legally no. Legally you are not on a split sleeper break with only 2 hours in. You can't use it as an 8 because they disturbed you. Forget about 10.

Now should you everytime do that. Maybe not. But it is your right and it is the only thing that will stop bad behavior.

 

You are obviously new to trucking. Lol

 

You also don't get paid to sit on your butt for hours every single day because you want to only work 8.5 hours a day so you don't have to take a 34 hour reset.

You only get 70 hours. If you can use that in 6 days, reset the 7th, you can get moving again. Or you can use that 70 hours over 8 days and never reset. You do the math. You asked the question, if you don't want the correct answer, why do you ask?

 

At 10 cpm even if the truck runs 6k miles a week that's only $600 for you. I am sure you make more than that working those crazy hours and you're close to home and family. Even if you make it a year at Carolina Cargo what makes you think a better paying company will hire you with the felony?

 

After he does the year at CC, would that give him enough experience to get hired at a smaller company?

A smaller company might overlook the felony, but couldn't hire him right now because he has no experience. After he gets a year of experience, would that open the door to some of those smaller companies?

I'm not arguing with your point--Just wondering if this might be justification for eating #### at CC for a year.

 

I can tell you I've made more money by utilizing 34 so many times that even if I took my shoes off I couldn't keep count