New rules coming regarding HOURS?

I completely believe that the 70 hour rule affects our income. Perfect example is this weekend for me. I’m heading from Pennsylvania to California but I will run out of hours a few hundred miles from my delivery point. Because of the timing, and because of how our loads are run, the net effect will be that instead of running a load next weekend, I will end up sitting. Because I will not have time to get back to my loading point in Texas for a weekend load. We live load our loads. Everyone’s situation is different. But it definitely frequently cost me nice load.

 

Any compensated work has to be logged as on duty time, regardless of what you are doing or who you are doing it for.

On-Duty Time §395.2
On-duty time means all time from the time a driver begins to work or is required to be in readiness to work until the time the driver is relieved from work and all responsibility for performing work. On-duty time shall include:

(1) All time at a plant, terminal, facility, or other property of a motor carrier or shipper, or on any public property, waiting to be dispatched, unless the driver has been relieved from duty by the motor carrier;

(2) All time inspecting, servicing, or conditioning any commercial motor vehicle at any time;

(3) All driving time as defined in the term driving time;

(4) All time in or on a commercial motor vehicle, other than:

(i) Time spent resting in or on a parked vehicle, except as otherwise provided in § 397.5 of this subchapter;

(ii) Time spent resting in a sleeper berth; or

(iii) Up to 2 hours riding in the passenger seat of a property-carrying vehicle moving on the highway immediately before or after a period of at least 8 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth;

(5) All time loading or unloading a commercial motor vehicle, supervising, or assisting in the loading or unloading, attending a commercial motor vehicle being loaded or unloaded, remaining in readiness to operate the commercial motor vehicle, or in giving or receiving receipts for shipments loaded or unloaded;

(6) All time repairing, obtaining assistance, or remaining in attendance upon a disabled commercial motor vehicle;

(7) All time spent providing a breath sample or urine specimen, including travel time to and from the collection site, to comply with the random, reasonable suspicion, post-crash, or follow-up testing required by part 382 of this subchapter when directed by a motor carrier;

(8) Performing any other work in the capacity, employ, or service of, a motor carrier; and
(9) Performing any compensated work for a person who is not a motor carrier.

It limits how much money we can make by driving, which is the kind of work we do.

 

Keep in mind Gentlemen that the 70 hour rule has been in place since the 1938 ruling into Law that the Trucking Industry shall have almost twice the usual working hour week (About 40 at that time period which was a new change to improve conditions and prevent workers from working excessive hours)

If you cannot do anything with 70 hours, for example wife and I teamed from LA to Avenel NJ and back twice a week for two months. Each round trip used about 65 and 66 hours weekly for the both of us on a income that was essentially fabulous in the thousands of dollars a month. Then I don't know what you are trying to do.

I sometimes get really green with envy when some one can pull a 4 day work week just under 40 hours and go home on a salary three times what I gross a year in trucking working twice that or more each week. (Or more part is non logged time thinking about, making ready or otherwise indirectly involved in say laundry to make sure the truck and people are ready to go for the next load.)

I would love to be the one with a 4 day work week and a simple 110,000 dollar salary. And you wonder why I was so stupid as to pick trucking.

Trucking has always been feast or famine each week. When you have a feast week, you ALWAYS without fail put some aside against a bad week coming.

 

But you can log line 4 after your 70 is up, you just can’t drive until you take a 10 or 34 hour break.

 

Now is the perfect time for a strike. Everyone is flush with cash. What better time? When rates are in the toilet?

If any of those OOIDA dudes were worth a cup of coffee or any leaders in the trucking community / world, there would be a strike.

 

See for me, I don't always think it's the 70 hr rule that can cost me money. It's the loads that are planned kind of weird, like if you get a load Monday morning but delivers Tuesday afternoon or evening. Then you can't reload til Thursday, when its better to off load Tuesday morning, and get a reload at the very latest that afternoon. Oddly planned loads have seem to have cost me more money.

 

Only day cabs are going to be required to drive day and night under the new ruling.

 

It looked to me like you were saying to work in a warehouse in order to get a 34 hour reset. That wouldn't work.

 

Load planning includes many variables that are often not in the control of those who dispatch, etc. I understand what you’re saying, but often times the timing causes things to fall a certain way. Again, everyone has a different situation. Not all types of freight logistically work the same way. I agree with the point that was made earlier in the thread, which is that taking a 34 hour break does not necessarily make me a safer driver. I disagree with the concept of collective fatigue or whatever it was called. What happened eight days ago or seven days ago has nothing to do with my ability to drive safely today.

Presumably, Canadian drivers are safe. They have much more liberal rules than we do as I see it. When I cross the border and am able to forgoe my 30 minute break and drive an additional two hours it’s not because I am magically a safer driver now.

 

I think it's hilarious people that argue for more hours.

" I run 4000 miles a week."

Ummm, yea, ok. You go boy.

Were you tired at all after those 4,000? Ready to just keep going, or would you like a day off?

There's 0 reason for companies drivers not be paid hourly. With all the GPS / tracking software, the company knows where you are, when you are, they can see an electronic bread crumb trail of the route you've taken. They can even see what direction your truck is pointing in the space your in at the truck stop.

The revisions are about bazillionaire shippers, receivers, and companies getting pinched for a few dollars that are going to the drivers.

There's an article everyday on some money mag site about how the drivers are squeezing the economy making record amounts lmfao.