So, Just how tired are you ?

The 14 hour rule messes up my sleep and productivity. It doesn't allow time for cat naps, which refresh me immensely. I'm fine with the 11 hrs. per 24 hrs. rule (although it should be 12), but let ME decide how I want to schedule it. After all, it's MY body, not somebody else's. Plus I'm an adult; it rubs me the wrong way when someone tells me when to go to bed and when to wake up. I know some companies would try to take advantage of the rule change to pile on more work (or have you wait longer at shippers/receivers), but if you don't work for a company, so what? The answer to this problem? I fudge my comic book. It's safer than driving tired.

 

10 hours of rest isn't enough for you?

You have one year of driving and you're saying dumb stuff like this already? It won't be long before you lose your driving privileges. Find yourself another job if you don't want to play by the rules. Drivers like you are giving the rest of us a bad reputation.

 

I don't think it's fair to criticize someone based on how their body reacts to work and sleep.

I knew a guy who would routinely drive 3,500-4,000 miles a week, while never driving more than 5-6 hours at a time before taking a 3-4 hour nap. Of course he wouldn't log it that way, but he was pretty much splitting his sleeper. He said he can't really sleep more than 5 hours at a time, and he can't really drive more than 5-6 hours before his body says time to nap.

Me, I can do 16-17 hour days, and drive 14 hours if I had wanted to (not saying I do, I don't want to feel the wrath of the logbook nazis)- but I need a little more than 10 hours break sometimes. I need 2-3 of hours of unwinding time after my shift, and then I could sleep 8-9 hours. I don't let this affect my pick-up times, I'm never late unless it's out of my control, but I guess I'm a work hard, sleep hard type of person.

 

I'm not criticizing someone based on how their body reacts to work and sleep. I'm criticizing them because of their willingness to violate HOS regulations because they feel it doesn't apply to them.

Don't like the laws and regulations? Then quit. You're making the rest of us who actually give a crap look bad.

 

Ghost ryder. Maybe you didn't read my post. I said it's MY BODY, not somebody else's, especially yours. Are you some kind of control freak? Are you going to tell me when and what to eat too? And I don't like every law and reg. Nobody does. Furthermore, I don't care how I make you look. Nor do you speak for ALL truckers. And it's quite sanctimonious of you to put yourself in the category of someone who cares while labeling someone who has a different opinion than yours as someone who does not. And if you care to re-read my post you will notice that I state the reason I do things my way is because I believe it's SAFER than driving while fatigued. And that's the bottom line, SAFETY! Go flame someone else with your self-righteous attitude.

 

Right. So I should just be all open arms over someone who admitted to fudging logs. Fat chance. And you should care. Drivers like you are the reason why these HOS regulations exist in the first place. You just keep giving the feds reasons to tighten the belt.

You know nothing about safety if you fudge your logs. You're just an accident waiting for a place to happen.

Self-righteous attitude? This isn't Smokey and the Bandit. Either follow the dang rules or practice saying: "Would you like fries with that?"

 

ghost ryder. This thread is about how truckers deal with fatigue in the REAL WORLD, not about what a perfect person you imagine yourself to be.

 

And in your 'real world', fudging your logs is perfectly acceptable? You have no idea what real trucking is all about when you've only been driving for a year. Another rookie that thinks they know everything.

Case in point:

These HOS regulations are a godsent when compared to how the industry was when I started out. How are you fatigued after 10 hours of rest? I don't get it.

Perfect person? In 17 years of driving trucks, I never had an accident, ticket of any kind, or log violation. It's called taking your job seriously. If you want to be considered a 'professional', you should take your job seriously.

 

Log books don't cause crashes, fatigued driving does. BTW, over the past 40 years I've driven every type of vehicle on every continent except Antarctica. I hold valid driver's licenses in 3 different countries. And I've never had an accident because I'm careful and, yes, fortunate too. I don't want to hear your 'rookie' nonsense. Again, the thread is about how truckers deal with fatigue. I posted how I deal with the problem. Evidently, if we are to believe you, you deal with the problem by slavishly following the rules to a T. How boring can you be? I think I'll take a nap now.